Image slideshow
On November 18th, The Thousands, an exhibition of some of the world’s best street art, will open in London for just 5 days at the Village Underground. The Thousands will feature original work by some of the top names in street art: Faile, Banksy, KAWS, Shepard Fairey, Swoon, Herakut, Barry McGee and many more. Most of the work will come from private collections, but there will be a few brand new pieces direct from the artists.
Well, I finished editing "The Thousands: Painting Outside, Breaking In" and sent it to the fine folks at Drago. Last Wednesday the 30th, I spoke with Nicola, Drago’s designer, and he said I should have my book to them by Friday, Monday at the latest. Possible, but not easy. For most of September, I’d been at an internship during the day and worked on The Thousands at night. Last week was my first week without a day job. I knew the book was due soon, but didn’t realize how soon! I mean, the deadline was less than a week away. That was soon!
What had I done for the book so far? Well I knew which artists would be included in the book. The cover was finished. I’d written about half of the artist bios I was responsible for and the other contributors (Elbowtoe, Elisa Carmichael, Panik ATG…) had sent in their pieces (for the most part). I had some pictures, and I’d started laying out a few pages. I think Armsrock’s was the only one you could say was 100% finished. I had a crapload of work ahead of me. Not only was I finding photos and writing the book, but I was also doing all the design work. So for 5 days I worked 12-hour to send Drago a completed book by deadline.
Normally I’m the type to respond to any email within 24 (or at worst 48) hours. I probably sent less than 10 non-book-related emails while I was working. I probably sent 20 emails every day bugging artists and photographers about sending in the promised high res images.
And then on Friday I realized something that was not good at all: I had extra pages. Three of them. Some artists had dropped out at the last minute and didn’t want to be involved with the book, and the forward that I thought would take up 2 pages only took up 1! After squeezing what were formally 2 pages into 1, I had 4 extra pages and room for 2 more artists. And only 3 days to find those artists, write their bios, get photos, and lay out those pages.
Luckily, there were plenty of artists I wanted to include in the book but didn’t have space for, so I sent out a few emails and made some phone calls. Two more artists were confirmed within 24 hours. Minor emergency averted.
So Sunday night comes around and guess what. I finished everything. A few edits on Monday and I FedEx’d all the files to Drago so that they can start on getting the book printed.
Oh the relief. Somehow, given in almost no time at all, I have completed a damn good book in time for its release in November.
THE THOUSANDS
Updates from RJ Rushmore
07 October, 2009