Rehearsal

All that's missing is the lights in the Blue Distance box. And the exhibit labels. And my new red "being part of the exhibition" shoes.

Oh those lights - having decided on the type of LED light, I spent hours making 4 little boxes to hold them (so many decisions about height, depth, materials). Then into town to the hardware store to get the other three lights, and rechargeable batteries - the cost approached £50, but never mind, some people have had greater expenses... On to the paper shop to get some glassine (45p a sheet) and there on the counter, business card boxes reduced from £1.20 to 50p - useful little boxes for holding things, so I bought four. And they happen to fit the LED lights perfectly, plus with the top coming off easily, the lights are easy to turn on and off. All that's needed is some tracing paper taped around the top, to diffuse the brightness of the light -

Unfortunately, the light with rechargeable batteries, left on all day while setting up the show, was quite dim by the end of the day. And though the lights have the convenience of a hanging hook and magnet on the back, they also three little screws to undo in order to get at the battery compartment.

Having the lights behind the blue books really does make a difference. That display still has a few kinks that need to be ironed out - with the lights behind, the space for spreading out the books is rather restricted - and though the names of the individual books, which are on their envelopes, are important (to me, perhaps only to me...) they are lost as there isn't space for the envelopes - and the label with the titles is likely to be on the other side of the display. (A uniform positioning of labels has yet to be decided.)

Some possibilities - dangling or lying about

 Another possibility is to discreetly tape the label onto the front of the book -

It will look different on the blue books, but the double thickness isn't appealing. This has to seep through the subconscious for a while...