Catriona Clark

Description of role and responsibilities in the Gallery

Clip Title	Description of role and responsibilities in the Gallery
Interviewee Name	Catriona Clark
Interviewee Role	Worked as Administrator from the mid-1970s to 1983, carrying out a wide range of tasks in the Gallery and supporting Director Calum MacKenzie.
Interviewer Name	Kerry Patterson
Interview Date	16 January 2013
Clip Length	3 minutes 3 seconds

Transcription

CC: Erm, basically it was, erm, based in the Gallery side of things. Um, I was looking after editioned prints and members work. We had stacks of plan chests, old wooden plan chests in the Gallery, and we had a small, small area of the Gallery that was sort-of to the one side, that was all - whatever exhibition in the Gallery was on in the main Gallery, there was a small space for members work, so there was a constant exhibition of members work. My main responsibility was really organising exhibitions and putting together all the required ingredients to make an exhibition work, from working on the catalogues, taking it to the printers, proof reading, depending on what ex- some exhibitions had catalogues, some didn’t, so [clears throat]. Excuse me. I was involved in the production of the catalogues, sometimes involved in the framing. You know, if it was an in-house exhibition like the Cartoonists [Scottish Cartoonists exhibition], erm, we did all the framing for that in the Gallery. Erm, so - and people buying prints, if they wanted them framed, in those days we used to buy John and Sally Taylor silver frames. Erm, that were kit frames, so everything got framed up in that. So, I would cut mounts and frame up prints and, just day to day running of the gallery…

KP: Quite varied

CC: …Sales, but mainly exhibition work and everything involved in putting together an exhibition. Posters, media coverage…. sponsorship if we could get it anywhere. Which we tried, quite a lot in the early days to get sponsorship from, I mean we did, we got - Pernod sponsored us for something. WHO Wills [cigarette brand] sponsored the Loveliest Night of the Year, there was various things that were covered with sponsorship at the time. It was a, it was quite a popular thing. You know, sponsorship of the arts was still quite young, um, so it was a good time to get money out of people

KP: Erm, Jimmy [Cosgrove] was saying, mentioning about working with Calum, you know, about how he had so many great ideas and was a really, you know, strong driving force for the Print Studio to, you know, do different events and that kind of thing. So, I’m sure it was interesting working with somebody like that who had plenty of ideas

CC: It was never dull, and Calum’s great philosophy was just give people fun. So serious exhibitions were sort of interspersed with - there were a lot of parties. Erm, most openings, private views, turned into some kind of party at the end of it. Erm, it was, it was a lot of fun, I used to really look forward to getting up and going to work every day and getting paid for it at the same time was a, was a bonus, really. It could have been something to do with the age I was and the experience I’d had prior to that, um, but it was never dull, it was never dull.