I Heart Melancholy

My first day at the Joy in People exhibition was on the I Heart (or love) Melancholy section, it was the evening of the private view so my shift was slightly later than usual, I started at half past 4 and sat until 8.30. On the melancholy section we are sat on a black sofa against a matte black wall on the wall in gloss the slogan 'I heart Melancholy' is painted (heart is an actual heart symbol). Deller's idea was that the 'I heart' slogan, as in 'I heart New York', 'I heart snowboarding' or 'I heart raves', is not something that would usually be associated with the word 'melancholy'. They are at two different ends of the spectrum. Deller has one or two 'sitters' on the sofa at anytime, each of us reading a book and being 'melancholic'!
So I was on melancholy with a girl called Jess who is studying fine art as well but in London. As it was the private view it was really busy and I was quite aware of people looking and taking photos. Because of the private view we agreed with the ladies who were own Valerie's Snack Bar that we would have only one of us at a time on Melancholy and the other on Valerie's so we could see a bit more of what was going on (and someone hadn't turned up for the snack bar shift so it worked quite well). I did the first half on the snack bar and members of Jeremy's family (his mum, dad, sisters) came for a cuppa, his mum seemed very proud, she spoke to various people who came over to say hello . Jeremy's sister joked that his room was nothing like the instillation as it was far to tidy!! Another guy came and sat with them he had bought lots of things from the shop, a t-shirt with the 'my booze hell' slogan on it and various other things, he also came to chat to me when I was on melancholy (when watching the BBC culture show a few weeks later I realised that he was Ed Hall, the guy who makes the banners for Jeremy's work). Myself and Jess swapped and I was on Melancholy for the final 2 hours, I was reading the book about Grayson Perry, 'Story of the Artist as a Young Girl' which is really his memoirs as told to his friend Wendy, who is the author.a couple of people asked me what I was reading and told me that Grayson Perry was actually there. I didn't see him which I was a bit gutted about, some of the other volunteers saw him and spoke to him, I wanted to find him to get him to sign my book!! What a geek! After we had finished our shifts the gallery was closed and that's when myself, Jess, Amy and Dominic got asked to go to the boat party, which I wrote about before! All in all it was a really good first day, Jeremy was really nice as were all the staff and volunteers at the Hayward! Love it!