When the Glass Ceiling Tried to Shatter Me

I used to intern at a nonprofit art gallery, and one of my responsibilities was to sit at the front of the gallery to welcome visitors (and, of course, record their gender, race, and age on a clipboard for grant purposes.)

One exhibition we had was a collection of art made by all female artists. One of the pieces was a wall of large mason jars filled with different colored water to make a kind of stained glass window. The jars were bound together by wire and stacked up to the ceiling by the front window. Right next to the welcome desk. You can tell where this is going.

A week into the exhibition, I was sitting at the front desk with my headphones on, when suddenly I heard a loud CRACK and then a CRUNCH sound. I took out one earphone and looked around. The sounds grew louder until a jar fell from the top row of the art piece and exploded next to the desk! I turned just in time to see the entire wall cracking and swaying. In seconds, all of the jars were crashing onto the desk and floor around me. I quickly dove to the side of the desk as glass shattered everywhere.

It probably took only a few seconds for the piece to collapse, but it felt like minutes. The crash was so intense that neighbors living upstairs ran downstairs thinking it was an earthquake! I screamed at the top of my lungs but the sound of the jars was so loud that my boss said that they couldn’t hear me.

It took us two hours to clean up the glass on the floor and mop up the water that had flooded the basement. I had some minor cuts from the shards, but otherwise — I survived my first art attack!

- Casey

Virginia