Hello, this is going to be what I, Alexander Hawkins, perceive to be the account of my last two weeks in Atlanta. From the dates July 19th to August 2nd. This is a living document, meaning, If I mess up on dates, times, events I will be going back to add things in so I can paint the fullest picture possible and correct any mistakes. Some names will be redacted, some names will not be redacted. I'm going to do my best to just give the best timeline and account of events. I will be weighing in with my own personal opinions and feelings in red font.
7:00 PM, Sunday, July 19th, 2026
After a 4 hour interrogation with Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) at the US / Canada land border crossing between Detroit and Windsor I am informed by CBP that they would like me to be back in Canada by August 2nd with all of my belongings or I will face some kind of 1-10 year ban from entering the United States. I owe a debt of gratitude and unwavering love and sorrow for having put my friend through this process and wish he had never been put in that position.
From there Myself and my best friend drive directly from Detroit to Atlanta in which during that time I begin the process of telling people the situation via text, phone and email. We arrive in Atlanta at roughly 6am July 20th.
11:55 AM, Monday, July 20th, 2026
We wake up and I begin calling people letting them know I’ll be leaving Atlanta, some people I call and tell them we need to meet and talk in person as soon as possible. On July 20th I do my best to have conversations with as many of my closest friends as fast as possible because I know by Wednesday I’ll need to go public about all of this on social media. I spend time with some of my closest friends I’ve made in my nine years living in the United States. I message old friends who I haven't talked to in years. My nightmare is that people will find out on social media before I have the chance to tell them myself. I spent the entire day doing this and also talking to lawyers. I text Harrison Wayne at 5:14 PM asking if he can jump on a phone call Tuesday, July 21st, 2026.
Tuesday, July 21st, 2026
My day looks very similar to the last, I spend it contacting as many people as I can, I spend a lot of time on the phone with lawyers trying to figure out what's happening. A lot is happening and I’m just trying to figure things out. Im being asked a lot of questions I don't have answers to, its emotionally exhausting but around 7:15 PM on Tuesday I call Harrison Wayne to tell him that I only have till August 2nd in the United States, Harrison, has a show that is supposed to open August 8th. I call to tell him the bad news but I also call to ask him if he still wants to do his solo exhibition at Hawkins Headquarters. He says he needs to figure out if he has the time to do it on such short notice, I tell him I understand but I would need a response soon because time is of the essence and on top of doing the show I would still need to pack up my life, dissolve my business, spend times with loved ones, and get back to Canada. Harrison emails me at roughly 9:30 PM
Harrison asks for $400 to take the week off work on such short notice to spend Wednesday - Saturday at the gallery putting the show together and a list of what he will need to put together the exhibition.
I text Harrison at 11:22PM saying, I can come up with the money he asked for to take the time off work.
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2026
Harrison is up at Hambidge unloading a kiln of his ceramic work. It doesn't go well, its his first kiln failure and it's coming at a stressful time. Thankfully he still has 25 - 40 (estimate) works that are ready to be exhibited. I make a post on Instagram and send out an email letting people know this will be our last show and on my personal instagram I put out a series of more personal instagram stories letting people know about my situation. For the next 12 hours my phone rings every 10 minutes with people wanting to talk and know more. I do my best to field these phone calls during this period.
Later in the day Harrison shows up to Hawkins Headquarters with works from his studio and Hambidge. We start unloading work into the gallery. The gallery is a mess, I thought we had 3 full weeks before the show was going to open on August 8th. My personal belongings are scattered all over the place because before we left for Canada I couldn't find my passport so I moved everything into the gallery and pulled it all apart. We still have works in the gallery from our previous show. We had a lot to do.
When Harrison showed up to the gallery he wanted to talk to me more about the plans for the space after I left, I told him I didn't know exactly what was going to happen and I was trying to figure out everything. We talked about the runtime of the exhibition and I told him at the bare minimum the show would run from July 25th - July 31st and hopefully by time I left some kind of succession plan would be figured out. At this point Harrison began asking me about sales commissions at the gallery, Hawkins Headquarters has almost always taken a 50/50 commission like many other gallery models. Harrison proposes that when I leave town I can no longer physically take people to the gallery if we instead change to a 70/30 model where Harrison receives 70% of the commission. I say yes and ask if in exchange for the $400 I'm giving him to take off work if in return I could get one of his works, he says yes. I give him $100 cash (of the $400) because I just happen to have $100 in the office.
Myself, Harrison Wayne and Gabi (a friend of mine from college) begin working on the gallery and planning what needs to be done. We work from roughly 11 A M - 7 PM preparing the exhibition. At 2:15 PM I drop off all the sheet wood I have at Hawkins Headquarters to a colleague who has agreed to help us cut them into circles to place sculptures on. In hindsight this wasn't a great idea on my part, Harrison has told me in the past that he does not like working with this colleague and I make the mistake of asking for his help cutting the circles. (Not to foreshadow too much but the colleague I asked for help does not do a good job with the circles).
Myself and Harrison stop working on the exhibition at Hawkins Headquarters around 7PM, I’m physically and emotionally exhausted. I tell him that before he comes back in the morning I’ll have the gallery cleaned up as much as possible. I don't get nearly as much done as I wanted to when he leaves. I only work for about another hour before I go to the office and fall asleep till 9 PM. Its at that time I wake up to a call from one of my best friends and we decide to drive around the city and spend some time together before I leave. I haven't finished cleaning the gallery but I am forever thankful to have a night that I can spend with one of my best friends before I leave. I'm sorry for not sticking to my word about cleaning the gallery when I said I was going to.
Thursday, July 23rd, 2026
I wake up just before 10:00am, I text Harrison and let him know that I'm getting a Uhaul to move the desk from his studio in Decatur to Hawkins Headquarters. I get to his studio just before 11am. I tell Harrison I didn't get as much cleaning done Wednesday night as I had hoped and that I was going through a lot and instead took a nap and spent time with my best friend. I tell him I'm ready to kick things into hyper drive at the gallery and power through the next few days to get things ready. We begin loading the Uhaul with Harrison’s work bench and ceramic works and making our way to Hawkins Headquarters. We get a ton of work done on Thursday and we’re on pace for everything to open up on time 4:00 PM Saturday. I don't think Harrison feels the same way at this point but i’ve worked on nearly 30 exhibitions the past 3 years and know the timing very well and also know that a trove of people have offered to come help the next few days as we prepare. People come and help during the day Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
I’ve given Harrison a heads up prior that I have a hard out at 7:30 PM to go meet with a friend and his family. Thats a lie, I’m going to meet up with my ex-girlfriend, we broke up before I went to Canada, and I wanted a chance to smooth things over with her before I left. I didn’t feel the need to share with Harrison that this is what I was doing, I wanted some privacy and the time and ability to make things right with her.
As much as I typically don't like sharing a lot of personal information and information about my romantic life, I am so, so, so, thankful I had the opportunity to talk with Olivia and have the ability to leave Atlanta on a positive note with her. We sat in the park and talked all night, my phone died around 10:30 PM. Unrelated to everything and everyone going on so far, at 3am I have a situation where I am calling in a domestic violence case that involves someone I know. I am up into the wee hours of the morning sorting this out and as a result I do not sleep much. I was not able to charge my phone till 11am ish on Friday.
I receive this text and drop everything I'm doing and head to the gallery to get as much work done as possible.I’ve been giving Harrison as much time as I can given my circumstances. At this point I feel like I'm doing as much as I can with the hand that I've been dealt. I’m upset to receive a text that implies that I haven't been working as much as I could, I’ve given him at least 8 hours on Wednesday and Thursday and I plan on giving him another 8 hours today (Friday). It's kind of at this point that I think I realize Harrison doesn't really grasp what I'm going through emotionally but nonetheless I go to the bank and withdraw the remaining $300 I owe Harrison and I get to HQ and start working. We both work extremely hard from 11:30 ish - 7:30- ish. We document work, we continue staging the gallery and in the middle of the day we get the circle cut plinths back from the fabricator and they are not very well done. It's upsetting, I'm not happy, he's not happy and they need to get fixed ASAP.
Thankfully Harrison calls in a favor from a friend of his and they come to the gallery and are able to cut out all the circles and they look phenomenal. It’s about 4 - 5 PM and we’ve created a sanding, painting and drying line for a fresh coat of primer on the circle plinths before they get spray painted. Myself and Harrison both have a hard out at 7:30 and 8:00 to go see an exhibition at Johnson Lowe gallery. I tell him I’ll be going to the after party and will return to the gallery to work a little more when the after party is done. But before we leave, Harrison says he wants to have a conversation with me, it's the first time he’s really talked to me all day. He tells me that he's disappointed in me, he says I'm not working enough and that he no longer wants to give me artwork in exchange for the $400 I'm giving him like we agreed upon.
I'm shocked, I feel taken advantage of a little between giving him money and agreeing to give him a higher split on commission and also for all the time and effort I've put into this exhibition during a time where I have very little time to give. I laugh and say, ‘Okay Harrison’.
We leave and go to Johnson Lowe’s opening separately. I meet up with a bunch of friends and colleagues while I'm there. It’s a lot of people's first time seeing me since the news that I was leaving. It’s a good time but I’m feeling very frustrated with Harrison and his expectations of me in these times and him going back on our agreement for an artwork and the cold shoulder he's been giving me and the way that he's talking to me. Close friends and colleagues at Johnson Lowe ask me how the show preparations are going at HQ and I tell them… Harrison is stressing me out and he's acting like a Diva. I know those aren't exactly nice things to say about a person but I’m trying to get better about saying how I feel and that's how I feel.
I go to the after party and Harrison is texting me saying hes at the gallery and hitting a flow state and doesn't need me right now; texts below:
I show up to HQ just before midnight to start painting the circle plinths, prior to this, I had given my credit card to Harrison on Wednesday or Thursday to go to the Blick art store and get a bunch of cans of Montana Black Spray paint because he/we thought it would be the best way to paint these 10 + plinths before the opening. Unfortunately for us the Atlanta weather was rainy and humid so when I showed up to the gallery it was super hard to paint them because we were going to paint them outside and move them inside to dry and also, the spray paint was not going on as smooth as we hoped and we did not have enough spray paint to do all the circular plinths. I tell this to Harrison and tell him that in the morning we can get paint rollers and Behr paint from Home Depot and paint them with rollers. Having done this plenty of times before I know this should take about 60 to 90 minutes to paint and dry. We agreed on this plan and I headed home for the night.
​
At 1am I open instagram and i see that Harrison has made a post on his meme instagram account:
(For context, the circle on the left was done by my very good friend and colleague who I work with a ton and have a great relationship with, as mentioned before he did not do a good job cutting the circles. On the left is a circle done by Harrison’s friend. Its perfect, just what we needed, and thankfully at this point we have all the circles we need cut perfectly).
It’s late, about 2:39 am when I see this Instagram post and it feels super disrespectful to my friend who tried to help us and given all my other interactions with Harrison today I'm frankly furious and I let him know how I feel.
Look, I understand that this isn't exactly the best case for conflict management you’ve ever seen but none the less I was furious given all the added stress Harrison has caused me the past few days the last thing I want to do is have to go out of my way to make amends with a friend who tried to help cut some circles. This conversation pictured above end with Harrison at 2:52 am. At 4:57 am I receive a text while i'm sleeping from Harrison, here is what it says (copy and pasted from my phone):
“Matter of fact before I try and get some sleep in this gallery after a second night working here till 5 AM, I want you to show me some respect when you talk to me. If you want to tell me something I said hurt your feelings, say that like a grown man.
Don't text me at 3 AM talking about you can't be fucking serious when I'm alone in your gallery putting in work. You and I have a professional arrangement that I am busting my ass to fulfill. Nobody except my close friends who had to save my ass from Redacted drunk fuck up know that Redacted cut those first circles. It's a juvenile, anonymous joke on an Instagram account with barely 100 followers. A picture of two fucking circles with no context. If the joke hurt your feelings, bring those feelings to me with respect.
You and him both let me down tremendously with that obligation, something that you explicitly committed to being responsible for. And to no apology from either of you. Not a word from Redacted today. No apology from you for not delivering enough wood to supply the exhibition architecture you committed to taking responsibility for, or for choosing to change the person you committed to working with to be someone I told you explicitly during our very recent last professional project together that I do not want to work with again. Because he dropped the ball and lied instead of taking accountability. And then he mishandled the task at hand again. I had to call in personal favors and source more wood to get the job finished myself.
And you know what I did in response? I asked you if we could touch base in a direct and non-aggressive way to let you know how much your handling of this project has made me feel hurt. And in the same breath I told you I appreciate you and am grateful for the efforts you've made outside of that slipup. Because you and I are a team right now. And because I want you to know that even when we step on each other's toes, I am making a conscious effort to approach you with compassion and understanding.
Moments like this when I am receiving those disregulated texts while I'm knee deep working in your gallery have made the experience of working with you this week feel disrespectful and degrading. In a profound sense.
You have no idea how hurt I was this morning when you ghosted your obligations the night prior and lied to my face about it in the morning. Taking the time to go pickup the circles myself, arriving to pickup six completely unusable cuts, and then you never showing up at the gallery had me tearing up on the phone talking to a loved one talking about how alone I felt trying to pull this project together. And you know what I did? I stomached my anger and my hurt, and I forced myself to focus on the task at hand so I could take responsibility over regulating through my feelings. So that I could talk to you like an adult without lashing out. And when I felt like I had regulated myself, I brought those feelings to you calmly like a man because I know that at the end of the day, we are locked in together right now to pull off a project together to both of our benefit.
You have a problem with my conduct? Then let me know. But we don't have shit to talk about if you're going to approach me with this level of disrespect.
We have a fucking show to put on. That is my focus right now. And it should be yours too. This is a pivotal moment of my career. It baffles me that as the gallerist who is supposed to be supporting this presentation of my work, you would think it's copacetic to talk to me like that. Your anger and disregulated negativity have completely derailed the momentum I had gathered behind me tonight.
Tomorrow, I am going to exercise every muscle I have available towards a succesful presentation of my professional practice. After that goal has been accomplished, I would love to talk with you about these feelings if you have something you'd like to get off your chest.”
10:00 AM, Saturday, July 25th, 2026
I hear Harrison, I get that he's incredibly frustrated but at this point so am I. I’m doing my best but I have way too much going on and at this point I feel like maybe I should’ve just spent my last 2 weeks spending time with friends and loved ones.
Truth be told, I didn't see this long message right away the next morning. I simply got up and headed to the gallery and started working. It wasn't until around 11 am / noon that I saw it. I didn't read all of it, it was frustrating to receive another middle of the night message from Harrison at this point and it was the day of the exhibition and we needed to just focus on getting the show installed and gallery cleaned up.
I get to the gallery just before 10 am. Harrison has grabbed new Behr paint and rollers to paint the circles, I don't think it's enough paint so I go to Home Depot and grab larger cans of paint and then go back to the gallery and start painting the circles. The night before I had set up 2 rooms at Hawkins Headquarters with low humidity and the AC blaring to create an environment where the plinths could dry quickly.
Harrison gave me a heads up that he was going to be late coming in because he had a few wall works that needed to be mounted before he could come to the gallery. That's fine, we had an ample amount of friends and colleagues at the gallery to get the rest of the work done. By 2PM all the circular plinths were painted and in the gallery. We were just doing finishing touches on the space and getting ready for Harrison to arrive to make the final touches on the exhibition space. Harrison arrived just before 3 PM on Saturday to finish placing the artwork (The exhibition was open from 4:00 - 8:00 PM). This didn't stress me out. I’ve done this plenty of times before and knew we’d be ready by 4:00 PM and we were.
Plenty of people come and help us finalize the set up of the gallery. Thank you to everyone who came Saturday, with your help we were able to finish setting up right on time.
The Opening, 4:00 - 8:00 PM, Saturday, July 25th, 2026
The opening was lovely, it was great to spend time with everyone and say a lot of goodbyes to people at the same time. I’ve loved building and running Hawkins Headquarters over the years and it was such a beautiful thing to see the community out for our last show. Harrison avoided me most of the night, which is fine, I was able to close on a bunch of sales and had a bunch more in the pipeline. It was turning out to be a really successful night for Hawkins Headquarters and Harrison. I felt really proud of what we put together.
Alexander’s Going Away Party, 8:30 - Late, Saturday, July 25th, 2026
Some of my best friends offered to throw me a going away party at their home after the exhibition. I took them up on the offer because I love to party, and the best way for me to say my goodbyes is in a big group setting, i simply do not have enough time at this point to hang out with people individually and this was such a perfect way to see everyone. With that being said, around midnight I hear from two people that Harrison has left the party and on his way out he's said something along the lines of “I can't be here right now, I can't stand being happy for Hawkins”. That’s fine, just leave then. Don't create a stir to announce you’re leaving, no one would have noticed if you just got in your car and left. There's no need to bring other people into our drama.
Sunday, July 26th, 2026
The gallery is closed on Sundays. I spend the day packing and seeing friends before I leave. I clean the gallery of beer and spills from the opening reception the day prior and continue invoicing and following up with people.
At 11:00 PM I receive these texts from Harrison:
I think now is a fair time to remind people that Hawkins Headquarters is a business and people cant just come and go with the keys without my permission. But even more importantly, Harrison is not coming to photograph his work with a photographer. He’s trying to get access to the gallery without me there so he can remove all of his work without my permission.
Monday, July 27th, 2026
Fair warning, this is when things get bad.
I have limited time back in Atlanta, at this point I have 5.5 days before I need to hit the road. With what little time I have I still decided to run gallery hours. I post on the Hawkins Headquarters instagram story that we have hours between 12:00 - 5:30 PM on Monday. To clear things up a little, I owe Harrison $300 still, I gave him $100 and the other $300 is in the bottom drawer of the flat file. I thought I sent Harrison a text, or told him in person, or called him and told him the money was in the flat file. After looking through our texts I definitely did not text him but I feel like I told him it was in the flat file. He says I never told him. Its possible I never did, I'm sorry. I was not trying to withhold money that was a part of the terms of the exhibition.
Then I receive these texts from Harrison:
Again, I’d like to re-iterate, Hawkins Headquarters is a business. I need to run the business. Myself and Harrison had a deal to run the exhibition from the 25th - Aug 1st and when I left, then after that the commission structure would change.
I’m very interested in this part of the text: "I have the peers you are smearing my name to in our professional circles coming to me personally to share the sentiments with me and to let me know that they all know you're full of shit". In terms of smearing Harrison’s name over the past week I’ve called him Stressful and a Diva, to like 3 or 4 people. Mainly because that's how I feel like he's been acting.
​
Harrison arrives at Hawkins Headquarters at 7:11 PM with friend, artist and colleague, Isaac Mehki.
The audio from our meeting is here: 1:09:25
https://soundcloud.com/alexander-hawkins-14773688/harrison-wayne-isaac-hq
The generated transcript is here:
The Highlights are here:
17:15 - Harrison says Alexander is here illegally.
19:00 - Harrison says he's contacted collectors and told them to not go through with sales.
32:30 - Harrison threatens to call the cops.
38:00 - Harrison screaming and crying about payment.
38:50 - Harrison blackmails Alexander.
​​
The Summary of the transcript is here:
​
Colleagues, Kole Nichols and Dustin Emory arrive at Hawkins Headquarters around 9:10 PM on Harrisons behalf.
The audio from our meeting is here: 29:05
https://soundcloud.com/alexander-hawkins-14773688/harrison-isaac-kole-dustin
The generated transcript is here:
The Highlights are here:
Harrison continues to claim that no verbal contract existed.
We figure out a contract that for some reason allows the show to end immediately
No one says anything when Alexander mentions that Harrison called him an illegal and threatened to call the cops.
​​​