Prior to becoming 2nd year fellows of the Artists’ Archives initiative, our application of knowledge was largely general. We led workshop sessions for groups of artists and presented at library conferences, but rarely did we provide in depth, tailored consultations with individual artists who had particular needs. Starting this year, however, my class of fellows has filled that gap by digging into the second internship required by the initiative: consulting with a North Carolina artist to establish their studio archive.
Tailoring the artists’ archives knowledge to a specific artist’s needs has clarified my understanding of the power of organization on an artist’s practice. It has also brought to the fore what is required of an artist-archivist team before even touching the materials to start the archive. First, we have to get at the underlying psychology behind why and how someone naturally organizes. For my artist, Durham letterpress artist Brian Allen, this meant digging down to (1) how he prioritizes, categorizes and uses his materials currently, (2) how he intends to use them in the future and (3) how he naturally arranges this materials.
Establishing existing priorities, categories and uses for studio materials is an essential first step for two main reasons, one being the archival principal of ‘original order’ and the other the long term viability of maintaining the archive…
[For the remainder of the article, see the original blog post published on the Learning from Artists’ Archives initiative’s blog.]
N.B. Image taken from a cropped section of the Physical Storage handout created by Learning from Artists’ Archives fellow Kim Henze on Pictochart.