Archiving Your Art

Today, I finished organizing my artistic work from the past 12 years and it feels great!

Ever since I started on this path in 2005, I've been keeping notebooks of my progress but wondered, since I have no children, who would even care?  Would my art matter after I'm gone?  Would anyone know I even existed?  And then, I heard about Arthyve.

I attended their first meeting in August in Denver and heard that they were starting an organization to preserve living Colorado artists' work and of course, I signed up immediately.

Before I became a fiber artist, I worked in the school and library field so I knew how important preserving original, one-of-a-kind documents were to historians and researchers.  While most of these historical documents were hand-written, today they mostly reside on a personal computer and are not available in print or on the internet.  So I wrote a narrative "My Story" that will only be available in this archive.  I wrote original unpublished documents talking about my art.  Why I made it.  What it means to me.

And, I also spent a lot of time organizing my papers so someone knew what I did when.  I added some sketchbooks, copies of my books and exhibition catalogs, portfolios, videos, and actual artworks.

I included a notebook of my artist mentorship program and exhibits at the art gallery I owned for 4 years.

I wrote a paper on marketing (after all, that's my expertise) and included samples of everything I did to promote my art.

And, I created a database of all my art from 2005-2017 along with photos of each piece.  (That took the longest!)

So, while I spent many hours putting this together to give to this project, I feel a sense of closure and accomplishment.  Now, if I need to remember what I've done, all I have to do its visiting the archive and not have to rummage around my studio and computer to find that particular photo or article.  

If you are an artist living in Colorado, I encourage you to do what I have just done.  Join this organization and become part of Colorado Artist's history.  It is important!

www.arthyve.org