Throughout the years I’ve encountered artists who are consciously documenting their work. That is, they make sure to photograph or keep current work for their archives. In this digital age it is easy to document our work and if you sell online you are creating a photo history already.
I remember visiting with Kate Drew-Wilkinson and taking a walk through her past via neat containers of beads that she has held back throughout her life. They document her long and interesting history in bead and jewelry making for over 20 years. They tell the story of her life. Last year at the Gathering Harold Cooney gave a presentation and talked about holding back some of his best work for himself while creating inventory for shows.
I’ve often thought of this and have been very consistent in photographing everything that leaves the studio. This passion has renewed lately as I’ve been documenting color studies that I’ve been working on.
I printed these pages out for reference and noticed that the colors weren’t exactly accurate and the beads looked nowhere as brilliant in print. I realized that if I wanted to document accurately I’d need to keep a set of each. So, that is my next challenge to work on. Documenting my work by keeping actual pieces.
The next step then is cataloging them. It’s great to have a record with a photo or the actual piece, but who is going to tell its story when you’re long gone? I need to come up with a system of describing, dating and explaining the time period and processes. This is one of those things that sounds like a lot of work but once it’s done it feels so good.
What about you? Do you document your work? What method do you use?
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