Thursday, February 21, 2019

An Artist's Legacy

There is much more to an artist's life that making the art.  To be sure, the part that drives each of us to the studio: lovely materials, lovely (we hope) images to test out, cool ideas to ponder in material form...

There is the attendant not so lovely office work: bills, shipping, orders, recordkeeping, show seeking.

And then eventually, there is the artist's estate to contend with!  What are our heirs supposed to DO with all this stuff we produce?

Hold a community bonfire and roast marshmallows?

Maybe, if that is what you want.  But somehow, neither my son nor I want to throw out or burn my life's work.

If your work is small, and desirable, you can give it away!  That's what I did a couple of years ago.  Building on existing collections and extending my requests, I offered my artists books and archives to a variety of museum and university collections with great success. But now I need to plan for my larger, newer work.

I recently attended the College Art Association Conference in NYC.  I am still exhausted from all the running around!  But that is for another post!.. This post is about one panel I attended which was worth the price of admission.  Squeak Carnwath, Sharon Louden, Jan Wurm, and Shervone Neckles-Ortiz led a panel on estates and legacy.  I had been to one before.  But this one electrified the audience and lots of info was shared.  Artists of modest means can work together to create foundations to take care of their work!  Truly modest means.  I will be studying this in the coming months. 

Click any of the links that follow to blow your mind!















NECESSARY ARCHIVE INFO TO COLLECT
artwork: title, size, exhibition history, materials & processes

exhibitions: each show in a separate folder with images, press, catalog

bibliography: print out online media

audio

professional activities

contacts: collector data?

newsletters

personal documents


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