Congratulations to Colin Post on the publication of “Ensuring the Legacy of Self-Taught and Local Artists: A Collaborative Framework for Preserving Artists’ Archives” in the Spring 2017 issue of Art Documentation! Colin’s article provides another great resource for anyone working with artists’ archives or library special collections. Abstract and link are below (full article access requires a subscription to Art Documentation).

Abstract
Many institutions collect the papers of prominent artists, but similar efforts have rarely extended to the archives of self-taught artists and artists of local renown. The author recommends that institutions establish collaborative relationships with local artists, supporting these artists’ personal archiving efforts with guidance and resources, and providing an archival repository for long-term community access to these materials. This article presents a case study of such a relationship between Durham-based painter Cornelio Campos and the Durham County Library. The author analyzes this effort to articulate a general framework for establishing strong relationships between local artists and cultural heritage institutions.

Link to full article
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/691373

For everyone who missed out on the Unconference or its livestreams on March 11th, we have posted video captures on the program page here. Four of our five Facebook live videos uploaded correctly, but unfortunately the video for the Legacies session did not appear on Facebook as uploaded.

Many thanks to fellows Fannie Ouyang, Kelsey Moen, and Kim Henze for recording the Facebook videos, and to Aaron Brubaker at SILS for recording the Livestream.com videos.

Here is a sample from Livestream.com:

The ASA project is delighted to be able to offer small travel grants ($400) to a limited number of attendees of the unconference this Saturday! If you are coming from long-distance, please write ASAP to JJ Bauer at jbauer@email.unc.edu with a brief paragraph explaining why this event is of critical importance to you so that the ASA team may evaluate requests and allocate grants as equitably as possible. Because these grants were only approved in this last week before the unconference is taking place, we will need to reimburse participants after attending, so please include with your request the name of the possible payee as well as a mailing address where we can send a check later.

Registration is now open!

To register, follow this link: https://unc.az1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_3kJ9yicCZefNJEV

Mission
Artists’ Archives in the South, an unconference-style symposium at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on March 11, 2017, will create a focused and productive atmosphere for participants to discuss, work through, and explore the latest methods, tools, and issues related to the archiving of artists’ records. Convening archivists, artists, art historians, librarians, digital humanities specialists, museum specialists, and other practitioners and scholars interested in working with artists’ records in the South, the symposium aims to amplify and build on efforts established in Learning from Artists’ Archives, a program for developing practical strategies for all stakeholders to preserve artists’ archives in North Carolina.

The Learning from Artists’ Archives program, launched in 2014 and funded by an Institute of Museums and Library Services grant, supports six Fellows, dual degree students in Art History and Library/Information Science at UNC Chapel Hill. Providing a model for similar educational initiatives hosted in other locations around the country, the program empowers artists to develop best practices for personal and studio archiving via hands-on skill development workshops, while also engaging current and future arts information professionals in an ongoing conversation about the representation of artists’ records in our cultural institutions.

When: 9:30am – 4pm on March 11, 2017

Where: Pleasants Family Room in the Louis Round Wilson Library at UNC-Chapel Hill

Why: The unconference will amplify and build on efforts established in the Learning from Artists’ Archives program to develop practical strategies for artists, archivists, librarians, and curators to build, maintain, and use artists’ archives. In order to share lessons learned and methods honed in that program, as well as to ensure multidisciplinary input, we invite attendees to submit proposals for talk, work, make, and play sessions in all areas relating to artists’ archives.

Potential topic areas could include:

• The future of artists’ archives
• Creating your own “Archiving for Artists” workshop
• Providing access to artists’ records
• Using artists’ archives in exhibitions
• Archive donation and legacy planning
• How do artists use their own archives?
• Some benefits of artists’ archives to art historians

How much: Registration is free but limited—we expect spaces to fill quickly.

What is an “unconference”?
An unconference is a participant-driven meeting in which the agenda is proposed and set by attendees at the outset. Interdisciplinary, interprofessional, and informal, the unconference eschews the lecture format of the traditional conference in order to foster collaborative discussion, making, and experimentation sessions among equally involved attendees. The ideal unconference is non-hierarchical, focused, and geared towards problem-solving. For more information, see the Wikipedia entry on unconferences.

Contact for more information: JJ Bauer, jbauer@email.unc.edu

www.artiststudioarchives.org/event/artist-archives-in-the-south/

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Thank you! JJ Bauer, Art, UNC-Chapel Hill

We invite all North Carolina visual artists to apply for Archiving for Artists, a day-long workshop to be held at the Mint Museum Randolph Location in Charlotte, NC on Saturday, October 8, 2015. This workshop is designed to empower artists to develop sustainable practices for personal and studio archiving.

Archiving for Artists will cover strategies for organization, preservation, and documentation that will help make your archives an integral and useful part of your artistic practice. Having good documentation of your artwork and career will make it easier for you to apply for grant funding, prepare to sell your artwork, and manage the legal aspects of your artistic practice. In the workshop, you will get hands-on experience with a variety of tools and strategies in both large and small group sessions, including best practices for both digital and physical media.

Archiving for Artists is free, however, only twenty-five spots are available for the Mint event in October. If you are interested in participating, please apply using this online form: https://unc.az1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_0xsRBIA6oTCCUCh We are committed to accepting a diverse group of artists from a wide variety of backgrounds, all career stages, and different visual arts media. Please note–if you are a studio assistant to an artist, please apply for the artist only and then note your name where requested below to accompany the artist to the workshop.

Archiving for Artists is made possible with funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and additional support from the University of North Carolina’s University Library, Art Department, and School of Information and Library Science. We also wish to thank the North Carolina Museum of Art and the Mint Museum for their support in hosting Archiving for Artists.  If you have any questions regarding this program, please contact JJ Bauer (jbauer@email.unc.edu) or visit our website for more information: http://artiststudioarchives.org/

Guide to Best Practices in Artists’ Studio Archiving Now Available

Artists’ Studio Archives: Managing Personal Collections & Creative Legacies is a guide for artists, their assistants, and others managing and preserving an artist’s studio archives. The guide is based on real-life scenarios and best practices in archiving and preservation and will aid artists in every career stage, from emerging artists to late-career artists, the yet-to-be-discovered and the well-established. Case studies and direct quotes from artists and their assistants, archivists, and researchers offer glimpses into managing and using artists’ archives. The exercises included in Artists’ Studio Archives help jump-start the documentation and archiving process through goal setting and establishing realistic timetables.

“Artists often tell me that their work ‘speaks for itself,’ but trust me, curators, conservators, and researchers always want more information. Your photographs, records, and recollections are significant to understanding a work of art, its place in history, a movement, and even within your own body of work.” – Carolyn Kastner, Curator, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

The authors wish to thank the following organizations and institutions that provided funding for the research and publication of Artists’ Studio Archives and the resulting Archiving for Artists workshops: The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), The Joan Mitchell Foundation, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA). Please consult our website (www.artiststudioarchives.org) for more information about this initiative and to access supporting resources.

Thanks for sharing with colleagues and artist friends and family members!

Artists’ Studio Archives authors:
Neal Ambrose-Smith (Artist, Educator, and Independent Consultant, New Mexico)
Joan E. Beaudoin (Assistant Professor in the School of Library and Information Science, Wayne State University)
Heather Gendron (Director, Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University)
Eumie Imm-Stroukoff (Emily Fisher Landau Director of the Georgia O’Keeffe Research Center)

For questions about Artists’ Studio Archives: Managing Personal Collections & Creative Legacies, please contact Heather Gendron (heather.gendron@yale.edu).

Heather Gendron
Director, Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library
Yale University
T 203.432.2642