ARTIST ARCHIVE

During 2020 I’ve been working on my artist archive in depth. An artist archive includes all of the work I’ve ever created and where it’s located. One of my artist friends said I was the hardest working artist that she knows. I thought about that for a bit and wondered why she though that. I realized that being organized is one of my strengths and that inspired me to do a blog about how I organize and keep track of all the my business parts of my art. These topics will be broken up into several blogs as it’s too much information to cover in one blog entry. I started a proper archive of my artwork in 2015 and have been working on it slowly over time. I wish that I started this when I graduated from college in 2005 but I didn’t realize this was something that I should do or keep track of. I could easily store all the information in my head at the beginning of my painting career but as the years have gone by it became harder to remember details about individual artworks. I had some of the information in a word document list but then when a work sold I deleted the information. It became important to reference information for all works. It’s difficult to store all the information in my brain about work that I made 15 years ago. I figured out that I should make a spreadsheet on excel to keep track of all of this information. My archive includes all the details about all of my artwork, details including medium, date, size, series, price, sold, sold date, collection, location, and unique archive number. It also includes information like if I reworked an artwork or if it was destroyed. While I had some of this data entry done from 2015-2019, it was missing quite a bit of information. I had a goal at the beginning of 2020 to get this in shape and have been working on it slowly over the course of the year. I made a list of all the things that I needed to do on the archive and then made a commitment to do one hour a week on the archive for the entire year. I save this work till the end of the day when my creative energy is spent as it’s my least favorite task to complete. It’s lengthy, time-consuming and a bit boring but once I get started it’s fun to get in the groove of entering information. It’s not as exciting as making work in the studio but an important project and part of being an artists. At this time, I have all the major works completed so I am excited to share that major accomplishment. I’m not completely finished as I have works on paper to complete as well as works from 2000-2005 undergraduate and graduate. This portion can be even harder as many of those works no longer exist and I do not even have digital photos of many of them. Another column for high resolution photos in the archive became necessary when I discovered that I was missing photos. I wanted to know if I had high resolution photos of the artwork so I could re-shoot them if necessary. I think it’s ok if I don’t have all the info for my student work. However, I don’t have photos of many of my works on paper so I’m beginning the process to photograph and record information about all of the artworks. Anyway I thought I would share my system in case it might help other artists to keep better track of their work. I have 23 series or tabs of my work recorded so far and with few more series to go. I also added the all the images to excel spreadsheet so I can easily reference and see what works I have and all the details about it. The unique archive number I created also corresponds to a folder that has the images with number in the file name.

I included close up photos of the spreadsheet.

Detail of Artist Archive Aquatic Traces.

DAILY PLANNER, SCHEDULE, TO DO, & GOALS

I am a definitely planner and schedule out all my time throughout the day and week. As an artist you have to be extremely organized with your time and conscious that you are taking action to accomplish goals and things that are important. I have been using the Daily/Monthly Day Designer Planner for the past 3 years and I really enjoy it. If you are looking for an inexpensive planner to block out your time and track goal progress this is for you. Before trying this planner I used a blank notebook to keep track of time and that started in 2000. The printed planner is a fantastic improvement to my time management and for keeping track of deadlines. I would recommend to every artist. I just looked up the one I prefer and it is currently out of stock. I usually buy it in Sept/Oct of the prior year. I think they have a certain time of year to sell the planner and since it’s almost February some of the ones they sell are already out of stock. I prefer the three-column format of the particular planner sold at Office Max versus their flagship planner because of the daily page format. I would actually prefer to get the thicker more expensive flagship type but I don’t like the two column layout of the flagship daily page and the additional square sections for do, dinner, dollars, and don’t’ forget. Those squares are not really relevant to me and I do not like them. Many planners are for women with lots of pink and girly design which I don’t like either. Last year they only had one with pink in it available and that really bothered me. I could not find another planner with the three column layout that I like so I had to get it. This year they have better colors so I was happy. The simpler format planner at office max daily has one column for the schedule, one column for the to-do and a large column for the notes. Plus it has a large area at the top for notes and other things that I like to jot down during the day. The Office Max planner has fewer worksheets and pages then the flagship planner but all those extras can all be downloaded for free on the Day Designer website which I have done. The planner has a timed column for scheduling and keeping track of my hours. Daily, I keep track of the hours I work on a particular painting as well as time spent on marketing and administrative activities. In addition it has a top three to do section. Additionally, for 4 years I have been practicing daily gratitude where I write down things that I am grateful for. January is when I reflect on the past year and refocus my goals for the New Year. I am also keeping track of this daily, weekly, and monthly to check in that I am spending my time taking action towards these goals. While 2020 was a very strange year and 2021 will be different as well, I can still orient my time, which is my most valuable resource, and connect it with my values.

As a compliment to my printed planner I also keep a TO DO SPREADSHEET also in excell. This is my master to do list where I write down every thing I am working on in three categories including CREATIVE, MARKETING, & ADMINISTRATIVE. At the end of each week I review and record my time so I can check in with myself. Each month is also a chance to make my focus change or limit my goals. There is only so much time in a month.

I have an additional studio planner/journal that I write more details on my challenges and ideas in the studio. This helps me to remain focused and remember different ideas I have from day to day.If I am looking for ideas I can go back to reference my thoughts very easily. This also makes it easy to prioritize what ideas are most compelling to create in the studio.

I have another tiny purple leather notebook that I write down titles in.When I get to the title portion of my artwork I can begin here to reference my ideas.