"All good things must begin." - Octavia E. Butler
Ask yourself, “What good thing I am not giving myself permission to begin?”
WEEK ONE: GETTING STARTED
Sometimes the hard part is just getting started. You either don’t know where to begin or you’re procrastinating on getting started. Here are 7 tasks that you can insert in your daily routines across the week to begin to make a habit out of maintaining the archive that you are building.
Objective
After a month of consistent documentation of your routines, habits and rituals in both your interior and exterior spaces. You will be able to take those documents including photographs, journals, audio notes, letters and correspondence etc and enter them into your custodial database.
Additionally, your personal archive will develop as you connect key persons in your community, family and friend circles.
Essential Question
How do the routines, habits and rituals lead to consistent documentation of both my art practice and interior life?
Set up your Airtable Account
The custodial database is a template that can be duplicated into your own workspace
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Determining a mission and vision for your archive is important in the beginning because it will help you stay on track with how you maintain your archive.
Define what your archive will be for you and your families legacy.
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Working with both physical and online materials can be overwhelming.
Choose the types of storage that you want to begin with and then you can expand from there.
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Your kitchen table may not be the best area to set up a work station but your Grandmothers living room may be perfect.
You will have to make space that can either be easily packed up or remain in that area for a period of time.
Preparation
Choose an area in your home where you can leave your documents or have a station that remains undisturbed.
Asses what you will be organizing, whether physical / digital documents you will need to make time to separate into series or smaller collections
Create a Google Drive or New Folder on your external hard drive / solid state drive
Create Digital Drawers based on time periods
Create or login into an airtable account
Copy the Demo Base to your workspace
Write down a list of Key Persons in your immediate family, extended family and/or friend circles + then enter all known information from name, relationship, birthday, and current location in the first tab.
Navigating the Custodial Database
The database reads and operates like a book, from left to right. You will start at the first tab ‘Key Persons’ and fill in your familial and community connections. Once filled in, you will enter your documents in the respective collections.
Additional collections can be added or removed based on your personal narrative and what type of documentation you are using in your practice.
Practice writing a description with your favorite photograph.
How to Write A Description
With every photograph you will have an acid free description card that goes along with it. This is where you place all of the information about the photograph before entering it into the custodial database.
If you choose to start without description cards you can always go back and copy the information from your custodial database.
Drawer
Date
Size
Description
Condition
Collection / Keywords
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D4: 1980 - 1995
c. August 23, 1995
3.5in x 4in
Sierra King sitting in a chair in front of a Birthday Cake looking away from the camera in Annett Battle's Living Room in Atlanta,GA
Good
Family Photos, Sierra King
Once you’ve completed above you’re ready to move on…