Every brushstroke, every note, every pixel—what if your artwork could live forever? In this episode, you’ll discover why archiving your work isn’t just about saving files—it’s about preserving your legacy. Join host Scott "Sourdough" Power as he highlights the critical role of preserving artistic legacies for future generations, especially as creators navigate life's complexities and the reality of mortality.

Scott shares a straightforward, step-by-step guide to help artists inventory their creations and choose the best storage methods. Listeners will explore various strategies for effective archiving, including how to compile a comprehensive inventory, organize physical storage, and develop a system that emphasizes the significance of each piece. Scott also underscores the necessity of estate planning and the value of designating a legacy keeper to honor an artist's wishes after they're gone.

This episode serves as a rallying cry for artists to take proactive steps in documenting their work, alleviating pressure on their loved ones while safeguarding the integrity of their creative contributions. Tune in and discover how to ensure your artistic legacy lives on. 

Links mentioned in this episode:

Arterial

ArtsvilleUSA

Artwork Archive

NOT REAL ART

For more information, please visit https://notrealart.com/archiving-artwork

The Not Real Art podcast is intended for creative audiences only.

The Not Real Art podcast celebrates creativity and creative culture worldwide.

It contains material that is fresh, fun and inspiring and is not suitable for boring old art snobs.

Now let's get started and enjoy the show.

Greetings and salutations, my creative brothers and sisters.

Welcome to Not Real Art, the podcast where we talk to the world's most creative people.

I am your host.

Faithful, trusty, loyal, tireless, relentless host.

Sourdough coming at you from Crew West Studio in Los Angeles.

Well people, it's the last week of the month and you know what that means.

That means that today is my auditorial.

The last week of every month I get on a soapbox and I talk about something that's on my mind.

I call it an auditorial.

And you know, this week, this month, we're talking about how to archive your work.

Because believe it or not, we're all going to die.

And if we don't archive our work, our families are going to be left holding the bag and they won't know what to do.

So I want to talk about that.

But before I get into it, of course I want to thank you for tuning in.

I do this for you.

We do this for you.

It's all about you.

And if it wasn't for you, well then I'd just be talking into a microphone and that would be sad.

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Appreciate it so much.

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So please go check out artsvilleusa.com okay, let's get into this auditorial, folks.

Let's get into this because I want to talk about how to archive your work and maybe why to archive your work.

You know, I've said for a long time that I believe that an artist's practice should include a few key things and that artists shouldn't consider an artwork done until they've done a few things, which really is about archiving and actually copywriting and archiving your work.

And there's all kinds of reasons for doing this.

But I'm particularly inspired to talk about this today because I've recently had three different situations where people have come to me and told me stories about an artist in their life who has recently passed away and they left behind all kinds of work.

And the family, quite frankly, didn't know what to do with it or doesn't know what to do with it.

And they don't want to.

And they want to honor their, their past loved one and do right by their work, do right by their artwork.

And so they're a little lost.

One particular situation involved a wife whose husband was a photographer here in Los Angeles.

He passed away, got up in, left behind this incredible body of work, and she didn't know what to do with it.

And, you know, she brought in intellectual property attorney who was also a photographer and an art lover and a friend of the show, by the way, the one and only Joshua Wattles.

And Josh was able to help her place the work, actually, because Josh's idea was that, you know, because his work was really focused on Los Angeles and the history of Los Angeles and architecture in Los Angeles, that the Los Angeles Public Library may very well want to have these photographs in their archives.

And after several meetings and over the course of several weeks, Joshua was able to place this photographer's work at the Los Angeles Public Library.

And so now this man's work will Live on.

And people will have access to it through the library.

How wonderful is that?

But that's a good story.

I mean, that's a situation where, you know, Joshua was able to help this woman because this woman happened to know Joshua.

But there are so many situations where families are left holding the bag, so to speak, of all this artwork.

They don't really know what to do.

You know, I recently talked to a woman whose father passed away and he was a, you know, painter.

He lived in Spain.

He had essentially a shipping containers full of work that she, that he left behind to his daughter, who I was speaking with.

And she was talking to me, what do I do with this work?

She's like, is it worth anything?

Do I.

Do I sell it?

What, what, what do I do?

And she's really lost.

She was really confused and concerned, you know, about this situation.

Just sort of, you know, kind of, you know, holding the bag and, and wants to do right by her father.

Right.

And it was just really a difficult thing to, you know, to, to.

To handle.

And so I, I get it.

I just, I was really feeling for her.

So, you know, we were talking through some things that, that she can do.

And then recently I had another artist, you know, approach me about what they should do to archive their work.

They're having some health issues.

They know they're not getting any younger.

They know that, you know, bad things happen to good people all the time.

And, and we're not.

None of us are going to live forever.

And so the artist was talking to me about what, what he should do to archive the work for posterity and for his family.

And, and so I just thought it'd be a good opportunity here to talk about what you can do to archive your work, you know, but, but let's put some numbers around this because this is not just three people.

These are thousands and thousands and thousands, tens of thousands, you know, hundreds of thousands, maybe over a million artists that, and families that will be dealing with this in the next few years, you know, quite specifically baby boomers.

Some, you know, baby boomers are getting up in years.

They are, you know, going to pass away, of course.

And you know, these families are going to.

The children of these families are going to be, you know, needing to deal with this artwork.

Right.

And so just to give you a sense, visual artists, so, so right now about 47.

I did some research, dug up some numbers here I want to share.

So see, 47% of people, Americans over 40 right now identifies visual artists.

So for those of you listening, Americans over 40 living in the country today.

47% people over 40 identify as visual artists.

The National Endowment of the Arts reports that nearly 2 million Americans identify as artists in the workforce.

Now, a lot of them are designers specifically, but you get my point.

I mean, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of families that will be dealing with parents or grandparents or loved ones passing on, leaving huge bodies of work that they're going to need to deal with.

And, you know, nobody wants to throw away their beloved artwork.

Their.

Their.

Their, you know, beloved family member who passed.

You know, they don't want to throw the artwork away.

They want to honor the work.

They want to do what's right by the work.

And you, as artists, as we, as artists, can set them up for success if we take the time to do it now.

And by the way, we can help establish the narrative that we want people to understand about our work and about who we are as artists by adding those steps to our practice so that we're copywriting our work, and then we're archiving our work in a way that makes it easy for them to handle it after the fact.

And if you're so inclined, you could, you know, really help solve this problem even before we croak.

Right.

If we really want to take it on.

Nobody really wants to deal with their death.

I get it.

I mean, most of us don't even have wills.

And you should have a will, by the way, But.

But yes.

So when it comes to having huge bodies of artwork and paintings and photographs or drawings or sculptures or whatever you have, there are things that we could do that will help our family members understand what we have and understand what to do.

And so I just did some research, and I want to share what I found with you guys so that you can know how to archive your work for your family.

Because you're going to die.

We're going to die.

We're going to die, people.

And that sucks.

But it's real.

It's not a good thing or bad thing.

It's a real thing.

And so let's talk about what we can do in the inevitability of our death.

Okay, Number one, we need to create a comprehensive inventory, right?

So we need to document each piece.

We need to record details such as the artwork title, your creation, medium, addition, size of applicable dimensions, and really photograph each piece, including the signature.

Okay, so document each piece, record the details such as artwork, title, year of creation, medium, addition, size of applicable, and dimensions.

Photograph each piece, including the signature.

So that's number one.

Number Two, use an inventory management tool.

And there's some great ones utilize.

You could use a digital platform like Artwork Archive.

That's what we use here at Crew West Studio.

Artwork Archive, great, great tool, great platform, great people over there, very affordable as well.

And so I encourage you to use.

But again, you can use an Excel spreadsheet.

It doesn't have to be.

You don't have to spend a bunch of money on a platform.

And Artwork Archive is very affordable, but still it's money, right?

So you could use a spreadsheet.

You can, heck, you could use a good old fashioned notebook, pen and paper.

But, but there are online solutions as well.

Artwork Archives 1 Art Decks I guess is another one to organize and store the information securely.

Create a comprehensive inventory by documenting each piece and use inventory management tools to organize the documentation of every piece, including the title, year of creation, medium, size, dimensions, etc.

And of course, don't forget to take a photograph.

Number two, organize physical storage.

Okay, so you can and should be using acid free materials.

Store prints and artworks and acid free folders, archival sleeves to protect them from dust and environmental pollutants.

Okay, so you want to protect the artwork as much as you can using acid free materials.

And also if you can please find a climate controlled storage for the artworks.

Consider storing sensitive pieces, certainly sensitive pieces and prized pieces in climate controlled environments to prevent degradation.

Now you know that might be something for your family to do, maybe you can set them up with that.

But certainly something that you need to do or they need to do, but organizing the physical storage of the work so that the work is preserved.

Number three, develop an archiving system.

Okay, so categorize and prioritize.

Okay, so sort artworks by significance, date or type.

Prioritize archiving based on importance or popularity.

So now this is really about helping people understand what something is and why it's important, right?

Or if it's important, right?

So this is an archiving system that you're going to develop that's going to help people understand what they're looking at.

And so you're going to categorize and you're prioritize, you're going to sort artworks by significance, date and type.

Prioritize archiving base on importance or popularity.

And then label and store.

So you're going to label each piece clearly and store them in labeled bins or flat files for easy access.

Maybe you need to number.

So if you're archiving in a spreadsheet and you know it's, I don't know, one through a thousand you're numbering the pieces one through a thousand so that people can easily say, okay, yeah, this is number, you know,421.

And they know what to look for.

You know, again, you're just organizing the chaos so that people can understand how to manage, you know, these pieces, all these works and what they're looking at and how to think about it and what you want them to know about the work.

And number four, you want to plan for legacy and estate.

Now, this gets back to having a will, of course, but, you know, we need to do estate planning.

Include artworks in your estate plan with clear instructions on what should happen to each piece after you die.

And, you know, that's, you know, it's one of those things that you could spend money, get a lawyer, of course, but having anything in writing is better than nothing.

Most people just don't.

I mean, Prince, when he died, he didn't have a will, and it was a, you know, and he's a rich guy, you know, he could have done it.

But nobody really wants to do this.

I understand.

I get that, you know, but we should, to honor the work that we've been doing.

We want, you know, like, we don't want to waste our time, right?

We don't want our work to go to waste.

And this is really just about helping make sure that our good work doesn't go to waste and estate planning is part of it.

And you can, if you don't have the money for a lawyer, at least put it in your own words on pen and paper or type up a letter and help people understand that these artworks are a part of your estate and that, you know, leaving them clear instructions on what should happen to each piece after your death.

You could, you know, maybe donate them, sell them, give them to family members as gifts, you know, any number of things.

Give them to your local library, give them to your local museum, etc.

Etc.

But that's for you to decide.

And then you need to designate a legacy keeper.

You need to appoint someone to manage your artistic legacy, ensuring your wishes are respected and, you know, identify someone sooner, you know, rather than later.

When it's too late, it's too late.

So, you know, talk to somebody that you trust about managing your artistic legacy so they know, you know, what your hopes and dreams and wishes and expectations are, and they understand, you know, what your comprehensive inventory is and what about your physical storage and what about your archiving system, and then you know, what your estate planning is, et cetera, et cetera.

So designate a legacy keeper number five.

Digital archiving.

So digitize your work.

Create high resolution scans or photographs of your artwork to safeguard against physical loss.

Okay.

I've been saying for a long time that artists should, as part of their artistic practice, always take a high res photo of their work to help not just to archive it and help copyright it, but also if you ever want to license your work while you're living, you're going to need a digital high res image of that work.

And you know, certainly museum quality imagery is the best, but I also understand that's hugely expensive.

Believe it or not, AI tools now are super powerful.

And by the way, iPhones, if you happen to have an iPhone or any really, you know, state of the art smartphone, Samsung, whatever, have amazing cameras in them and you could take, easily take a well lit photograph with your high def smartphone, capture several images with that, you know, get it into your computer.

There are AI tools that will take that high res photo and make it even higher res in better clarity and scale it up, et cetera, et cetera.

So this doesn't have to be some expensive thing anymore, but it can be done.

So you really need to digitize your work with high resolution scans or photographs.

And then of course you have to regularly update archives.

I know nobody likes paperwork, nobody likes paying bills, nobody likes doing the administration of business in life.

Nobody likes filing taxes.

You know, the business of life is no fun.

The business of art is no fun.

We just want to make art.

We want to be creative.

That's the fun part, right?

We want to play, play, play.

But there's the, there's a cost of playing.

And that is of course keeping our house in order and keeping our room clean and paying our bills and filing our taxes.

And so regularly updating your archive should absolutely be something that you do on a regular basis.

Just like you clean your room or, or take out the garbage.

Just try to, you know, regularly update, if not every day, every week and certainly every month.

And so that you can regularly keeping records up, up to, up to snuff there.

And then of course lastly, seek professional assistance, consult with experts, consider h a legacy specialist, or working with organizations like the Joan Mitchell foundation for guidance on archiving and estate planning.

You know, they're there to help and would be a great resource for you as well.

So, you know, I know it's depressing to talk about our mortality.

You know, I'm going to be 55 in May.

I can't believe it.

Where'd the time go?

No day is promised.

I think we've all Lost people way too soon.

And so we know that today is not promised and we're all mortal people.

So, you know, hopefully we're going to live long, healthy lives and fall over when we're 99 or 100.

But in the event that we don't, and even if we do, we need to make sure our artwork and all of our life's work is positioned and documented in such a way that our loved ones know what to do with it and know what we want to do with it and know what they're looking at.

And so you know, again, quick recap.

To archive your work, you need to do six things.

You need to create a comprehensive inventory.

You need to organize physical storage.

You need to develop an archiving system.

You need to plan for legacy in a state.

You need to digital archive your work.

You need to seek professional assistance when necessary.

This includes documenting each piece using inventory management tools, using acid free materials, climate controlled storage, categorizing and prioritizing the work label and storing the work state planning, designating a legacy keeper, digitizing your work and regularly updating the archives, and of course, consulting with experts when you can.

So I hope this is helpful.

All of this is going to be in the show notes.

Oh, it's a sober, sober topic to be sure.

But I feel like, you know what, it's the last thing you want to think about should the worst happen.

And if we happen to get diagnosed with something and we're not feeling so good, we're not going to want to do this work.

We're trying to, you know, get over something or trying to get healthy again or if we're battling something.

So, you know, we definitely need to try to do this work while we're healthy and while we can and you know, do it in a, in a, and an honest, good, thoughtful way when we're, when we're healthy and we have high energy.

So, so yeah, I mean this is, this is my lesson, this is my soapbox today, how to archive our work because we going to die.

And so I appreciate you guys as always tuning in.

I want to thank Arturial as well for sponsoring the episode.

And you know, I just hope you guys are healthy, hope you're happy.

But I also hope you're archiving your work because your family members are going to appreciate you for it and it's the right thing to do because you've been working hard.

You want to make sure your work is understood and seen when you're not able to explain it to people and make it easy for them to honor you and the great work that you've done.

So with that, I'm signing off.

Have a great, wonderful day, whatever you're doing, and we'll catch you on the flip side on the next episode of Not Real Art.

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