Friday, April 30, 2010

Photographic memories

I've been thinking a lot about preservation lately as I have been studying the conservation of artifacts and the issues that arise with regards to saving the past. This got me thinking about the mountain of photographs I uncovered two years ago when I was helping to clean out my grandmother's house before she moved to a smaller setting. The images didn't have any real value to her--they were in a giant pile--and yet upon looking through them she had lots to say.

 











Included in the bunch were hundreds of photographs that my father took with his very first Kodak camera. They are fascinating views of his family and neighborhood, all through the fresh vantage point of a child; this a viewpoint that no adults can ever really replicate.  As I was thinking about the question of value with regards to documents, it occurred to me that these images have way more than sentimental value, they have historical value too. The clothes and people are a record of that time and place. The houses, cars, and other ephemeral items really are a testament to how people used to live. And more than that, the images record fleeting moments that would otherwise be lost.

I have not organized this massive image archive to date (I usually get distracted by the content when looking through them); however I did decide to start by scanning a set of my father's early negatives. Below is a small sampling of that effort, which ultimately goes a long way to preserving a little piece of my family's past.





   

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Lists and memories

The Smithsonian Archives has an exhibition on display right now that has really touched me in an interesting and unexpected way. Lists: To-dos, Illustrated Inventories, Collected Thoughts and Other Artists' Enumerations from the Archives of American Art is exactly as it sounds: a display of some of the lists contained in the Archives. And of course they are beautiful documents, so that is enough of a reason to show them. However, I find myself drawn to them for another, perhaps subtler reason: I too am a list-maker; but it is more than that simple act of creating a list as a memory aid for immediate tasks. What compels people to save those documents? There is a reason that hundreds of thousands of these pieces have made it into the Archives collections. They serve as a reminder of a specific point in time; they give you--and eventually others--a glimpse into your mind. There is something comforting about looking them over as reminders of the past; of accomplishments or failures.

I found this out as I was clearing the Post-It notes from my desk one day. As I was removing the immaculately ordered and executed reminders, I found that it seemed wrong to simply throw them away. Instead I carefully collected them, along with other bits of paper where I had jotted notes or reminders, and placed them in a notebook. It somehow seemed wrong to do anything else. 

People collect many things, but I have found a fond kinship with those that collect their scribblings as a way to document their lives. It is amazing to find that a simple note can be as telling and emotional as a photograph when examined within the context of a person's life. That is what moves me most about the Archives exhibition, that it is a window into the lives of these people.  

 

   To-do list, August 16, 1961 by Eero Saarinen. Aline and Eero Saarinen papers, 1906-1977. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.