Two really full days. Rose at 7am yesterday and worked with hardly a break until 8:30pm, slowly converting my 15 years of art exhibitions, competition entries, applications, and copying them to one master file. It's an exhausting process which continues today.
I'm currently at event/exhibition/competition number 600 and about halfway through 2017 (my first year was 2007).
This is important for a few reasons. I'm not the sort or artist who makes commercial work and sells it in one place. This file isn't like a stock manifest or accounts in a shop (although that is part of it), in a way this list is part of the art itself. It does store what artwork was where and when, which is useful to know, but it also lists every competition or application I've tried and with what, as well as how it all went, and things like photos from the events, rehearsals (the list covers live performances, and festivals for example). This information was all recorded somewhere, but generally in separate files on a year-by-year basis, which makes it harder to track down things, like the fate of one particular artwork. When it's all in one file, the tree of fate for every painting, story, poem... can be tracked, right back to 2007 - well, in theory.
It's taking an inordinate amount of time because I want to neaten and somehow unify things. The delivery dates for example should be called "Dropoff Date:" but there are lots of different dates, previews, prize events, closing events, selected and unselected collections, judgement dates, varnishing days. For old exhibitions this isn't that useful (is it at all useful?) but I think, if it is there, it needs to be correctly and neatly recorded, somehow part of the process of art itself. It's an odd obsession, but I think it will make doing these things more efficient in future. It will make it faster to track things down and track progression (hopefully there is progression). It also gives something of an 'overview' of events and institutions. Some, the the RBSA in Birmingham, or the Three Counties Open in Keele, I've been taking part in for years and I can see how and why and what the results, if any, were.
It is interesting to see everything I've tried and done, from stalls here and there, to talks, to live shows, to poetry and story competitions. Reminded of my cat painting shown in New York, the exhibition in the crumbling Liverpool asylum of Newsham Park, the coffee art project bizarreness, and the periods of growth and stings over the years.
Well, this will take me a few days, far longer than I had hoped. By the end, I may have 1000 new folders for information. Then I can start on the frames for the Discerning Eye paintings, the deadline is looming.
