Monday, June 16, 2014

Negative Room?

I am thinking of setting up a room totally devoted to my lifetime of negatives (thousands of negs). If I could place all the negs in some kind of order with contact sheets or printer contacts in binders on shelves then I would be well on my way to knowing what I have and controlling things. Putting everything into one room with a big light table to organize things would be great, it might finally put some order to my work. I could find negs when I need them and I could destroy shitty old work I no longer need. The hope, the dream would be that on or before my death the best negs would be taken by some art organization and stored archivaly. If I can create work of some importance, some value that dream might become a reality. If the negs end up in some landfill then maybe some of the work will be saved in collections in print form. Before I can print them thou I have got to be able to find the strongest work.

Organizing my negs is of paramount importance, now they lay all over the place, some in binders and plastic neg sheets, some in neg sheets on shelves and the floor, some just rolled up pieces of film gathering dust and scratches. If I can get these all into one room and organize them with a large light table then I will be on the right track to getting a handle on things. I could also add a print storage section for archival vintage prints. Years of sloppy habits are catching up to me, I need to make an effort to tame and ride this wild stallion before it bucks me off and tramples me.