Emotional Baggage-Please Advise

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justthemaid

climber
Jim Henson's Basement
Topic Author's Original Post - Jan 24, 2013 - 09:52am PT
So I recently did a major closet overhaul/re-org and I'm trying to decide what to do with a bunch of crap I'm sick of storing. I've got 2 categories I'm dealing with that are taking up too much space,

EB #1: Photographs (the easier problem): Dear 'ol Grandma passed a couple years ago leaving me with like 10 boxes of family photos dating back to the 1800's. There's only so much you can put in albums and space is limited.

EB #2: The bigger problem. Artwork.. lots of it. Kindergarten through college. Scanning larger stuff seems like a pain. I started just photographing it, but it's time-consuming and a PIA. Throwing away originals afterwards seems kinda dirty and wrong but who really wants my kid-art? Now that I'm a world renown stained glass artist this crap could be worth bucks when I croak BTW ;)

So any suggestions?

Are there scanning companies that can just mass-scan even the larger stuff?

With the photos I'm thinking mass-scan it all. Keep the really cool stuff and mail the rest of the originals off to my cousins and let them deal with it.


What to do with original artwork?


Auction it at Facelift? ;)


F*#k scanning it, burn it all and dance naked around the fire?


Please advise.

rottingjohnny

Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
Jan 24, 2013 - 09:55am PT
Photographs....? Any boob shots...?
justthemaid

climber
Jim Henson's Basement
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 24, 2013 - 09:58am PT
Any boob shots...?


Well, there was that box of photos I found in the trunk of my dead cousin Butch's '69 Camaro (with "Scorpio" stenciled on the side BTW). But that's another story... boobs were the least of it.
hootowl

Mountain climber
VA
Jan 24, 2013 - 10:01am PT
Don't throw away the photos from the 1800's! Somebody somewhere is writing a history book and needs those photos. If you can't scan and store, contact a local historical society, college, genealogy club, etc. and offer to donate. I'm telling you, if you throw these artifacts away you will regret it! Look at all the cool old photos continually posted here of days and people (and youth) gone by, that mean so much to everybody when they show up. I'm glad some people are photo-hoarders.
Fish Finder

Social climber
THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART
Jan 24, 2013 - 10:02am PT
What do you think that your Gramma did with her Grammas photos?

its all in the past


Keep a few that will remind you where you started from and throw away the rest.


or go to a Best Buy and tape all the artwork to the Fridges and just walk away!


Everything will perish.
justthemaid

climber
Jim Henson's Basement
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 24, 2013 - 10:06am PT
The black and whites are the only ones I'll keep. Most of them will fit in one or two large albums and they have all the hand-written notes on the back from Grandma researching the family tree. I'd still like to scan them. There's a family-tree website for the Kansas branch of the family. I'm sure the local historians would love copies.


... in my copious free time of course.
this just in

climber
north fork
Jan 24, 2013 - 10:06am PT
If you burn it and dance naked around the fire, be sure to record it. It becomes performance art, especially when you say, "this represents death and the return to the earth."
Good luck.
Tony Bird

climber
Northridge, CA
Jan 24, 2013 - 10:07am PT
i've got the same problem, skip--one uncle was a serious artist, another a magazine photographer who left lots of pretty photos, their sister, my mother, painting canvasses right up to the end, my wife fast becoming a superproductive ceramicist but with a bit of a lead on market demand, daughter moving back home to go to--art school--and her boyfriend, also an artist, joining us down here to pursue what he hopes is better opportunity than the bay area. so our house has three small storage spaces you can't even turn around in. we had a yard sale awhileback, advertising pictures and frames on craigslist, figuring maybe a frame shop would show up and give us 20 bucks for a lot of good quality material. ha--we sold just about everything except art and frames.

it's a tug o' war between the heart and head. my mom was not a career-type artist, but she left us one masterpiece, the painting she painted of her mother. makes me feel like they're both with us, all day long, every day.


i lived with the artist uncle when i went to college in chicago. his apartment had little aisles to get around in as the stacks of sketchbooks, canvases and materials approached the ceiling. put your television out on the front lawn. if it rains, put a rope blanket over it.
can't say

Social climber
Pasadena CA
Jan 24, 2013 - 10:12am PT
emotional baggage, everyone's got some.

Baggage on the other hand, clogs my garage.
justthemaid

climber
Jim Henson's Basement
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 24, 2013 - 10:29am PT
@ Locker:

It's primarily stuff on paper. Before I was a glass artist I wanted to be an illustrator. Pen and inks, watercolors. College art-school projects and some kindergarten art as well. Some of it certainly can get scanned and tossed, but some is nice enough someone might like to hang it up.

Gramma was a Bob-Ross-school painter BTW. I kept only 2 of her paintings (her best and her funniest) and the rest got donated to charity.
Gunkie

Trad climber
East Coast US
Jan 24, 2013 - 10:39am PT
Can't you store old photographs between sheets of waxed paper with a very light weight pressing them onto a solid, level surface? And just make sure you store these stacks in moderate temp & humidity. Doing this with 10 boxes of photos will become your 2nd career. Maybe you just need to select the most important ones, in your opinion.

Good luck. In my case, once my dad kicks, I just plan to burn his place to the ground.
Jaybro

Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
Jan 24, 2013 - 10:42am PT
Do your parents have a garage?
frank wyman

Mountain climber
montana
Jan 24, 2013 - 10:43am PT
Hey...I'm from Kansas..any distant relatives from Czechoslovakia? Maybe near Bellville ?...Frank
climbski2

Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
Jan 24, 2013 - 11:02am PT
For scanning print photos just about any scanner you pick up cheaply will do a good job on them. A little time consuming but no need to send them out to be done.

Slides are a different story however.
micronut

Trad climber
Jan 24, 2013 - 11:06am PT
Keep it. Honestly. Photos of pieces of art are kinda lame when you look through em later, especially on a screen/monitor. Being able to hold something in your hand, years later, can be a true treasue. And think of the generations who will follow.

I recently opened an old trunk of my grandmother's. she is now 94. It was a joy holding things in my hand that were her inspiration nearly a hundred years ago.

Go to Home Depot. Get some big plastic lid boxes. And store some of the good stuff....storage can be affordable, or you might fing a friend with a basement or a garage.

Just my two cents.

Scott
Spider Savage

Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
Jan 24, 2013 - 11:09am PT
It only gets worse as the decades go by. :-(


happiegrrrl

Trad climber
www.climbaddictdesigns.com
Jan 24, 2013 - 11:14am PT
I lost my high school art after asking my sister to store in when I moved to NYC. When I came home within a year and wanted to get it, she had *lost it.*

I still miss that collection, even though I too have nowhere to store it now.

Family photographs - My father was a decent hobbyist, but took many images that documented our family in the younger days. My maternal grandfather was a very good hobbyist who had done the same, along with what I see now would have been poured over with zeal by local historians.

Same sister was asked to store those boxes from mom. Same damned end result... Now the only family pictures left are the ones I had swiped from those bins when I moved to NYC, and then ones I shot. I gave them to a DIFFERENT sister to be steward over a few years ago.


Point: DON'T throw away unless you have no other option. The local historical society donation is a great idea. As for your own art, that is a personal issue. I used to go through my stored pieces about once a year and was always happy in doing it. I was slightly devastated to learn they were lost. But maybe you have had plenty of time to go over and over, and so have internalized a lot, and tossing would not be so difficult.
Lynne Leichtfuss

Sport climber
moving thru
Jan 24, 2013 - 11:57am PT
Everyone makes good points. You gotta go with what's best for you.

In the past 5 years I've had to whittle two housefulls of stuff down to one large room and a small shed I'm converting to a studio.

I was a "saver" but I must say that getting rid of all that stuff has make me a remarkably freer person from the inside out. Things can be like spider webs that stick to you.

Cheers Gal, miss you and Eric. lynne
10b4me

Boulder climber
Somewhere on 395
Jan 24, 2013 - 12:09pm PT
Keep as many photos as possible. You will regret it if you don't. Trust me on that one.
In regards to the artwork, why not take pictures of it?.
Or auction it at Facelift
bvb

Social climber
flagstaff arizona
Jan 24, 2013 - 12:10pm PT
Dear Mrs. E,

I know I'm a packrat, and I accept it. But as I long ago passed 50 and am crawling towards 60, I am SO GLAD I have a bunch of stuff -- the exact kind of stuff you are describing -- still around. My mom has been curating most of it. It's so much fun to read a note you wrote to the tooth fairy when you were 4 ("Dear, Tooth Fairy, my tooth fell out but I lost it so now I don't have it but can I have 25 cents anyway? Love, Bobby.") Apparently 25 cents was the going rate for a tooth in 1961.

If there is no big rush to toss stuff, then take your time. Because tossing it is an utterly irreversable decision. I already know that my kids want my old drawings and notes cards and scribbles and other autobigraphical ephemera, but that passing of the baton is still decades away. My Mom only hung on to the good stuff, so there's not too much to weed out. Don't you have an attic or crawlspace or some rafters where you can just stick the stuff and forget it?

My High School report cards just KILL my daughter. D's, C's, and F's with a couple of A+'s (English, Social Studies.) Of course I was climbing 5.11 by then so f*#k 'em!
Messages 1 - 20 of total 44 in this topic << First  |  < Previous  |  Show All  |  Next >  |  Last >>
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