Metaphors for Archives

I have been working over the last few months with very fragile structures: stacks of ladders, parachutes and hot air balloons. They have come up as I work with the Chicago Artist Archive, and I am going to set out to describe why these images come up, and what they mean in relation to an archive.

hanging drawing, 2010

Building a stack of open ladders is the kind of fool's errand I might go on if left with them in a room. I am not much of a builder of things. I tend to make fragile structures and urge them together with string and tape. They list and collapse regularly, and I abandon them. This can feel like a metaphor for my artistic practice. At times my work feels strong, faithful, and forthright. At other times it feels thin, like a veneer, and I worry that it is too easy to make a beautiful thing that is not worked enough. The tower of ladders is also a metaphor for my professional practice: riddled with left turns and odd choices, the artistic ladder tower of success is being torn down and re-built in my head on a daily basis. It can collapse and require starting over, in a new direction, or perhaps the same direction all over again. Or I build my tower, brush my hands off, and then never see another opportunity like it again. 

sketch for artist's book, in process

In the context of the archive, each ladder could represent an artist's professional practice. The ladders stack together, building a larger structure of cultural contribution. Careers look the same: art schools, exhibitions, reviews, community engagement, an obituary, a loss of interest, a resurgence. They stack together gently, elbow to elbow. 

from Open Source Sculpture by Max Grueter

The parachutes represents the artists and their inclusion in the archive. Artists and their work are best described by reviews in local press. When reading one review after another, I see the artists drifting gently down into the perpetuity of the archive. Think of it: a review of a group show in 1970 now helps someone find you, forty years later. It holds your voice, what you were feeling and thinking all those years ago. 

dropping, 2010

I am also using the parachute in the only way I ever have: as an elementary school phenomena. The parachute is my favorite collaborative piece. The act of lifting the membrane into the air and pulling it down to make a shelter is powerful and ridden with symbolism. The parachute's shifting strength makes me think of local art worlds: held together by hands and air, filling and collapsing by the energy of the participants. 

by Scott Adams

Hot air balloons, from SketchUp 3d warehouse

The hot air balloons relate to the the act of making. The joy we feel when we make things lifts us up. It carries us onwards. We are fragile, gigantic egos, making dramatic gestures. The loose balloons are the ideas leaving our studio and moving out into the world. They are everything while we are in them, but then we make them, or sell them, and they disappear into the past.