1 February 2013

Pencils only.  Please.doodling AMH 2012 

At a recent Acquisitions Committee Meeting, I doodled the pencils in the tin can that lives in the Print Study Room at the Ackland.  One might have thought that a meeting like this would always be interesting.  But strangely, not so much. Yes, we look at works of art being offered to the Museum, requests for loans, and considerations for purchase. And while I appreciate (and I do) the generosity of donors, the challenges of our budget, and the strengths of the collection - nevertheless, something else happens for me in this meeting sometimes.  I get antsy and bored...I feel some disconnect between my real life (maybe anyone's real life) and the conversations and discussions by which we choose objects. 

So I doodle.  

In Print Study - imagine a room lined with book shelves and cabinets (ca. 1975) along the two long walls, windows on the third, and a blank wall at the entrance end.  Imagine a locked door on one of the bookshelf walls that leads to the room where 8,000 works on paper are stored - we are not allowed to use pens.  It makes perfect sense.  Graphite can be easily removed; ink requires solvents and solvents leave a residue and residues are as insidious as kudzu - only a little can seep and cover an entire object...

Pencils only, please.  

But you know, as I doodle, it gets better to me.  It makes me listen more closely.  Attend more deeply.  And I realize the privilege.  

I have learned so many things in my time in the Museum. But perhaps none is as poignant as the difference between a personal collection and a public collection. We all have objects that we love, but they don't all belong in a museum. And our deep affection for them does not, in and of itself, qualify them for the long life a museum can offer.  

My little drawing will never be an acquisition, no matter how much I love it. And all acquisitions will not be interesting to me, no matter how hard I try.  

Maybe that is the real distinction between a public and a private collection.  I can love every work in my own collection, but I will never love every work at the Met or the Louvre.  Many, if not most, will leave me cold even if I understand their academic significance or the remarkable history they represent. But my personal collection?  It shimmers, it shines, it engages me every time.  It reflects me to me...us to me...our life to me and does not ask me to value any one else's considerations, or challenge my assumptions, or encounter difference, or study art history, or agree with an art critic. My own collection just sings to me and for me... 

Sometimes I like it that way... and sometimes I like to doodle.   

I love you, Miss Kelly.