The Archivist

These images completely capture my younger days when I was working in the art world. I often wish I was still stuck sitting in the museum basement tracking the whereabouts of priceless works of art all day long. I would also wheel art work on wobbly carts from the holding cell to the conservation department, which was right down the hall from me. That and the Philadelphia Museum of Art photo department....those were offices where I where really wanted to work in, rather than the *boring* registrar's office. Monday's were the best, as the museum was closed to the public. I could walk through the entire building , virtually alone, and marvel at the stellar Duchamp collection with nary a security guard in site.

But before I was a museum employee, I found inspiration in my "Art in the Dark" college classes. Countless hours spent memorizing data that made marketing & business majors cringe: artist's bios, birth dates, travels, likes & dislikes, muses, etc. After all those art class flash card sessions , I can still rattle off many of the artists pictured here: Giacometti, Koons, Hirst, Manet, Goya, Man ray, Haring, Scheiele, Mondrian. Not in that order, and not particularly hard to do. But it was a fun exercise for an art in the dark major like me.