Alexander Calder’s studio, Roxbury, CT
Summer 2017
The organizing business is booming…so much so that professional organizers have their own association (National Association of Productivity and Organization) and books like Spark Joy have been enjoying a long life on the best sellers list. De-cluttering your life seems like an especially good idea in an age when we seem to be constantly bombarded with information. Clearing the way so you can focus on what’s really important. For artists, messy is often an attribute, artist studios for example. But having an organized inventory system can help artists ensure that their work is accounted for, during their lifetime and perhaps even more critically, beyond.
A while back, a friend of mine suggested that I research and advise mid-career (read that old enough to be thinking about posterity) artists on issues related to what is most often referred to as “estate planning.” Those very words can be startling or even off putting to people not in the one-percent category, but I can’t think of a better word to describe how to manage the future for the stuff we leave behind. For artists, that stuff includes a body of work that was created with passion even if public recognition was not always forthcoming.
There’s a lot to think about. In 1997, The Marie Walsh Sharp Art Foundation with The Judith Rothschild Foundation organized a conference on the subject and published a subsequent document, A Visual Artist’s Guide to Estate Planning, a hefty 183-pages of information. The Joan Mitchell Foundation also has a lot of information on the web site. And if you Google the subject, you’ll find numerous articles on taxes, wills, trusts, copyrights, foundations, and more. It’s complicated and can be overwhelming, particularly so because of the emotional component. You’re an artist, not a lawyer—probably not anyway.
Where to start?
- Inventory–You need to know what you have
- Valuation–You need to know what it’s worth
- Distribution–Who will manage the care and dissemination of your work
to be continued…
September 2016
Here’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while–as someone who has been involved with the art market, and who has a lot of artist friends, and as a sometime artist myself. It’s a fact that art often lives longer than the artist. It’s actually part of the incentive for making art…being able to create something that endures. But artists don’t often think about the downside. Unless you are part of the 1% (not a fact checked number) of artists who have galleries and/or museum curators ready to take on the responsibility, at some point in time you will no longer be able to take care of the work you have created or to determine where it will end up. What’s going to happen to it? Will your children or other relatives be prepared to store the work? What will it cost them? How will value be determined? Does it make sense to set up a foundation during your lifetime to mitigate those consequences? These are just a few of the questions artists need to address. Where to begin might be the first question. I think having a complete digital inventory is a good place to start. I plan to post more information and resources over the coming months. Meanwhile, this book looks like it could be useful.
http://theartnewspaper.com/features/how-to-give-artists-life-after-death/
