Art Log

Whenever I’m asked about my favorite medium, I’m tempted to answer…spreadsheets!

Since I tend to accumulate more information that my memory can handle, I build spreadsheets for almost everything I consider important or interesting. I get a little tingly over formulas and automation, but even a simple sheet is a joy when it does its job well. 

My Art Log spreadsheet was inspired by my grad school professor, Mary Lee Hu, who urged us to make a regular habit of recording all the salient details of our artwork in one centralized location. Mary kept her own log on a stack of index cards and it worked just fine; when a museum approached her about mounting a retrospective she was able to look in her cards for the details and current location of almost every piece they asked for! I updated her idea into a digitized spreadsheet and even if it never comes in handy for a retrospective, having all this info in one place has shaved hours off of filling out applications (see the “Mise en place” section of my previous post). 

Don’t yet have a log of your own? Here’s a simple template in Google Spreadsheets that you can use as a starting point. Some of these fields I fill in religiously, others only when relevant: 

• Image: this relatively new Google feature is so useful! Click in the box to highlight it, then go to Insert, then Image. 
• Series: what other work might this piece be grouped with (even if these pieces were not specifically made to go together)? This could be a category in your own mind, but it’s also useful if it would make sense to an outside observer. For example, I was recently asked what mouth brooches I have in stock; I was able to easily sort the Series column for mouth brooches and then look at the Sold / Stock column. 
• Sold / Stock: if you needed to quickly put your hands on a piece, where would you find it? If you keep all your stock in one place that might be enough info, but if you have things stashed in different places, note it here. If the work sells, note the venue, the date, the wholesale and retail prices, and if at all possible get the name and contact information for the buyer (some galleries are more forthcoming with this if they understand that you are just keeping records, not trying to court the buyer directly). The buyer info is crucial if the work is one that you consider particularly strong or emblematic, so when that museum gets in touch about your retrospective you know where to find your best work. 
• Shown / Published: add a duplicate column every time the work makes a public appearance (some of my older pieces have a dozen Shown / Published entries). Note any pricing associated with the event; my codes are R for retail price, W for wholesale, and INS for the insurance value if the work was not for sale. 
• Notes: did the work get broken? Lost? Did you turn it into something else? 

Of course you can tailor the fields to suit your own needs, but it’s worth making a strict habit of taking a photo and filling in the log whenever a new piece leaves your hands—whatever the reason, whether or not you expect it to come back. When you’re just starting out you may think that you’ll remember how big each piece is, or who bought it, but most of us won’t, and the longer you wait to start keeping records, the tougher it will be.