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solarbirdI'm working on moving my ministudio out of the library/office/server room and upstairs into the storeroom/guestroom, thereby making it a studio/guestroom, and I'm trying to figure out what to Do with Stuff. Some of it's no problem - a lot of empty boxes being held pending expiration of warranties, things like that. G'BYE! Some is just a matter of repacking, or putting on the storage shelves in the basement.
One of the difficult cases, however... okay, this is a music journal, and I talk about my music here, but I used to be pretty seriously active as a visual artist and glass sculptor. I haven't done much of this lately - I keep my hand in, a little, doing design work, I even draw a very little once in a while. And I have this massive and completely unsorted collection of human and animal figure reference shots taken from magazines, calendars, and anywhere else that I could grab, all from the pre-web days.
I've never sorted them, or, in fact, actually ever used them. But I have two rather substantial boxes of it that I never got around to sorting. Better yet, the last time I tried, it triggered a massive allergy attack from dust and whatever. Since then, I've had a lot of allergy shots and I have a HEPA filter and I could probably open the boxes now without falling over or anything, but I'm really supposed to avoid exposure to things like that.
This is a pretty decent start to what they used to call an image morgue - sorted and filed, it'd be probably two large filing cabinet drawers. It's probably 15 years of image gathering, and I hate to throw something like that away. The odds of me ever sorting it or using it or anything is... pretty low. But not zero. And there's the allergy thing.
So. Any thoughts?
One of the difficult cases, however... okay, this is a music journal, and I talk about my music here, but I used to be pretty seriously active as a visual artist and glass sculptor. I haven't done much of this lately - I keep my hand in, a little, doing design work, I even draw a very little once in a while. And I have this massive and completely unsorted collection of human and animal figure reference shots taken from magazines, calendars, and anywhere else that I could grab, all from the pre-web days.
I've never sorted them, or, in fact, actually ever used them. But I have two rather substantial boxes of it that I never got around to sorting. Better yet, the last time I tried, it triggered a massive allergy attack from dust and whatever. Since then, I've had a lot of allergy shots and I have a HEPA filter and I could probably open the boxes now without falling over or anything, but I'm really supposed to avoid exposure to things like that.
This is a pretty decent start to what they used to call an image morgue - sorted and filed, it'd be probably two large filing cabinet drawers. It's probably 15 years of image gathering, and I hate to throw something like that away. The odds of me ever sorting it or using it or anything is... pretty low. But not zero. And there's the allergy thing.
So. Any thoughts?
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Date: 2009-07-17 03:43 am (UTC)A dust mask and cans of Lysol spray.
I've been going through something similar, discovering that things (including magazines) I put in cardboard boxes in my basement are nasty. Some of them from cockroach invasions. (Why any of these boxes would attract those vermin I don't understand. Why one would be full of their droppings and dead bodies while those around it are pristine baffles me.) I believe mold is the biggest culprit, however. I'm slowly moving things from the cardboard boxes to plastic storage bins with tight lids. I'm putting mothballs in all of them, dehumidification packets in some, and spraying the worst thoroughly with Lysol.
Also, Febreze makes a version of its spray specifically designed to reduce allergens.
Whether or not you save those photos, you'll probably need to work with long-close boxes at some point.