Class Reflection...
As part of The Harry Brorby Project class, students were split up into five groups, which are in brief: Organization, Provenance, Timeline, Digitization, and Content Management. I was project manager for the organization of archival materials and part of the provenance reconstruction group managed by Erin Schregardus. My responsibilities for both groups for the most part went hand-in-hand. While sifting through and categorizing the many boxes containing artist Harry Brorby’s personal documents, drawings, photographs and belongings, I pulled exhibition pamphlets, lists, and letters detailing the locations and prices of some of his works of art to add to the provenance folder. Individually, my contributions were not what one may consider “unique,” but rather more general in the fact that as a group we were all striving for one goal: finding, categorizing, and labeling folders of information in an attempt to organize what we have of Brorby’s life.
This class was an amazing opportunity and an eye-opening experience into the archival process. I wish I had been able to devote more time outside of class to the organization of primary resources, as I find it extremely intriguing. There is something about preserving someone’s memory and discovering things about their life that is quite fascinating. Unfortunately, with the course load I had this past semester, it made it difficult to not only prioritize, but also divide my time accordingly between classes. Personally, it felt like too much was being forced upon the class at once with not enough in-class time to work. This semester, my attention was not only divided between classes, but assignments within a single course. In my opinion, the Brorby class should have been more focused on getting all the primary sources organized in preparation for the next class so they have more of a framework to work with. Throughout the entirety of the semester I feel as though I have spread myself thin and was never able to fully delve into one specific area like I would have liked.
The time I was able to devote to this course has been a learning experience. There has been a lot that has frustrated me, but there have also been things I have enjoyed: my individual research project to be more specific. After coming across Melvin’s many photographs from all his travels, most notably India, I wanted to find out more about his life. These interests lead to the discovery of a hand-written memoir of his which I took the liberty to type up in its entirety and am consequently using it as the basis of my research paper. Again, I wish I had more time to do further research because when I do start to work on this aspect of my project, I tend to lose myself in his world and all the adventures he had and the people he met. More time would have allowed me to successfully complete multiple assignments over the duration of the class.
This class was an amazing opportunity and an eye-opening experience into the archival process. I wish I had been able to devote more time outside of class to the organization of primary resources, as I find it extremely intriguing. There is something about preserving someone’s memory and discovering things about their life that is quite fascinating. Unfortunately, with the course load I had this past semester, it made it difficult to not only prioritize, but also divide my time accordingly between classes. Personally, it felt like too much was being forced upon the class at once with not enough in-class time to work. This semester, my attention was not only divided between classes, but assignments within a single course. In my opinion, the Brorby class should have been more focused on getting all the primary sources organized in preparation for the next class so they have more of a framework to work with. Throughout the entirety of the semester I feel as though I have spread myself thin and was never able to fully delve into one specific area like I would have liked.
The time I was able to devote to this course has been a learning experience. There has been a lot that has frustrated me, but there have also been things I have enjoyed: my individual research project to be more specific. After coming across Melvin’s many photographs from all his travels, most notably India, I wanted to find out more about his life. These interests lead to the discovery of a hand-written memoir of his which I took the liberty to type up in its entirety and am consequently using it as the basis of my research paper. Again, I wish I had more time to do further research because when I do start to work on this aspect of my project, I tend to lose myself in his world and all the adventures he had and the people he met. More time would have allowed me to successfully complete multiple assignments over the duration of the class.