Where will your art go?

If you make art, it's possible that the people around you, particularly your family, don't have an interest in what you do. If you share what you create with them, they are likely pleased that you enjoy what you do, but aren't actively interested in what you create. If I'm wrong, then lucky you! But if I'm right, then I wonder if you have pondered where will your art go when you can't create anymore or you have moved on to the next realm? Does it matter?

A find at an estate sale

It might seem like a morbid question, but I have been thinking about it since I went to an estate sale a few weeks ago and bought some beautiful oversized travel scrapbooks from the 1930s and 40s. Why wouldn't relatives want to keep these treasures, which were detailed records of family adventures? As I was looking through them I learned that they were put together by a man (the grandfather of the retiree--a grandfather himself, whose house I was in).

The scrapbooks were very well done. They included photos, of course, but then there was writing--descriptions of everything, there were postcards, headlines cut out of the local paper, souvenirs, and even pressed flowers from their locations.

So even though the photos or the places didn't really resonate with me, I bought a few. It was a little sad to me that these scrapbooks were being sold off along with the furniture and everything else. It’s not surprising, though. There are many people who just don’t care about keeping scrapbooks.

Here are some pages with flower samples. Couldn't these be important to botanists somewhere?

Something to think about

I decided to pose the question to my Facebook Group: What do you plan to do with your journals and gluebooks when you are done with them? What do you do if/when no one in your family has an interest in the kind of art you do? Are your creations mainly for your enjoyment? Would it matter if no one wants what you’ve created?

Though some people said that they hoped a child or grandchild would be interested in something like gluebooks, many were of the opinion that it didn't much matter, they were mainly for personal creativity, to look through and review or to get inspiration from older work. Others said that it wasn't so bad that scrapbooks like the ones I bought were being sold. Rather that an interested stranger purchase them than they go into the trash.

I haven't decided what to do with the scrapbooks I bought. They weren't cheap, at $25 a piece. I'd like to take everything out, use the postcards, ephemera, and photos separately, but I'm afraid I don't have the nerve to destroy them. So now what? Are they destined to sit in my garage, taking up space? I don't want that either. My house is not an archive.

If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, I'd be open to considering what to do with old scrapbooks and art in general. Are there special universities, organizations, collectors who are willing to take old works rather than them going to a dumpster? Many of us would like to know.