JOURNAL
On Beginning an Archive
A note on gathering the things worth returning to.
An archive begins as a habit long before it becomes a place. A book is finished and a line is pencilled in the margin; an object is carried home and its story is jotted on the back of an envelope. Only later does it occur to you that these small acts were a single project all along.
The purpose of keeping an archive is not to hoard but to pay attention. To describe something properly, you first have to look at it properly. That, more than the shelf or the catalogue, is what the work is for.
A good archive is also a conversation across time. The person who writes the entry and the person who rereads it years later are never quite the same, and the page is where they meet.