April Griess, The Joey Skaggs Collection, Summer 2020, NEH
For summer 2020, I was an intern with The Joey Skaggs Collection. The Joey Skaggs Collection is the personal archive of artist Joey Skaggs. Joey Skaggs is a socio-political satirist, performance artist, and activist who, for decades, pioneered the use of the media as an integral part of his artwork. Skaggs’ art is both timely and timelessly relevant in that he has tackled far-ranging cultural, political, and social issues, producing works that question and challenge authority and examine societal beliefs. The collection holds 50+ years of artwork and documentation created by Joey Skaggs in the 1960s and his personal/family archive dating back to the late 1800s. My work there was completed remotely over video chat, email, and phone calls due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
I worked directly with Kelly Haydon, NYU MIAP Adjunct Professor, Joey Skaggs, Artist, and Judy Drosd, Film Producer, and Archive Manager of The Joey Skaggs Collection. For the internship, I wrote a comprehensive collection assessment of The Joey Skaggs Collection to describe the contents and assess the preservation needs of the collection. While at the same time, aid potential collecting institutions with the acquisition of materials. Joey Skaggs, Judy Drosd, and I created two oral history test recordings to add Skaggs’ voice as another element for contextualizing the collection. I took an SAA webinar on Describing Archives, A Content Standard (DACS), and received virtual training from Kelly Haydon on the use of ArchivesSpace. Throughout the internship, I spoke to three professionals in the archiving and curating field, which helped me understand how various institutions and curators make collection acquisitions.
More about Joey Skaggs and his work at joeyskaggs.com
Joey Skaggs pedaling Portofess, his mobile confessional booth, on his way to the Democratic National Convention in 1992 to hear the confessions of politicians, courtesy of The Joey Skaggs Collection.
