The #HKfamcollection Catalog

Our art collection has grown greatly in the last two decades and because of this I have had to create a catalog. The main reason for the catalog was to keep track of portion of the collection in storage. I would say we have over 50% of the collection in storage currently. I published the first full edition of the catalog back in 2008 with the second edition right away in 2010. The second edition happened so quickly because there were so many pieces I missed in the first edition. I also learned that it was time to be serious about the collection and cataloging it not for our own entertainment but for legal reasons. We realized 10 years into building the collection we needed to make sure it’s insured. Around this time I created a database for the collection, which made life easier in communicating with our insurance company. 

We just published the third edition of the catalog this year and in this edition for the first time, we have included a lot of the social media snap shots and moments posted of the commission piece over the past few years. This third edition was almost too long of wait, 6 years worth of new pieces. The collection has doubled in size over the past few 6 years. In the last two years, I’ve slowed down a little. Being wrapped up in the kids lives has distracted many times over missing out on some amazing pieces. 

It’s only been two months since I published the third addition and I already have two new pieces in possession to add. Not to mention Paley’s 8th birthday portrait which is still on the artists easel. I also have two other pieces still on display in a show. The fourth edition is well into the works right now. I’ve toyed with putting the catalogs online to share with others but my gut tells me it would just open us up to something bad to happen.

How do I publish the catalogs, in Apple’s Photos product of course. The first and second edition was also done with now defunct iPhoto and Aperture. While the set templates are exhaustive to work since certain images just don’t want to fit properly. I tried exploring the option of just building the catalog in Adobe’s InDesign and then using a third party publisher but the costs was a little outrageous. Photos is a fraction of that cost.