Up: [[Creating a Body of Work]] Related: [[Project Boxes]] Created: 2024-07-13 Updated: 2025-12-30 If you dumped the contents of your junk drawer into a cardboard box, you’d have one of Andy Warhol’s Time Capsules. Of course, there are significant differences between your junk and Andy Warhol’s. Notably, you likely aren’t intending to sell it as art. And you (hopefully) don’t have 610 such boxes. Warhol's Time Capsules are compilations of everyday materials from magazines to unpaid bills, legal documents to personal correspondence, artworks done by Warhol or his friends to newspaper clippings. Warhol would make some contributions to the open boxes scattered around his office and studio, but his studio assistants were expected to do most of the compiling. Once finished, the boxes were closed up, ready for sale. Warhol didn’t like reviewing the boxes because he felt like he was going back in time. Warhol’s original intent was to sell the boxes as artwork, each one for $4000, to be bought sight unseen so you had no idea of the contents. But the boxes were never sold and the entire collection is now at the Warhol Museum. The Time Capsules have been beneficial to archivists because they provide context for Warhol’s life and make clear the connections between the culture and his art. > [!User] Images from Warhol's boxes in this AGO article > [What’s in a Box?](https://ago.ca/agoinsider/whats-box) #### My Thoughts When I first found out about Warhol’s Time Capsules, I thought it was nuts. It would be like me saving the contents of my paper recycling bin. It’s exactly the same thing, the only difference being that I’m not famous. But then I read Annie Ernaux’s Nobel prize-winning book, *The Years* and I can see that there’s value in providing context of a period of time in one’s life. My paper recycling bins would do that. In a way, the Time Capsules are similar to Twyla Tharp's [[Project Boxes]], or at least they would be if there had been any intention of doing something with the compiled material. I include context for every dream that I write up because dreams are often related to events in our waking life. Lots of context is provided through my daily Hearth notes, at least in terms of what I’m doing in my own life — what I’m working on, who I’m talking with, how much sleep I’m getting.... I almost never write context of what’s happening in society. I’ve just never been particularly interested in that sort of thing. Do I need to rethink that?