My name is Lisbet Tellefsen and I’m an Oakland, California-based collector and community archivist. I’ve been a collector my whole life - not unusual for the generation of folks who grew up in the 60s and 70s. Back then, every kid on the block collected something, be it comics, baseball cards, stamps - you name it. I grew up in Berkeley and one of my jobs as a teenager was in a print shop called The Print Mint. The Print Mint was an early publisher/distributor of underground comix and psychedelic posters. Since then, I’ve been obsessed with visual culture.
I was raised in an eclectic village of immigrants, organizers, and folks in the black radical tradition. My grandfather-figure, Matt N. Crawford, was a lifelong organizer and was also one of his generation’s 'Keeper of the Papers' - those who take it upon themselves to preserve their generation’s records and ephemera. Matt’s file cabinet held the stories of his six decades of activism: from correspondence with friends like Langston Hughes and Paul Robeson to his photos taken on a 1932 trip to the Soviet Union, a trip organized by his closest friend Louise Thompson Patterson (a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance and beyond, who also chaired the New York Committee to Free Angela Davis). As a kid, I would begrudgingly accompany Matt on visits to his friends. One of my biggest takeaways was how all their houses felt similar: shelves overflowing with books, photographs, and sculptures adorning every surface, walls lined with artwork collected throughout a lifetime of travels. They were all collectors and this was my inspiration. From an early age I dreamt of the day when I too would live surrounded by the treasures accumulated during my own life’s journey.
My collections trace the evolution of my interests: the 60s was all about pop culture; in the 70s, I began collecting posters; in the 80s, I was obsessed with Latin vinyl and AfroCuban culture; by the 90s, I was immersed in black LGBTQ culture, and so on.
Proximity to historic figures like Louise Thompson Patterson, Angela Davis, and leaders from the Black Panther Party to the Black Gay Renaissance also expanded my practice from collecting specific ephemera towards building broad, rich archives. I started to get requests to help others pull together and develop their personal papers. Focusing the skills I’d honed over the years, I found I was very good at building collections on virtually any topic I was tasked with. That continues to this day.
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The past decade has been devoted towards manifesting the Angela Davis exhibit/catalog, ANGELA DAVIS: SEIZE THE TIME. This process has brought me some of the favorite pieces in my collection: 75 original courtroom sketches, Faith Ringgold/Angela Davis-related prints, hundreds of original press photographs. My current project is also close to home: developing a black LGBTQ+ time capsule with material I accumulated during the 80s and 90s as the publisher of an early black lesbian zine, Aché. Some favorites include a sweet little archive of manuscripts and inscribed works from one of Audre Lorde’s early girlfriends, four vintage signed prints of the Kitchen Table Press collective and icon Storme DeLarverie by photographer J.E.B. The absolute highlight: a photograph taken by my godfather Matt featuring Harlem Renaissance writer Dorothy West with 'first love' Mildred Jones on their 1932 trip to the Soviet Union. It was 10 years after his passing that I would stumble across the lesbian love triangle story that the photo helped illustrate. One of my few regrets: I wish I asked more questions, took better notes, and kept better records.
These days, my most meaningful acquisitions are all tinged with nostalgia, like a 1947 letter written by Matt as Secretary of the Civil Rights Congress found recently at Bolerium Books, or the signed first edition of We Charge Genocide by William L. Patterson, Louise’s second husband.
From where I sit today, surrounded by overflowing bookcases and the treasures accumulated over a wild, rich life - a collector’s life - I would wish it on anybody.
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