The Keep is an impressive archival facility located in Sussex managed by The East Sussex Record Office, The University of Sussex Special Collections, and the Royal Pavilion and Museums Local History Collections.

Today’s archive experience allowed me to gain deeper insight into members of the Bloomsbury Group. These primary sources helped them transition from “characters” to people. The combination of photos, correspondence between Virginia Woolf and Leonard Woolf, pocket journals, scrapbooks, and book jackets all work to add context to the books we have read about the Bloomsbury Group and the places we have visited where they once walked. Slowly, they are becoming more three dimensional in my mind. I am learning their humor and wit, their faults, their love and lust, and even the quiet moments of them taking walks in photos.

In Frances Spalding’s The Bloomsbury Group, she reminds readers that Vanessa Bell once said, “I believe elegance is becoming rather tiresome.” Examining these book jackets, elegance is exchanged for whimsy in the best way. Bell’s style sweeps the reader's attention away from reality and into her image of swirling strokes and colors. I best felt this while examining her design of To The Lighthouse. The ocean waves sweep the viewer up into the lighthouse, and the light shines outward into the sky, leading the eye back down into the waves. 

I am also reminded that creation is not born in isolation. All of these archival documents give this notion credibility. I got to see tangible documentation from various people in Woolf’s life that contributed to her creative works. In this way, it can be compared to Woolf’s scrapbooks. These are made and bound by Woolf and collect various letters, newspaper clippings, and other documents as a way of unifying her quotes and themes in Three Guineas. The people in Woolf’s life act as a living scrap book for her creativity as well.