Archives West Finding Aid

Containing several of the original copies of Parsons' manuscripts for her books, this series is organized loosely by manuscript title, but largely maintains the original order. Manuscripts in the series include Passport to Art, The Little Girl from Indiana, and It's All in your Head, along with writings about her travels around Europe, her personal life, and the notes of her travel companion Carol during a trip to France.

The exhibit fliers series is organized chronologically and includes materials from many other Pacific Northwest artists in the form of letters, posters, postcards, and publications advertising for the shows of artists from the mid 1950s to 2016. The majority of exhibit fliers reference members of the Portland art community, giving an insider view to the close-knit nature of this group of artists specifically in the late 1960s, 70s and early 80s.

This Series contains a wide variety of visual media as well as several video interviews with Parsons. It includes images that describe the different aspects of Parsons' life, ranging from her teaching slides, personal photos from around the home, slides from her trips to Europe, and images of her artwork over the years. The negatives show two specific focuses, firstly upon the monuments that are captured, mainly from France, and secondly upon her companions during her travels.

This series provides a view into several decades of Parsons' artistic progress through the lens of her sketchbooks, drawings, watercolor paintings, and other visual explorations of new forms. Within this series is the sketchbook that Parsons took with her to New York in 1957, which she used to record what she saw when traveling across the country, as well as the study watercolors that are now decorating the fireplace in her home, and even a series of preliminary sketches along with their finished product, Opus #2.

This series of the collection contains many notable items from Eunice Parsons' time at the Museum Art School, as well as containing a list of the locations where she showed and sold her artworks spanning a period of two decades.

This series, focusing on correspondence between Parsons and her many contacts around the Northwest, emphasizes Parsons' ideal of doing "anything to make correspondence less banal." It is characterized by the artistic inclinations and personalities of the senders. Almost exclusively in the form of Christmas cards, there are many different styles present. Many of these Christmas cards can be traced back to the Museum Art School, where the instructors annually made their own Christmas cards. Many of these Christmas cards contain short notes about the New Year, or about the recent exhibitions of the sender. Also contained are letters between Parsons and her colleagues detailing artistic, economic, and personal problems, as well as untitled, small scale artworks without a name or clear sender.