In 2015 Terry Svat was selected as one of ten artists in the District of Columbia to participate in Art Cart: Saving the Legacy. Her life works were organized, labeled, and documented. They are now permanently archived at Columbia University’s open-source archive, Academic Commons, as “The Art Cart Collection.” The final project was an exhibition in 2016 at the Katzen Center at the American University with an open panel discussion involving all participating artists.
The project Art Cart: Saving the Legacy, launched in New York City and Washington DC, grew from research conducted by the Research Center for Arts and Culture. It revealed that artists are in many respects a model for society, maintaining strong social networks and an astonishing resilience as they age. Yet 95% of artists over 62 years of age who have spent a lifetime making art have not archived their works.