Archives of Wellspring
Some collections find their way to us through winding roads — unexpected kindnesses, family inheritances, a stranger’s offering. Here, we honor the stories that almost slipped away.
David Lenox Archive
(Tulsa, late 1960s - early 1970s)
Rescued from a forgotten collection, these Tulsa photographs reveal a world of aspiring models, overlooked parades, and the fading outlines of a city in transition.
Donald Whitaker Archive
(San Francisco & Texas, 1970s)
A quiet artist’s legacy in binders: nearly 10,000 frames across Texas and San Francisco, including glimpses of Joan Brown and blue-collar grace.
David Lenox Archive (Tulsa, late 1960s - early 1970s)
David Lenox, photographed around 1969 — the man behind the lens of the collection.
This collection began with a knock on a studio door.
A man, carrying stories no one else had wanted, offered a stack of forgotten film to Josh, the owner of the studio. Josh bought the collection for $300 and helped pack it from where it had fallen — scattered across the floor of a crumbling house, gathered into boxes and an empty litter pan.
When the film reached my hands, it was tangled and dusty, fragile with time. I spent the night sorting through each frame, piecing together what had almost been lost.
Photographer David Lenox captured women on the edge of dreams — posing for what appeared to be modeling portfolios, some tied to Accent Model Studio, a local agency he seemed to run alongside his wife. Among the photographs were handwritten notes: names, eye colors, schools attended, ambitions for careers yet to come. Some of these women later appeared in newspaper articles, carrying forward the dreams first captured quietly on film.
His camera followed them across Tulsa’s changing backdrop — by the old Camelot Hotel, through downtown parades, into corners of a city that has long since shifted.
More than 2,000 images make up the Lenox archive — a collection rescued by chance and preserved with care, offering a window into ambition, artistry, and the Tulsa of another time.
A Gathering of Stories
From the wide streets of Tulsa to the winding hills of San Francisco, these archives remind us that every place holds echoes. Every frame a heartbeat, every reel a record of presence. Some stories are found in chaos, others tucked neatly into order - but all of them ask to be seen.
The Donald Whitaker Archive (San Francisco & Texas, 1970s)
Donald Whitaker, photographed around 1970 — the man behind the lens of the collection.
This collection traces the quiet depth of Donald Whitaker’s world—moments of work and warmth, the texture of family life in Texas, and the creative pulse of San Francisco in the 1970s. His photographs capture people mid-motion: hands building, children laughing, artists dreaming.
The archive came to me unexpectedly, passed along through a friend who knew little of its weight. Inside seven brown binders, each one carefully filled with 35mm negatives, were nearly 10,000 photographs. Donald had clearly tended to them with care—each strip of film neatly arranged, preserved with intention. They became the first images I ever scanned, and unknowingly, the beginning of everything.
The way he kept his film—thoughtfully arranged in clear archival pages—left an impression. It inspired the organizing binders I now offer through Wellspring. I use nearly the same materials he did, a quiet echo of his original care, reshaped to serve others holding onto their own history.
Among the images is what appears to be Joan Brown—the celebrated Bay Area artist—tenderly caught in a moment with her young son and one of her paintings. A glimpse of art becoming life, and life becoming art.
What began as a quiet gift became something else entirely: a restored record of life, made visible again.
