This series contains material related to Burkhart's work as a multidisciplinary artist using techniques including painting, collage, drawing, art installations, photography, and filmmaking. Specific artworks and projects with a significant amount of material in this series include the The Abortion Project, Torture Paintings, Nudes, Numbers & Letters, and Still Life Series/Hard Core. Paper and electronic files contain sale invoices; loan agreements; exhibition installation images; artwork images; and exhibition promotional and planning files. Files related to Burkhart's Liz Taylor Series artworks are arranged into Series II, although Taylor Series material may be found throughout Series I, if it was listed or shown with other Burkhart artworks.

Burkhart's creative process as it relates to her video projects is illustrated through both her paper and electronic file notes, project descriptions, and film stills, as well as video and sound recordings on various formats. Video projects with significant documentation in this series include Spendthrift, 1001 Coffee Shops, Nicole, Shave, American Woman, and Fugue. This series also contains a video recording, reviews, film stills, screening invitation, and project descriptions for "Performance, May May 26, 1995 Pascara, Italy," an art performance piece and the wedding ceremony for Burkhart and Jozef van Wissem. This project also included limited edition handcuffs which were produced to accompany this video piece, and this series contains handcuff descriptions, images, and documentation. Her correspondence files contain communications with gallery owners, fellow artists, exhibition curators, and art collectors.

Funding files in this series contain correspondence, status and final reports, as well as application packets which often include project descriptions, artwork images, artist statements, and resumes. This type of funding opportunities made it possible for Burkhart to support herself as a writer and artist.

From the 1980s to 2017, Burkhart lived part of the year in a live/work space in Brooklyn. This series contains the accumulation of files related to Burkart and other resident artists' decades-long conflict with her Brooklyn aprtment/studio building owners, due to poor maintenance of the building. Her documentation of unsafe living conditions and subsequent legal actions were collected in the form of correspondence photographs, and public court documents. This series also contains ad postings, correspondence, sublet agreements, conflict documentation, and apartment use instruction lists related to Burkhart subletting her apartment to various artists while living in Holland for a portion of the year.

Burkhart's The Liz Taylor Series (1982-ongoing) is a self-portrait project in which the artist uses the image of actress Elizabeth Taylor to explore fantasies and evoke the artists genderqueer identity. Stills of Taylor taken from her films are painted in a cartoonish style with profane text superimposed over the work. This series contains material related to the creation, sale, promotion, and exhibition of these artworks.

A large collection of source material specifically related to Elizabeth Taylor was accumulated over decades by Burkhart and used as inspiration and background research for her artworks. Source material is in print and electronic form, and includes issues of gossip magazines, commercial publications, special edition publications, fan magazines, press clippings, authorized and unauthorized biographies, and also film stills and promotional images of Taylor alone and with others. Word type treatments used when superimposing words over the artworks are in this series. Files in this series also contain correspondence, sales invoices, consignment agreements, donation forms for fundraisers, exhibition promotional material, and images of artworks and exhibition installations. Additional material related to this painting series can be found throughout the collection.

This series contains material related to Burhart's poems, haikus, short stories, articles, and novels. Files in this series include short published pieces, work files for novels, and recordings of readings and performances. Drafts, notes, and published versions of poems, haikus, short stories, as well as review articles by Burkhart are also in this series. A significant amount of the paper and electronic files in this series pertain to the creation of various Burkhart books, including From Under the 8-Ball (published in 1985), The Double Standard (published in 2002 and 2005), The Double Standard (published in 2005), and Dudes (published in 2014). These files contain drafts, research, page and cover layouts, and correspondence with publishers, agents, and friends. Burkhart's 2006 novel Between the Lines was inspired by letters sent to her Aunt Grace Knipe from her friend Kate Gibson. Paper and electronic files related to the writing and publishing of this novel include research, drafts, page layouts, and correspondence. The original letters are in Series VII.

Burkhart has worked as a graphic designer for clients including American Express, Coach, and Dutch East India Trading / Homestead Records. This series includes source image material, client work files, correspondence, and work samples. Work files can contain project sample boards, print layout sheets, and her design-related resume and business cards. Burkhart also designed cover art for some of her ex-husband Jozef van Wissem's music albums, of which there are proofs and CDs represented in this series. Her promotional fliers, advertisements, and album cover artwork for the Dutch East India Trading and Homestead Records during the 1980s are also in this series. Various other completed client samples in this series include advertisements, brochures, and magazine layout pages, which illustrate the breadth of her clientele, from jewelry companies to recording studios. She also worked on a number of book cover designs, including Country Herbs and American Country Living: The Ultimate Lifestyle Compendium. Copies of those books are in this series to fully represent her work, along with layout boards. There are also cover design work samples for Burkhart's own novel, From Under the 8-Ball, published in 1985.

Burkhart has been a professor at New York University and similar arts-related institutions teaching courses often themed around issues of art, sex, activism, and feminism. This series contains support material for specific classes as well as files on the application and administration of her various appointments, dating from the late 1980s to the mid-2010s. Class titles including Drawing I and II; Sex and Contemporary Visual Art; Art and Activism; and Introduction to Critical Theory. Documentation related to these classes includes course descriptions, syllabi, reading lists, notes, student correspondence, and images and lists of artworks used as visual aids during lectures. A significant amount of paper and electronic files in this series relate to Burkhart's course Medusa's Laugh: Contemporary Feminist Concepts and Visual Culture dating from 2003 to 2010, and includes readings, syllabi, lecture notes, and reading questions.

Files related to the administration of her teaching positions contain lists of courses taught in previous years, and correspondence referring to applications to various institutions including New York University, Columbia University, and School of Visual Arts. Application files include course descriptions, references, resumes, and images of her work. This series also includes a small collection of identification cards from various institutions where she taught, and teaching philosophy statements.

This series contains personal material in paper and electronic form, containing correspondence, photographs, astrological readings, and school ephemera, as well as musical mix tapes and audio correspondence to a friend. Print and digital images include pets, travel, friends, ex-husband Jozef van Wissem, professional portraits of Burkhart, gallery and museum events, and interior images of her apartments/studios in both Amsterdam and New York. Her correspondence dates from the 1970s to the 2010s, with friends, romantic partners, and fellow artists. Martinsburg High School and Shepherd College ephemera includes a yearbook, graduation announcement, and class notes. Ephemera from CalArts, where she studied art in the 1980s, includes a graduation announcement and various student publications containing her artwork and writings. Other personal items in this series include address books, published interview profiles on Burkhart, pet passports and related, and astrological readings and recordings. Photographs and clippings from Burkhart's wedding ceremony/performance piece with Jozef van Wissem are in this series. Video recordings and further documentation of the performance piece can be found in Series I.

The Grace Knipe Papers were accumulated by her niece Kathe Burkhart and include Knipe's personal correspondence, diaries, notebooks, writings, and childhood ephemera, dating from the early 1900s to the 1990s. There is a small amount of early childhood ephemera including early 1900s school notes, as well as early poems and stories written sporadically from 1914 to 1977. Knipe's personal diaries date from 1929 to 1948 and are entered mostly in mini monthly journal books which typically contain daily appointments, family activities, work, national news, and the weather. This series also includes books and notes kept while Knipe participated in a Christian women's group through her church. This series contains a photograph of Knipe at 100 years old and obituaries for her husband William in 1959, and herself in 1996. There is also correspondence from neice Kathe Burkhart and also Knipe's sister dating from the 1970s to the 1980s. Burkhart wrote a book, Between the Lines (published in 2006), which was inspired by letters found after her aunt's death that were from Kate Gibson during the 1920s and 1930s. They appeared to have a close friendship and the letters often included family and friend news as well as events in their daily lives, while Grace worked outside the home in an office, and Kate lived in her family home and dealt with chronic illness.

This series contains journals, notebooks, diaries, and datebooks dating from the 1960s to the 2010s. Burkhart's early notebooks from the 1960s to the 1980s contain her thoughts and feelings growing up in West Virginia as a teen and young adult navigating high school and college, and also include poetry, notes to boyfriends, as well as her thoughts on artworks, college class notes, and projects. Later writings were often kept in appointment books, and entries were frequently a mixture of personal and professional thoughts, including studio notes, project ideas, travel plans, finances, relationship issues, poetry, and personal goals. These books are presently not available to researchers.