As someone in love with history, I became introduced and immediately fascinated with genealogy five or six years ago. So, it is not surprising that the subject comes up in my art a lot. I had always wondered what existed beyond the stories passed down through my family and told over holiday meals. I wanted to know what kind of people I came from, what they accomplished, and where they lived. I'd always hoped that I'd discover they were similar to me in some way. I searched for repetitions and connections in my "roots", and found several interesting stories and pieces of information that I could relate to. Yet, with most amateur ancestry-detective work, there comes a time when you have no more clues to go on. My research into my mother's ancestry, the Thompsons (father), Cooks (mother), and Greens (mother's mother) each left me in the late 1700s. My father's side, the Egertons (father), brought me back into the medieval ages-which was exciting. However, knowing only the names of those before us is a bit unfulfilling. I don't know very much about my ancestors apart from when they immigrated, where they lived, and what some of their occupations were. It is only human to look at the pieces of evidence you have, and speculate, give life. --- I created a piece last semester, "Abandoning the Origins", and wanted to do another piece about it. I thought it would be great to discover an ancestor that worked for an archaeologist, so that I could pose him discovering these relics. I also wanted to imagine that the piece was found broken (it was broken during a firing) and glued haphazardly back together, as a lot of old pieces were (as I was gluing it back together, I felt like an early archaeologist, as least). A few images from the piece mentioned above; you can read more about it in my blog Archaeology became popular during the Renaissance (approx. late 14th - early 17th century), where ancient art became idealized and sought after. Archaeological digs became common, with overseers either keeping the finds for their mansions or gardens, or to sell to wealthy nobles. Digs were not as carefully planned or carried out, with damage done to many artifacts, pieces altered, or permanently marked with writing or numbers. One ancestor I discovered, Stephen Green, was born in Yorkshire, England in the mid 1700s. Antiquity was still in style, and English ruins were ransacked for Roman art (Rome had a large influence, with artifacts from them found all across Europe and northern Africa). Stephen would have never been able to fund a dig or own a piece of history, but the workers who dug the sites were of low class. So, it is not impossible that he did not participate in such an event. Stephen also earned enough money to purchase a boat for his family to sail to America and begin a new life in Kentucky; treasure hunter's workers were probably paid a lump sum at the end of their job, which would be a satisfactory story for my 6th-great grandfather's travels. Events of some importance or relevance to those of importance were often documented through charcoal drawings. Charcoal is a medium artists can use to quickly create an image. Though not as much detail can be rendered with charcoal as graphite, recognizable settings and people can be produced, as well as a wide range of values. So, I placed Stephen in a charcoal drawing of a dig in Europe that resulted in the discovery of something far more ancient than artwork from the Romans. I named the piece "James Ashford, Stephen Green, & Benjamin Carpenter; overseen by Joseph Hadley, 1783" after an inscription I wrote on the back, emulating historical documents of the past. Each of the other characters are also fictionalized, although I did do some research on common names in England during this time period. A younger version of Stephen holding the center Stegosaurus plate that is broken Mr. Hadley in his upper class clothing Further along on the piece. A young man, Mr. Ashford, has been developed in the image. Both wear distinctive lower class clothing, with boot-like shoes without buckles and rough wool overcoats instead of silk. Excavated ruins and a hole in the ground A fully fleshed out Hadley Finished rendering of the two men on a pile of dirt Mr. Carpenter in the hole Scan of the image, distressed to look older Finished version with stains, scratches, and other additions to give it an aged look
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AuthorKristen Puckett Archives
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