threads of time - 3

my interest had been shifting away from the wittewronge family and their involvement in historical situations which continue to repeat themselves and towards their positive legacy...... in terms of what they had left behind which made a contribution and a theme of what immigrants bring to this country (rather than what they take from it)

the second meeting at the archive helped to redirect my thoughts towards different types and styles of record keeping – for example:

• Jacques worked as a Notary when he first came to England
• John kept his weather record
• Lady.Caroline Lawes drew on the family's papers for her scrap book
• the land and property acquired by members of the family had untold amounts of old records, some of which which predated jacob's arrival by centuries

14C tally sticks from Hertfordshire Archive

the document which especially caught my attention was a14C account scroll with a tally stick attached - I had heard of these in connection with keeping records of debts and goods/money exchanged and owing - so I did some google research on tally sticks ….. there was plenty to link them in with my “immigrants' legacy” theme - I haven't given much thought as to how I will bring these into my piece yet, but I will come back to them

another document which sparked interest was the brewhouse deeds – the Ww family got involved in brewing at a time when the use of hops was being promoted and popularised – their fortune was founded on this enterprise, they provided employment for many and became influential people .….. another link with my themes of record keeping and the legacy of immigrants ….. this feels like a positive development but I need to give further thought as to how to use it

meanwhile I have also begun to put together ideas about techniques and tools I might use:

• 

  a sample of digitized script
  stitched onto lutradur & zapped

  since the Secret Message workshop with Wendy Creek I have wanted to apply the technique I learned – I had been considering getting some thermofax screens made up from patterns produced at the workshop – now I thought I could do that using script, symbols and motifs from the archive documents
• getting my computerized embroidery machine would potentially allow me to digitize hand-writing and script and convert it to stitch – I could use photos of script etc as source material, digitally manipulate them in paintshop then digitize them to build up stitched patterns

of course there will have to be some hand-stitching involved - that sounds like the beginnings of a plan