Domestic Archaeology, (part 5) Excavation

Excavation Site #1   uh, this one is about 2 ft tall and maybe 3 ft wide

 I started this one by lashing an old hooked rug to a drying-rack frame.  You can see just a bit of the rug pattern on the top left side. This is another variation on the concept of digging out domestic history, going underneath the cover layers to find the real story. Excavation Site #1 digs through top layers of wool and bound buttonholes to reveal sewing boxes, crochet, ceramic prints of spools, right down to the underlying burlap.   

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I love archaeological  and paleontological digs  (when I die, I want to be fossilized). Here is an actual excavation in Barcelona.... 

....and a archaeological dig found online:

...which I photoshopped to make this, some of which is visible near the upper rightside in the first picture.

All that archaeology, and just this tiny bit winds up in the piece.

There's also a lovely old sewing case, covered in work red velvet. Here's the inside: 

And that same photo, as a black & white image:

Which also was printed and sewn into the excavation. You can see it in the first picture, in the lower left side.

As I said, this was built on top of an old hooked rug. In some places, the overlying wool has been cut away and the rug  - and even the burlap - has been exposed:

The brownish-green wool fabric here is part of an old army blanket. The two round objects here are ceramic impressions of spools: I take plastic  and wooden spools and press them into clay.

Another excavation on Friday.