The beginning of a new project – Resting Place. Although it may well end up being called Embroider the Truth. Only time will tell. I will refer to it as Resting Place for now.
Although this is a new project it really began back in 2008 when i started to transcibe the diary of Clarice Alberta Spratling. Clarice was a Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) Nurse who volunteered in 1915 and was posted to France where she served for the duration of the First World War. As i was reading the diary i was reminded of some photos i had rescued years earlier. The photos were in an old suitcase that my mother had put ready to go to the tip. I took the suitcase home with me and put it in my attic, with the intention of sorting through it one day. On further inspection of the contents of the suitcase i discovered not only photographs of Clarice in the hospitals in France, along with other nursing staff, doctors and soldiers who were patients but also other documents relating to her life and a notebook containing her handwritten lace patterns, recipes and remedies.
It became apparent that i needed to make some work inspired by this archive in a suitacse and a body of work entitled ‘Reading Between the Lines’ was the result
Clarice, Wimereux, France 1915/16
There is more information about Reading Between the Lines on my website www.dawncole.co.uk
Reading Between the Lines was my response to what was in the archive; without further research beyond. I wanted to make an immediate reponse to what was presented to me. To make connections and assumptions and with the thought that an archive is only as good as the information in it.
Resting Place now takes my work to the next stage; to research beyond the archive and using the archive as the catalyst for the research. This is what this blog will record. My research, ideas, thoughts and decisions based on what i find. Today is the start.
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