Lab Update- Dec. 3, 2009

Jeffrey Lee and Allison Mehlenbacher have been working hard with Jessica Montcalm, washing, cataloging, and labeling the fragments of Davenport-made ceramic from the cellar pit feature at the site.  Their efforts have begun to yield fruit!  This week they finished labeling the artifacts from level 12, the largest and most densely packed layer of pottery waster fragments in the feature.  

Jeff and Allison are now starting to sort out another level:

Now that the individual pieces are labeled, they are beginning to reconstruct ceramic vessels.  This is like doing a jigsaw puzzle, but where someone removed 2/3 of the pieces, scratched off the puzzle picture or pattern, and warped, charred, and burned those fragments that remain.  Despite those challenges, Jeff and Allison have already been able to substantially reconstruct two basins.  I'm not sure what this vessel form is, but we are all excitedly discussing various possibilities!  They are deep, tall basins with wide mouths, straight, but sloped sides, and flat rims.

Object Photography

I spent a bunch of time today working with Benjamin Howe of Mishap Studios, taking photographs of pottery objects that will be in our exhibit, Potters of the Gathering: Clay Work in Early Utah.  We were taking photos for the small catalog booklet that Utah State Parks plans to publish for the exhibit.  These are a preview of the photographs in the book and the objects that will be in the exhibit:

These are some of the items that will be on display May 2 through July 31.  

Darrin, Ryan, and I finished the display panels and have taken them over to Rainbow Sign and Banner  to be printed and mounted on thick foam core board.  I spent some time this afternoon priming vitrine bases again.  I expect to spend more time tomorrow painting them black and perhaps we'll be able to start putting objects into cases by the end of the week!