While I was in Virginia at OSGF last year attending an artist’s residency I focused on finding names of enslaved residents and learning about their lives. Fortunately, I was able to locate the names of several more enslaved persons, thanks to a database maintained by the African American Historical Society of Fauquier County (AAHA). Though I was not able to learn any personal information about their lives, my findings inspired several new works, including Tracings.
The book mentions the beautiful stone walls, many built by slave labor, that crisscross the terrain of OSGF and surrounding tracts. Tracings presents ancestry, foodways, and folkways of the enslaved as questions because, though this information is available for the Piedmont Virginia area, I could not verify it as specific to the people who lived on the lands surrounding OSGF.
My goal was to complete Tracings onsite - it was important to me that the book should be at, and of, the place. My thought is that it would be made with what was on hand and, though not spontaneous, it would be partially impromptu. Though five weeks was a stretch, it was not such a long time to complete a book (actually two books and a box)! The covers were the last to be completed. I wanted to take rubbings (frottages) of the oldest stone walls, those the enslaved built, which contained spacers of American Chestnut. Thankfully, my other housemate Sefra Alexandra accompanied me on the frottage quest and took the image below.
The enslaved persons mentioned in Tracings were not documented in the written history of Virginia, but that does not mean that they were forgotten by their ancestors. Remembering and honoring ancestors takes place in many forms – by awareness of family history, sharing stories of individual deeds, and continuing foodways and customs, to name a few. I was happy to learn of an initiative, in which the African American Historical Society of Fauquier County (AAHA) and OSGF are involved, to locate descendants of the enslaved, which will likely bring to light more names and connections, righting the wrongs of erasure. It was a fruitful five weeks, and I am thankful to the Oak Springs Garden Foundation for the time and space to delve into this topic.