February 2 Workshop Plans

The work is continuing on schedule, and we have alot to do this Saturday! We have something for everyone - that is for sure!

Updates Since Last Weekend
The front gift shop / visitor center is now undergoing the last pains of color coordination and we have settled with a reddish brown to top it all off.... this will be intermixed with a dark green on the already white and cream colored main colors:

Using this many colors is interesting - - but the basic layout will look like this around our windows: (This is not finished - - but you get the idea)

As you can see the poles will be the dark reddish brown all the way to the ceiling, where they will meet the molding and that line will follow acrossed the ceiling and down the walls:

And then there is a small edge on each side of the reddish brown that will be painted that dark green when they get to it, and that will follow the molding acrossed the ceiling as well...

By the time you get there for the workshop on Saturday, it will be looking alot different than the old Phillie Sales folks...and more cultural as well I think....Don;t have time to get dirty? Stop in and let me just give you a quick tour or take a look at Ted's new display anyway!

Anyway - - hope to see you on Saturday at 345 Broad Street, Waverly, NY from 10 - 2pm!

Can't to see what I am talking about?
You are welcome to stop in and just see what we are up to - and - hey - - I know you are dying to see the place!

( ;

deb

1/27 Workshop "Packed"

You know you are getting alot done when someone asks "what's next?" at one of our workshops ~ and that is EXACTLY what happened this Saturday!

As you can imagine we have stages of development of each part of the building that we are working on and believe it or not, we finished all we had planned to get done until next week...granted that we couldn't paint the east wall because it needed one more coat of spackling and sanding which was completed, but that now will be moved to the agenda for this coming weekend's workshop.

Marti and Guy Abell, Jess Quinn, Jordan, and Dick Cowles all worked hard and got ALL of the rest of the peg board down on the west wall which looked like this just last weekend:



But now with the peg board down it is ready to spackle and paint:

Meanwhile, Tom, Jack and Angelo were working on the metal back door and getting it up to code with a panic bar etc.... We actually got a quote of $2,000 to get a brand new door installed, but we had one upstairs that was too big and Tom and the gang actually cut that one and the frame and made it work for our new back door....savings of $2,000!

( ;

Marty Borko and Jeri Sanders sanded and spackled the west wall and I said, got it ready for next weekend, then Marty helped out at other tasks the rest of the day.

At the same time, Gloria Riegal and Marti Abell put inserts into our SRAC Journals and labeled as well as inserted rejoin letters for any members running out on their memberships, then put the postage on them and then Gloria ran them over to the post office! If you are a member - - you should be receiving yours any day! The Journal is now 18 pages, and will only be getting bigger and better!

Susan Fogel ran around and did errands for us all day long and I'll tell you there is nothing better than having someone who is willing to do all of that!

Later on, Jack Rowe and Jordan ran over to Betty Crosby's house and picked up an organ that she donated for our next auction fund raiser coming up in March!


We also had Ted Keir who brought in new artifacts and changed out what we had there in our front windows all last week for this week, and then made sure to spend time with everyone to teach them about what he had brought!



Visitors included John Borits, Sheila Campbell, Bob Varner, and Anne Meikle~who is going to be one of our volunteers in our gift shop as well at some of our events when she can!

When I came home last night my head was swirling and then I got the email about our bathroom grant request to the Mildred Faulkner Truman Foundation. We were notified that we did not get the grant.

This morning I called all of the board members and we switched to Plan B - That is we are going to scale down the project and move ahead with it on our own....

Hey - when you have the people who are willing to help you like we have and know how blessed we are to accomplished all we have....I guess I just don't know enough to see anything as a negative....

Call me ignorant if you like, but I'll tell you that if you spend anytime around SRAC - nothing is.

( ;

SRAC Workshop 1/26 - Painters Needed!

Painters and mailing stuffers will be greatly appreciated at our next workshop this Saturday from 10am - 2pm at our new Center at 345 Broad Street in Waverly.

Painting:
Tom, Jack, Angelo, and Duane worked all week to get the rest of the dry wall up on the east wall of the building and we hope to have it ready for any and all that care to take rollers to them!


Meanwhile our hired painters will be finishing up the visitor center/gift shop area in the coming weeks and finishing up the large display window we had them put in. (door is closed in this image) - - Also - notice the new wall colors!



Mailing Stuffers:
We just got our newsletters back from the printer and they are AWESOME! But we also need to put inserts in them and get the mailing labels on them...come and sit and chat with us and help us get this tedious job done for the quarter so that we can get these out to our membership pronto!


Next BIG Job Ahead of Us:
We had the auction house come and get the stuff we wanted them to sell for us - so now we can begin taking down the last of the peg board ~~UGH~~ on the west wall and see what we have to face under it! The good news is that this is just about the last of the walls on our main floor that we need to worry about !


Other updates:

• Inga has been trying to organize the supplies and cleaning up the messes we make as well as painting the office floor.
  

• Inga is also working on the volunteer list for people who would like to volunteer to work in our museum, gift shop or even at our events...so stop in this Saturday and talk to her if you are interested in helping us or call her days at 607-565-7960.
  

• Claire Borits didn't have enough fun on last Saturday's workshop - so she came in ON SUNDAY and painted our bathroom!!

• Dick Cowles and Tom Valilee are working on replacing our back door to meet code and should have that done by Saturday!

• Tom Valilee, Jack Rowe, and Angelo and Duane Welles have put in ALOT of hours this week to work on things we needed to finish up - - thanks to each of you guys...I don't know what we'd do without you!

And if you cannot come and stay or whatever - that is fine too - - - stop in and have me show you around and have Mr. Ted Keir show you some of the collection he has set up for you to come and see!


Hope to see you this Saturday!

1/19 Workshop a HUGE Success!

As you now - SRAC has scheduled workshops for every Saturday from 10 am - 2pm...

Next weekend will be mostly painting and spackling, cleaning, and misc small construction work...

Hey it sounds like more fun ahead and YOU are invited join in it!!!

( ;

Today we had around 15 people at the workshop and I must say that we accomplished quite a bit!

Helpers Throughout the Day:
Jeff Terwilliger and Jess and Joe Quinn took a load of garbage to the dump and separated out metal to send for scrap and that will all be gone on Monday.

Inga Welles started storing alot of the materials we now made storage for in the back area and helped move stuff and get the furniture ready for the auction house.

Jess and Joe Quinn, (shown below) "cousin Luke," Marty Borko also moved the rest of the tables and desks upstairs and I am glad to report that we are finished moving furniture now for a while...

~Whew~!

Mary Vanschaik and Claire Borits spent the day cleaning and painting the upstairs office, and Claire has volunteered to come in tomorrow to paint the bathroom!

Tom Vallilee, Jack Rowe, Angelo, and some other friends worked on more of the east wall (future museum wall) that we are framing and dry walling, and Tom also worked on some other construction projects that we needed to get done.

Meanwhile, Ted Keir had three tables filled with artifacts and photos for everyone to stop and look at all day long, he also helped with some small construction things, and even bought and delivered pizza for us all at the end of the day!

Below is a picture before setup of Ted's table space set up in front of our large front windows:



Donations for the Auction
We also had Mary Vanschaik, Jack Rowe and Beryl Cleary donate items for the SRAC auction sale on Tuesday.

For any of you that cannot make a drop off before Tuesday - - please just drop the items off any Saturday between 10 and 2 between now and mid March when we will do a "Spring Cleaning" drive for another sale to raise funds through auction.

Thanks to ALL Who Helped Today!
Thanks to all that worked so hard today!

I want to extra specially thank Tom Vallilee for not only working today - but working most every day at the building for the last few weeks...

Tom we would be lost without you my friend!

Other Updates:
We had the ceiling painted for the Visitor Center/ Gift Shop area, and the painters have respackled the west wall up front one more time before the final coat of paint goes on. All the walls on the east wall have been repaired, drywalled and spackled, and just need the paint added.

We also cut out the area to the west of our entrance and put in a huge plexiglass window and a door on the inside for us to be able to post the Calendar of Events and posters for all of the "happenings" for the Center throughout each month. We are working on the lighting for this aea right now.


As you can see it is VERY large and we wanted it this way so that people driving by would be able to see it.

So Where Do We Stand 1 Month and 1 Week Since We Bought the Building?
As it stands, if we get the grant for the public restrooms I really believe that we will be able to open our doors by the end of March...We would just need to get flooring and that is all we have outstanding!

Put us in your prayers and stay tuned as I will know about the grant sometime this coming week.

G'night!

The SRAC Journal

SRAC as a non-profit has been around since 2005, and since then we have not only acquired our first building, but we have also outgrown our quarterly publication from a newsletter to a full-fledged journal. Members of SRAC now get a newspaper-styled publication filled with articles and high quality images at no additional cost, even though this next newsletter coming out next week is 18 full pages (8 1/2 x 11) of great information about the history and archaeology found in the surrounding region of the Northern Tier of PA and Southern Tiers of NY.

The faced artifacts that you see here were discussed in the last publication in an article that discussed a recent field trip that some of the SRAC board members took to the NYS Museum to catalog all of the artifacts they had in their possession from our region.

The main article is by Dr. Marshall Becker, PhD, Senior Fellow in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as SRAC Advisory Board Chair. The article includes 4 incredible pieces of wampum that we were able to see at the Oneida Nation near Syracuse, NY, as well as a summation of many years of research by Dr. Becker on wampum usage.

You can now download a low res version of this last quarter's publication by clicking here.

This quarter we have renamed our publication to the SRAC Journal for two reasons. First we believe that as a publication it demands such a title change, and secondly, we want our authors and other researchers to be able to cite the articles in our journal for future references.

The Journal Volume 3, Issue 4 that is coming out next week has some pretty great article as well. First is an article by our Board Chairman Ted Keir concerning a little known collection to scientists called the Jake Vanderpoel collection which was for the majority a collection from an incredibly historic site called "Tioga Point." This is the place that General Sullivan set up camp before joining Clinton's army in 1779. This is also the "meeting of the waters" between the the Cheming and Susquehanna rivers. This is the place that the old "Forbidden Path" - otherwise known as the backdoor to the Iroquois nation ended. Unfortunately, the collection went to auction, but our own Ted Keir was with Jake for many digs at the site and lucky for us has photos and records of many artifacts that we fear will never be seen again in real life. The deer antler artifact shown here is an example of items that are in the article, and this was dated in Ted's records at 1615 - 1630 AD....which may very well be an argument that the area WAS in fact inhabited during that time period that some have said wasn't possible! Other photos include a copper hair coil found with 2,428 white beads, 107 black beads, and 33 cobalt blue Russian beads (dated 1727-1734 AD,) a stone with an incised spiral design, and many other items.

Of the several other articles of note in the SRAC Journal, the other favorite of mine is on the ARC Site in NY, by Stanley Vanderlaan, which is the Paleo site which is said to cover over 100 acres and the author claims it is the largest Paleo site in all of New York State. Several images of the Paleo material are included in the article as well.

Rest assured that all of you that are SRAC members are going to be receiving a wonderful publication next week in your mailboxes!

Not an SRAC Member ? Click here to join online and to begin receiving your SRAC Journal with your membership today or click here to download our membership form to mail in!

Want To Submit an Article for the next SRAC Journal* ? Contact me at dtwigg@sracenter.org.

*Subject to review process

Workshop Update!

This Saturday January 19, 2008, we will again have yet another workshop from 10am to 2pm and invite all of you to join us!

What Can You Expect?
Well - a good friend described the experience of working at our workshop one Saturday as "like being back in college - but without the beer!"

I assume that means we had good fun, and it re-ignited this person's youthful feeling of being involved with something that really can make a difference and can make each individual better for being a part of it as well....

But hey - maybe she just wished we had brought beer....

( ;

Anyway ~~~~

Last week we had lots of strong backs and we moved ALOT of furniture up to the second floor, took things to the dump, and cleaned out the upstairs office, and since then we have done some things that you will notice since last week- trust me!

This week we will be doing some different things to include having Ted Keir bring some artifacts and to be on hand to discuss them with anyone who wants to stop in and see them and to get a tour of the place and hear what we are up to as well as learn more about SRAC's mission and vision. We also have breakfast snacks, coffee and drinks (sorry no beer!) and supply lunch, so stop in anytime to sit and chat if you are not able to do anything else... Ted would love to show you some "stuff" and we want more people to know about what is going on in the building and with SRAC -- so just stopping in is really appreciated!!

Work To Do!
We hope to have more help to continue moving things off the main floor this Saturday, but also need help to paint the office and other spaces as well as some of our display pieces. We also have some small construction things that can be done as well, depending on who comes and what they want to do. Just say what you want to do and we are happy to have you do it!

CALL FOR HELP!
I am also in need of help finding someone who can give us a good deal on flooring for the gift shop visitor center, or funding to help us pay for it to get done...This is really the only outstanding issue for us to get the gift shop / visitor center open, as we are just finishing up the rest that need to be done as we speak....PLEASE let me know if you have any ideas at: dtwigg@spanishhill.com or stop in and see us on Saturday!

Thanks for your continued support, and I hope to see you Saturday!

Red Ocher / Ochre Thoughts from Ohio!

The discussion concerning Ocher / Ochre usage in the Northeast has become quote interesting, as the last three posts on the topic show:

• 11/27/2007
• 12/05/2007
  
• 1/14/2008

Most recently, I received this information today from Dr. Mark Seeman at Kent State University:

"Red ochre is an interesting material. As you may know it can be made from grinding up iron-rich hematite or limonite (hema= blood). It has two primary uses among Native peoples that I am aware of.

First, it is a fine abrasive similar to jewelers' rouge. As such it can be used to polish a variety of substances such as bone, ivory and even flint. Use of red ochre as an abrasive dates from Paleoindian times ca. 11,000 BP.

The second use is as a pigment. It can be either sprinkled on a surface or mixed with fat or tallow to make a red paint. Red is an important color for many Native peoples, signifying life (blood), but also in some cases is associated with warfare and other concepts. Sometimes it is used in symbolic complementarily to white (white paint can be made from galena, a lead sulfide ore). With the first European trade, vermillion, a red, lipstick-like product, was in high demand and it generally replaced red ochre as a red pigment after 1600 AD.

Red ochre is often found on human remains or as portions of grave lots. Sometimes it appears that the pigment was on clothing or flesh, but in other cases it appears that the human remains had been defleshed (secondary burials often in ossuaries) and the ochre sprinkled or painted directly on the bones. Sometimes burial offerings (e.g. flint bifaces) are also coated with red ochre.

Although it is found earlier in burial association, it is particularly evident in the Late Archaic and Early Woodland periods in the Midwest, beginning ca, 1300 BC."

Dr. Mark F. Seeman
Office: 215 Lowry
Phone: 330-672-2705
Email: mseeman@kent.edu