TemescalOverTime.org is a project of Shared Ground, the name under which community artist Jeff Norman undertook projects about the Temescal neighborhood of Oakland, California from 1997 until 2019. By 2007 Jeff had amassed hundreds of Temescal-related historical documents that had been made available to him for use in various Shared Ground projects through the generosity of local institutions and former and current members of the Temescal community. Although many of these documents can be found elsewhere, the prospect of gathering them all in one place and making them accessible online to the larger community inspired the idea of this website. Over the following several years, with the help of volunteers, these and additional documents were organized into a database, a prototype website was designed, and fundraising was carried out to fund a web programmer and ongoing website maintenance. The result is TemescalOverTime.org.
A Note about the Content of This Website
THE WRITING. While the documents making up this collection have come from a number of sources, all of the text, unless otherwise noted, was written by Jeff Norman.
THE DOCUMENTS. There continues to be within the circle of professionals and institutions differing philosophies and approaches regarding the restoration of works of art and cultural artifacts. At one end of the spectrum, where the object itself is seen to hold primacy, one intervenes very little, if at all, to “bring back” to its original condition a work that has deteriorated. At the other end, alterations are made with the goal of reestablishing the original