WILD PIGMENT PROJECT HISTORY 2019 ~ 2024
Founded by artist Tilke Elkins in early 2019, Wild Pigment Project, now available as this archived online document, promoted ecological balance and regenerative economies through a passion for wild pigments, their places of origin, and their cultural histories. Textile artist Noel Guetti contributed significantly to the project’s creative establishment, founding and maintenance. The project connected artists to the land by providing resources, education and inspiration to integrate plant and mineral pigments, hand-gathered and prepared in local landscapes, into studio practice.’ The aim of the project was to create a living, growing and ever-transforming network of humans and other beings through shared passions for foraged art materials.
Wild Pigment Project fostered these connections through a public directory, the Pigment People page, which listed dozens of international artists and researchers whose work with wild pigments encourages community connections to the land. The directory can still be viewed, here, though its last revision was in 2024 and it is no longer receiving new listings. The online library, essentially a reading list of pigment-related books, is also inactive but available.
A monthly newsletter, Pied Midden, celebrated interviews with pigment practitioners, and a monthly pigment subscription, Ground Bright, funded the project and directed capital to land and cultural stewardship programs linked to the monthly pigment offerings. Each monthly pigment was contributed by a different artist who was responsible for selecting the organization that the 22% of Ground Bright’s monthly net profits would support. The set of more than 40 Ground Brights is archived here online with information about pigment contributors, pigments, and supported organizations.
A lecture series, Pigments As Catalysts, featured lectures by artists collaborating with foraged pigments for ecological and social justice. Hannah Chalew and Marilú Rios Guerrero were amongst the presenters.
Within the framework of Wild Pigment Project, Tilke introduced principles of wild pigment practice to diverse creative communities, including Portland Community College, the University of Oregon, WildCraft Studio School, Lewis and Clark College, the Pacific Northwest College of Art and to arts educators and their students worldwide through her online comprehensive foraging and art-material-making course, Being With Pigments.
Read a 2023 article about Wild Pigment Project and other related work in American Craft magazine, here.
The last Ground Bright pigment was mailed out in May, 2024. As of January 2025, a new subscription, Being With Pigments Transmissions, is currently active and offers monthly pigment and land-relationship writings, recordings and videos from Tilke’s studio life. You can subscribe here.
To connect with Tilke Elkins’ related website, please go to www.ceremoniedart.org. Tilke’s studio website can be found at www.tilkeelkins.com.
Enjoying the material on the archived WPP site? Your support is much appreciated.
HANNAH CHALEW was the first speaker in the PIGMENTS AS CATALYSTS series. Her talk, Insurgent Pigments: Animate Materiality for a Livable Future, was widely attended. Watch the recording, here.
Marilú Rios Guerrero spoke about her work with pigments, community and ritual during her PIGMENTS AS CATALYSTS talk.
Tilke Elkins continues to offer regular courses on interconnected relationships with land through ‘being with’ pigments, Find full course listing at here.
Tilke’s hands with painted leaves. Photo by Kelly Moody.