Tilke’s hands with painted leaves. Photo by Kelly Moody.
WILD PIGMENT PROJECT (2019 ~ 2024)
Founded by artist Tilke Elkins in early 2019, Wild Pigment Project promoted a passion for wild pigments, their places of origin, and their cultural histories. The project connected artists to landscapes by providing education and inspiration to integrate plant and mineral pigments, hand-gathered and prepared, into studio practice.’ The aim of the project was to create a living, growing and ever-transforming network 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 encouraged community connections to place.
A monthly newsletter, Pied Midden, celebrated interviews with pigment practitioners, and a monthly pigment subscription, Ground Bright, funded the project through 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. You can view each pigment here on this site, in the Ground Bright archive, under ‘pigments.’
Within the framework of Wild Pigment Project, Tilke introduced principles of wild pigment practice to artists, arts educators and their students worldwide through her online comprehensive foraging and art-material-making course, Being With Pigments.
To connect directly with Tilke Elkins, go to Tilke’s studio website, found at www.tilkeelkins.com.