oak roots chalk : december ‘19
Caroline Ross writes: ‘The chalk in your hands was gathered by mine this autumn from the roots of a huge oak tree, felled by a storm a few years ago. Badgers had been digging in the roots, and there were scratches on some of the lumps, mossy facets on others, where they had lain facing north. The Great Ridge Woods are ancient woodland near Stonehenge, lying along a chalk upland stretching west to east across the south of England, and as such it was always a favoured route from prehistoric times. Romans later built a road through it, which can still be walked. The woods feature many ancient flint works, defensive dykes, two thousand-year-old yew trees, and a great diversity of wildlife, unique to these soils.
Chalk is the compressed calcium of long dead life aquatic forms, falling to the seabed 90 million years ago. When I handle chalk and see the tiny fossils often imbedded in it, I am aware at a visceral level of our ancestors, of the vast eons of time before bipeds, let alone humans, walked this earth. It is animal and mineral. The white chalk amongst the black leaf mould are as the bones in the body of the earth. It also partakes of both earth and water being rock made of sea creatures and living as I do at the very edge of land and liquid, it is emblematic for me of the fecundity of these edges and ‘places between’.’
contributor : caroline ross
Caroline Ross lives on a boat moored to a small island in the middle of The River Thames in England. She has loved drawing and the wild equally since childhood and has spent the last decade reclaiming her visual art practice from the plastics and disposable materials that are the contemporary norm. Study of prehistoric, Pre-Norman and Renaissance art techniques led her to bring her foraging, bushcraft and art together into one unified method, open to what she finds in both rural and urban settings, with the proviso that they must not harm the earth when they return to it.
Her work comprises drawing, objects and textiles, using hand-made botanical inks and ochre paints, buckskin, wood and repurposed foraged goods. It is found in books, magazines, online, in Dark Mountain publications and sometimes on huge rocks under the cliffs of Portland, Dorset. She teaches all her techniques and materials at her studio and internationally. She is a member of The Wilderness Art Collective and can be reached through her website,
Photo courtesy of Caroline Ross
Photo from the Surfers Against Sewage website
**extra bonus solstice pigment : willow charcoal**
“Greetings, Lovely Subscribers!
Fresh from a bonfire near the banks of the Willamette River here in misty Oregon comes the special bonus pigment included in this packet: WILLOW CHARCOAL. I cut the willow from a tree near the river, selecting shoots growing in clumps that looked as though they might benefit from thinning. When they emerged from their process in the fire (see HOW TO for details), they were thin black sticks perfect for drawing. It felt a little sad to grind their tinkling porcelain forms into powder, but when I mixed the soft pigment with water to paint the labels, I knew it was worthwhile. I found that willow is just as satisfying to work with as grape vine, which is used traditionally in Europe to make artist’s charcoal.
As the light and dark reach their point of equilibrium, this charcoal feels like a perfect companion to Caroline Ross’s OAK ROOTS CHALK. And fittingly, this packet represents the sixth month of Ground Bright. We’re halfway through our first year!
SO MANY THANKS to all of you for your support, kind notes, and enthusiasm. It’s a gift to be able to bring together artists, foragers, researchers, land stewards, and all sorts of unusual and radiant individuals with this project. I hope these packets bring you closer to the land where you live by inspiring you to deepen your own relationships with place.
Luminously yours,
Tilke Elkins
Founder, Wild Pigment Project”
22% donation recipient : Surfers Against Sewage
Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) are a grassroots organisation founded in Cornwall in 1990 originally from surfers and beach-lovers sick of wading in waters choked with used condoms and human waste. As a marine conservation charity they have been instrumental in getting beaches and aquatic environments cleaned up, campaigning so clean water legislation was enacted, and were a huge part of the successful move to charge for plastic bags and ban many single use plastics in UK. Over almost 30 years they have made a huge difference for the human and non-human inhabitants and visitors to shore and sea. Their work directly creates healthier ecology and strengthens real society, and in laughing groups with trash bags in hand, demolishes the idea that these could ever be seen as separate things.
