pied midden: issue no.20 : ancestral reconnection: lucille junkere
Photo of ‘Ancestor Brown’ pigment, courtesy of Lucille Junkere.
being with
As an artist, one of the main things I do is to “be with” — to spend time with, in the presence of, in reflection with places, people and questions. ‘Being with’ is goalless companionship and dwelling. Purposeless, it invites what purpose obfuscates.
The question I’ve spent a lot of time being with, these past few years, is “What does it mean for me, a person of European settler-colonizer descent, to work with plants and minerals foraged on unceded Indigenous lands?” If you’ve been reading these newsletters for a bit, you’ve heard me ask the question in a few different ways. The question is the child of a family of questions whose birthing, for me, was nearly concurrent with my own birth. As soon as I could make contact with other-than-human beings, I wondered, “Why don’t humans think other animals are people too?” This looked like me arguing at age six with my grandmother, to the point of frustrated, furious tears, that of course animals were going to heaven, while she shook her head in a tight-lipped smile.
Other questions followed suit — questions that barely need mentioning here, since they’re basically initiatory for any human coming of age in capitalist culture. “Why do some people have more than others?” “Why do human destroy so much beauty?” and “Why does racism exist?”
The personal research that has resulted in my awakening to the detailed horrors of the founding of the United States of America has put me in contact with texts that have given me the gift of (finally!) fresh perspectives on the long, long destructive global history of imperialism, colonization, environmental devastation, racism, and the extinction crisis. An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, was a good place to start, and there are many other excellent descriptions, written from Indigenous perspectives, of what really happened here on this continent.
These texts about so-called America’s early days served to fuel the question burning at the center of it all for me, which I’m pretty certain, if you’re reading this, you’ve been asking yourself too: what the hell is wrong with white Europeans? How did all this sickening behavior start? What, excuse me, the @#!!$**@ is UP with all this??
books on fire
A podcast called The Book On Fire has been helping me think through the history of imperialism/capitalism/colonialism with a little more clarity. The podcast is hosted by two brilliant white herbalists in the Southeast who also happen to love reading dense, difficult books. They have a knack for snappy, totally comprehensible banter that gets to the core of what these nearly impenetrable books are all about. The first podcast episode I listened to focuses on a book called Caliban and the Witch, by Silvia Federici, which provides ideas I can really sink my teeth into about the origins of so many things I could do without: sexism, capitalism, human exceptionalism, the destruction of magic and healing practices, and global colonization. I mean, really! It’s amazing. Highly recommended. Another volume they tackle is Staying With the Trouble by Donna Haraway, an exquisitely poetic text that lays out language and new ways of thought that reconfigure the human relationship with the rest of the planet. Also a powerful listen.
While these books have helped me begin to loosen the knot that is white history, they come from distinctly white perspectives. What’s that trope about how you can’t fix a system from within that broken system? Enter, Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World by Tyson Yunkaporta.
Early on in this book, which was published just last year, Tyson explains that as an Indigenous person who belongs to the Apalech clan from Western Cape York, Australia, he looks at what he calls ‘global systems’ from an Indigenous Knowledge perspective (much ink has been spilled doing the reverse, he points out). He uses the visual of two hands, one held in front of the other. The left hand, held in back, points sideways, with fingers closed, representing a page, screen or print-based knowledge in general. The right hand, in front, is held vertically, with fingers spread out “like a rock art stencil” representing oral cultures and knowledge of First Peoples. So, he’s looking through the open fingers/Indigenous thinking at the closed fingers/global thinking.
Here’s a quote from Sand Talk that gives a glimpse of what Tyson’s approach looks like:
“The stories that define our thinking today describe an eternal battle between good and evil springing from an originating act of sin. But these terms are just metaphors for something more difficult to explain, a relatively recent demand that simplicity and order be imposed upon the complexity of creation, a demand sprouting from an ancient seed of narcissism that has flourished due to a new imbalance in human societies.
There is a pattern to the universe and everything in it, and there are knowledge systems and traditions that follow this pattern to maintain balance, to keep the temptations of narcissism in check. But recent traditions have emerged that break down creation systems like a virus, infecting complex patterns with artificial simplicity, exercising a civilizing control over what some see as chaos. The Sumerians started it. The Romans perfected it. The Anglosphere inherited it. The world is now mired in it.”
~ from Sand Talk by Tyson Yonkaporta, page 3.
Tyson writes in what’s called the “dual first person,” which is, he says, a common pronoun in Indigenous languages but not in English, where it translates best as “us-two” (“ngal” in Tyson’s ancestral language). The “us-two” he refers to, often, is him and the reader, who are in the process together, engaged in reflection together. I confess this pronoun really resonates for me — it’s who I have in mind when I write these newsletters: you, and me. Us-two.
Sand Talk is so filled with revelations and wisdom and other stuff I love (drawings! stories! jokes!) that I read the whole thing practically without getting up to pee. After all those (unnecessarily?) dense books by white people about what could possibly have gone wrong to manifest the current disaster, it’s really helpful to hear Tyson spell it out in one word: narcissism. A culture which allows — nay, insists that — each person value themself above all others. This narcissism is what fuels both the competition and the fearful hoarding of ideas, land, things, money and knowledge that are the lifeblood of the global capitalist system.
Caliban and the Witch is healing to read because it explains how and why this narcissism got started (hint: it was a campaign of terror that took hundreds of years to fully put in place, cuz guess what, people aren’t actually selfish bastards at heart — only when they’re terrified into acting that way; no, people are good). Staying With The Trouble offers a few ideas about how this malignant global narcissism might be dissolved. Sand Talk gets to the heart of our planetary situation by pointing not to the need of new “isms” (capitalism, consumerism, etc.) to replace the current ones, but for the need for each individual to claim a sovereign understanding of the inner state necessary to properly care for the future of the living planet.
What does all this have to do with wild pigments, you might ask? Well, from my perspective, everything. How to ‘be with’ pigments, how to learn from them and care for each other and the planet through them starts with an understanding of systems that have worked hard to sever human relationships with pigments as beings one might be with. Understanding brings freedom and a potential for healing and change.
Clarendon Blues, by Lucille Junkere. Photo courtesy of Lucille Junkere.
pigment deep histories
Lucille Junkere is an artist, educator and textile researcher who specializes in botanical and ochre pigments and embroidery. Her research focuses on the legacy of colonization in African Caribbean textile history, through which she explores themes of loss, grief and cultural reconnection. This month, Lucille contributed some beautiful, bright ochre pigment made with Jamaican soil she gathered in a place where the soil had been removed to make a road. The pigment, which she called ‘Ancestor Brown’ is a tribute to the enslaved people who worked the land beginning in the 1500s, as part of the early stages of European colonization.
This ochre is the second in Ground Bright’s series of three, each one representing a spot on the map which documents the spread of “the Anglosphere” as Tyson calls it, but going backwards from Virginia ( which the Brits began to colonize in 1607 ) to Jamaica (invaded by Columbus in 1494 and taken over by England in 1655 ) and ending with a pigment foraged by Caroline Ross on English soil. This backwards-tracing represents, for me at least, a rewinding, a following backwards to the source of something that needs to be reversed and put to rest — a tiny gesture of an undoing of history.
Lucille looks at the pigments she loves — indigo and ochre — through the lens of grief and healing. For her, ‘being with’ indigo has meant a journey to Nigeria to learn abut the Yoruba dyeing traditions that once travelled to Jamaica with people who were kidnapped for their skills as master dyers. It means seeing the indigo seedlings that still sprout up on Jamaican soil now as descendants of the plants that grew in the terrible plantations where they were tended by enslaved people. It means recognizing that the rich ochreous soils hold the unmarked graves of all those who were laid to rest in them. And, it means a dedication to creating a pigment community for Jamaicans on Jamaican soil, where they will work with indigos, ochres, and many other natural pigments.
I’m grateful to Lucille for sharing her knowledge about pigment histories here with us in the excellent interview which follows, and for contributing this luminous brown pigment to Ground Bright, of which 22% of the month’s profit will go to seeding a fund-raising for the Jamaican pigment center she’s in the process of establishing. Much gratitude, also, to all those of you who support these efforts through your Ground Bright subscription.
And now, our interview…
Lucille preparing indigo the traditional West African way. Image courtesy of Lucille Junkere.
WPP: Can you describe your creative research practice on the history of indigo, specifically in Jamaica?
It’s easy to romanticize about indigo. The plant yields a magnificent long-lasting color with so many connected beautiful cultural traditions, yet the plant was still commercialized as a colonial plantation crop accompanied by all the brutality and exploitation therein. My research in Jamaica, supported by the Leverhulme Trust, explored Jamaica’s indigo history through visiting old plantation sites where indigo was grown. I am more interested in the lives of the enslaved people whose knowledge and skills were used to grow the plant and extract its color for export than I am in the planters who, for the most part, have been well documented. The research is at times challenging and upsetting because I use a range of sources including colonial documents. These writings are often framed by racist ideology and filled with detailed accounts of immeasurable cruelty towards enslaved people. But the research is so much more than documenting slavery — it’s about creating new relationships with indigo. I’ve been collecting indigo seeds from former plantation sites, germinating them and reintroducing them in collaboration with a local farmer, and experimenting with different methods to extract the dye. I use sustainable farming methods including plant-based natural fertilizers and pest control, and the Jamaican practice of conservation tillage. This is especially beneficial within former colonies like Jamaica where over 400 years of plantation economies and mono-cropping has undermined soil fertility.
WPP: What's a main source of inspiration for you in your work? Can you describe your current creative work?
As a textile artist with a research-based practice I explore many themes including the uncomfortable relationship between English textile mills and Britain’s former colonies, where enslaved Africans were forced to grow cotton and indigo amongst other crops. Enslaved people came from cultures with rich traditions of indigo-dyed textiles, but within slavery they were denied their cultural and creative connection with the dye.
The dispossession caused by the slave trade means that ancestral links have been completely lost. As enslaved people outnumbered plantation owners, the system was dependent on suppressing, erasing and subjugating the African identity. To avoid and minimize the risk of resistance enslaved people were prevented from building family links with bonds of kinship, especially to Africa and other Africans. This involved disconnecting them from their culture and history, denying their African religion and spirituality, imposing a new language, living conditions, work and customs. I use materiality, indigo dye and other pigments and cotton and visual symbolism to explore the these histories and loss of the African identity. My current work, which is still very much in its early stages combines ochres with botanical pigments. I see the work as a celebration of the ethnic and cultural heritage of African ancestors who worked Jamaican lands. They included Yoruba, Igbo, Efik, Ibibio, Akan and Fon people. This series, a group of sculptural pieces incorporates found objects such as broken fans, used sandpaper and car filters, an old broken, rusty pet cage and used paint brushes because I like the idea of transforming objects which have come to the end of their intended use. The new work is very much led by materials and my research.
Work by Lucille. Image courtesy of Lucille Junkere.
WPP: How has your work with indigo helped connect you to your personal/ancestral history? To community?
For my 21st birthday I treated myself to a piece of indigo dyed fabric. It wasn't expensive, neither was it cheap but I felt compelled to buy it. It has been washed too many times to count and the indigo dye, although still strong has acquired the variegated beautiful patina of age. Years later I discovered it was a Yoruba indigo dyed textile called adire, created using a starch resist technique applied through a hand made stencil. Who would have known that the cloth would inspire a large body of research and artwork dedicated to indigo.
My Clarendon Blues series named after a Jamaican parish where most of the former indigo plantations were concentrated incorporated unravelled threads and unfinished patterns to evoke a feeling of melancholy around slavery. In contrast Yoruba Blues, from Abeokuta, Nigeria to Abeokuta, Jamaica comprising embroidery patterns on handmade paper dyed with natural indigo was more celebratory. It references Yoruba indentured workers who named a village in Jamaica Abeokuta after their homeland in Nigeria. My work, a symbolic reconnection, was inspired by the approach taken by photographer Armet Francis who reconstructed in visual terms the unity of black people who colonialism and slavery distributed across the African diaspora. It’s important that I do this kind of work because there are so many people who may never know their African heritage because of slavery. I see this kind of work as an acknowledgement, an important part of the healing process.
WPP: How has your recent work with earth pigments informed your practice? What energies do these red ochre soils carry for you?
My initial ochre experiments were ok but after my conversations with you I realized that I was wasting some very fine pigment. Your advice has improved my techniques and it really is a joy to incorporate ochres into my work because they connect so well with botanical pigments and the colors are so visually complimentary. The ochres also connect me to the people who worked plantation lands but in a different way because their physical remains are part of the soil. However, but if death rituals have been performed well their spirits will have returned home. I find myself wanting to explore different and perhaps more poetic writing to describe the ochres but I also need to write about contemporary exploitation of these iron oxide soils for mining bauxite. Once again the raw material is exported and processed overseas with little benefit to local people who have expressed through a number of petitions that they do not want the destructive mining to continue.
Jars of Lucille’s handmade pigments. Image courtesy of Lucille Junkere.
WPP: I'd love to hear about your future plans for pigment work and research in Jamaica. (of course, this question applies only to those projects that are ready to be shared publicly -- and, I understand if there aren’t any yet that fit that category!)
Whilst my studio practice incorporates a range of botanical and more recently earth pigments, my research to date has focused on indigo. In October I will widen the research to include and locate other Jamaican plants with pigment potential, extracting the color and contributing to restoring Jamaican plant color knowledge by exploring the cultural histories of the plants. I also want to raise funds to build a pigment centre in Jamaica, a space to share the research, showcase the pigments, and host workshops to enable the community to learn how to use pigments with access to equipment and a growing collection of books about pigment and related subjects. A dye garden is an important part of the project and over the last two years I’ve been planting pigment trees.
(end interview)
Thanks again, Lucille, for this detailed window into your research and your creative practice ~ and for the beautiful Ancestor Brown pigment!
Madder lake pigment made by Lucille. Image courtesy of Lucille Junkere.
wild pigment project workings
I’m so pleased that I’ll have an opportunity to teach this month with Lucille — she’ll be joining me and artist/educator Daniela Molnar as a guest lecturer at our virtual Poetics of Pigment class, on week two of five, and will be discussing material related to what she shared here in the newsletter.
Speaking of classes and ‘being with,’ I just opened registration for a new online class, called ‘Being With Pigments: Reciprocal Foraging, Palette Remediation, and Making Kin with Material.’ This class is really in alignment with my own studio practice, and feels as though it integrates many elements that I’ve been nourishing in my work for years. there are still a few spots available, and already I’ve received a tide of applications for scholarships. So many amazing artists from all over the world have applied! The class is small and scholarship openings are limited. If you do decide to join us, or just want to donate to Wild Pigment Project, I heartily welcome any support for scholarships you can provide (all donations at this time will go towards scholarships for this course).
Also: the up-coming auction. It’s happening! Probably during the last week in May. If you’re an artist with a pigment practice, and would like to donate pigments to raise funds for the Wild Pigment Project Equitable Opportunity Scholarship, which provides applicants with funding to use for pigment studies with an institution or individual of their choice, please write to me at info@wildpigmentproject.org. Mineral pigments, lakes, inks and dye material foraged or grown by you are all welcome! Thank you in advance for your participation. I think this is going to be a really fun online event.
letters
Hello Tilke,
[Pied Midden, Issue no.19.5] was enlightening, as the previous one was. My note is to say how much I appreciate your taking time to discuss at length, how you grapple with making money from your pigment practice. These days, the question of how to work respectfully in a practice that has roots in a culture not one’s own seems to come up frequently in presentations or workshops that have some cultural history and/or practice component. "How can I, as a non-______ work with/use/address ____?" (I suppose, the fact that this question is even being asked at all, is some improvement.) I believe the question to be an important one, but more so is the distinction you made between wanting someone to give you the answer and asking it as an information gathering tool to incorporate into your own research. I particularly appreciate your outlining your thoughts and actions that resulted from your own investigation of how to reconcile the question. Bottom line, it’s not fair to expect persons of color to have to do the work to make others feel comfortable with their choices, rather it is the responsibility of the asker. You gave an example of what that means for you and that results of your exploration are not finite.
Would it be OK for me to cite you and your answer (maybe even a share a link to your site) the next time an opportunity to answer that question arises?
Best Wishes,
Alisa Banks
Thanks so much for your kind email, Alisa! Please feel free to share my words whenever you’d like to — I’d be honored.
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That’s all for now, dear readers!
Enjoy the unfurling beauty of this coming spring and ~
Stay With Me,
<3 Tilke
The view from Miluk Coos land last week…