pied midden issue no. 5 : questing for the ordinary : natalie stopka
Originally published November 3, 2019
synthetic pigments r us
The quest for brilliant and rare naturally occurring colorants was a human preoccupation for centuries. Nearly every culture on earth has had a singular obsession with objects or tinting stuffs of obscure and elusive origin. The longing to bask in the presence of unusual hues has inspired long journeys to ochre mines, dangerous forays into caves, numinous acts of patience in wait of creatures with iridescent appendages, and often, acts of violence: to the land, to each other, and to the many scintillating beings on the planet.
Until, that is, the chemical florescence of synthetic dyes in the mid nineteenth century (which, I recently was informed, does not have its sole origin in the home-lab tinkerings of an ambitious English school lad, as modern legend would have it, but rather an off-shoot of careful years-long deliberations of several different chemists and professors). It’s taken synthetic colorants a little over a century to find their way into the far nooks and crannies of the world’s ecosystems, but they’ve done it. Now, there’s scarcely a region on land or sea that doesn’t bear the tatters of plastic in various stages of decay, more often than not still in possession of hues that before the invention of plastic might have caused empires to rise and fall.
What has this done to our genetically ingrained fondness for bright colors? Walk on the beach in idle pursuit of colored stones or shells and you can witness the inner drama unfold. ‘Hey, what’s that incredible blue shell I see up ahead!’ Your heart might even start to beat a little faster. ‘It’s a…’ Oh. You know the second your fingers pry it from the sand. That suspicious lightness, the brittle edges. The unlikely symmetry, or the familiar smoothness, or the most annihilating of mystery: letters, words, or, unavoidably, logos. You’ve been duped.
Perhaps even this experience is a quaint one by now. Maybe our eyes already expect to see plastic scraps wherever we go. It could be that now — unless we’re picking up trash, or looking for wayward human junk to coax into art — we’ve begun to train our eyes away from bright color when it occurs in the landscape. The image at the top of the page is a collection of plastic objects that have been processed by various living systems: a flipflop grown through with roots, an unidentifiable chunk of melted green plastic, and what I think is a pair of ear buds digested by a coyote (I've seen these gem-bearing turds on more than one occasion, strangely).
A widespread aversion to the saturated, candy-colored aesthetic we now strongly associate with plastic objects could have its perks, especially when it comes to foraging for wild pigments. With a human population nearing eight billion, the living systems of our world most certainly cannot support the trending infatiuation with botanical, mineral and animal pigments if its focus is rare and unusual brilliant colors.
However, if sources of these “special” pigments — semi-precious stones like lapis lazuli, purple dye-yielding mollusks, brazilian logwood, magenta-saturated lichens or even, the BEST spots in any given region to pick up polychromed ochres — if these are are ignored in favor of common-place, local pigments, like whatever accumulates in city park gutters or washes up in on the banks of a nearby creek, then the mounting interest in building a paintbox from foraged materials could be fuel for a visual renaissance of ordinary color. That and, of course, a deeper, more sensual connection to place, which is of course already happening.
Pictured above: a black walnut, common in gutters in my neighborhood this time of the year, and one of the very best sources of ink and dye I know.
make like a lake
I've been curious about lakes for years -- and I don't mean the watery kind. In fact, it's their dryness that makes the kind of lakes I'm talking about here so useful. Lake pigments are dry like stone pigments, while dye pigments are intended to be used dissolved in a solution. If you want to make paint from a plant, you need to turn a dye into a lake. The good news is, you can turn pretty much ANY dye into a lake. This means all those plants that are covering up the mineral pigments on the Earth's surface may hold as much potential for paint-making as the stones they hide. So many deliciously ordinary colors all around us! No need to obsess over what the brightest ones might be.
Natural dye artist Natalie Stopka discovered the magic of lakes precisely because she was dissatisfied by the ability of synthetic dyes to provide subtle, gentle colors. Natalie makes lakes from plants she grows and forages, and uses them to explore historic textile and paper-making techniques like marbling and surface manipulation.
Natalie is contributing two lakes for November's Ground Bright pigment, a weld lake and a tansy lake, both made from plants she's hosted in her dye garden in New Jersey. Both plants are invasive in some parts of the country. Weld has been spread thanks to its brilliant yellow dye-yielding qualities, while tansy has been favored as a dye and a medicine. Poisonous to cattle, tansy was once used in England to flavor omelettes with its slightly toxic juice -- fascinating, but not recommended! See Natalie's weld growing, dried, lake, ground, and mixed with a little egg-shell calcium in the images below.
Wild Pigment Project interviewed Natalie for this issue.
WPP: What was the first dye plant that intrigued you?
NS: The first plant that really amazed me with its dye color was crab apple. My father had taken down a crab apple tree, and we peeled the spongy inner bark from the fresh logs. This provided a beautifully rich saffron yellow: my first hint that orchard trees have secrets beyond tasty fruit and beautiful wood. Of course, you can only access the inner bark from pruned branches or when a tree is felled, never from a live tree. Soon after a black cherry threatening some telephone wires was also taken down, and the bark of this provided a blushing rosy pink!
WPP: How did you begin to use natural dyes in your art practice?
NS: I was gradually converted to natural dyes after struggling to source materials in the subtle colors I favor, and failing to achieve those colors with synthetic dyes. It was a natural next step to turn to natural dyes, which have a chemical, historical, and conceptual compatibility with the natural plant fibers (linen, cotton, paper) of book arts. Once I had a few successes with foraged barks and leaves, I was totally won over by natural color.
WPP: What's the best dye plant to start with for an enthusiast who wants to plant their own dye garden?
NS: Marigolds are I think the simplest dye plant to grow, as any variety blooms prolifically with almost no effort and yields lovely golden shades. Just snap the blossoms off as they bloom, and stash them in the freezer until you have enough for a dye project. Sulfur cosmos (or tango cosmos) give similar yellows, and also bloom abundantly all summer in an amazingly bright orange. Weld is another easily-grown plant for even brighter and more lightfast yellow - but be sure to check that it isn't invasive in your region before planting.
WPP: What's the most surprising lake pigment to make, in your opinion?
NS: The most surprising lake pigments I think come from cochineal. The insect-derived dye is very reactive to changes in pH and minerality, so tiny alterations in the recipe can strongly influence the resulting shade, flame red to fuchsia or purple.
WPP: Any advise for people learning to make lakes?
NS: The best advice for lake-makers is to use a big pot! Adding an alkali to an acid will cause the solution to bubble like a science fair volcano.
Thanks, Natalie!
Subscribers to Ground Bright can look forward not just to a packet of weld or tansy lake (surprise pigment: it will be one or the other!) but also, detailed instructions for making their own lakes. And if you live in New England, you might be able to catch one of Natalie's up-coming workshops!
Natalie has chosen to direct Ground Bright's 22% donation for November to Open Space Institute, which partners with family farms, land trusts of all sizes, state and local governments and individual landowners to purchase land and easements for conservation from New York to Florida. Since 1964, they’ve protected more than two million acres, with a focus on the Northern Forest, the Hudson River Valley of New York State, New Jersey, Western Massachusetts, and the Southern Appalachians. OSI supports small land trusts by providing low-cost bridge loans for land transactions. So cool.
pigment news
This month was an exciting one for pigment workers and artists everywhere. Heidi Gustafson, whose incredible vision as an archiver of ochre, artist and educator has turned countless people on to the magic and mystery of iron ores and their relevance to global healing in the Anthropocene, was featured in the New York Times -- a testament to her fiery enthusiasm and tireless work in her field.
Other exciting news: Scott Sutton, aka Pigment Hunter, is relocating to Taos, New Mexico, where he plans to establish an artist-in-residence program, a pigment-focused art gallery, and 'an educational environment for future workshops focused on using natural materials to create art.'
Here in Oregon, Wild Pigment Project has some exciting plans for a classroom and residency program in the works as well. Stay tuned for details in Pied Midden issue no.6...!
Enjoying these Pied Midden missives? Give me your glowing feedback at info@wildpigmentproject.org.
Stay tuned until next time, when we explore English chalk, a special example of which was unearthed by a fallen oak and possibly some badgers!
~ Tilke
