pied midden, issue no.1: chthonic blues and dirty greens : melonie ancheta
Originally published May 23, 2019
chthonic blues and dirty greens
What it's like by the river
Like so many rivers this early spring, the Willamette River raged much higher than I remember. When the water subsided, smoothed chunks of green rock, hard but not too hard to break with another, harder rock were scattered in the shallows. The damp weight of them in my pockets threatened to pull my pants down as I stepped over stunted camas shoots in the loam between the river and the embankment, the plants still too cold to get going and bring on their blue blossoms.
What did their permanent villages look like, I wondered, as I nearly always did when I came down here, following a curiosity that led between birdsong and used needles, single flip-flops grown into exposed tree roots, and clumps of penny royal. Tsanchifin villages? I think so. The villages were near the river, with their small, reed-mat-covered doors facing the water, but out of the flood plain, a stone’s throw from the oldest generation’s living memory. Well, the river used to change course in the days before the dam, so maybe this isn’t even where the water itself was. I picture the river in a sped-up time-lapse, a snake with its head held tight in a hand grasp at the headwaters, whipping side to side over the landscape.
I’m grinding these wet green rocks, dry by the time I take them out of my pocket, into powder. When I grind something into powder that I intend to think of as paint, it’s called pigment. If this same rock were destined for medicine, or fertilizer, or building material, its pigment status might dissolve.
He hated greens, yo
Green earth has historically not been a favorite pigment among artists. Medieval painters found it useful as an underpainting for Caucasian flesh, but I guess they never considered it bright or lively enough to celebrate it. And it’s extremely rare to find ancient cave paintings painted with anything but blacks, whites and ochres. Right? When was the last time you saw an image of a plant in a cave painting, especially a green one? Turns out there are some ancient green (and blue!) cave paintings, made by Chumash people, right on this continent.
Green was ubiquitous in many landscapes back then and perhaps to paint it felt redundant. What evanesced when Chauvet was painted 22,000 years ago was what required commitment to pigment: enormous ungulates, lions, bears — faces and forms important to remember before they disappeared around a stand of trees. Now what threatens to vanish is the stand of trees. So that’s what I’m committing to memory, by painting it: not just the clump of trees as the inviolable camera eye sees them, but through my eye and my hand, before I, or someone else, forgets. Not just forgets what the world looks like — forgets what it felt like to look at the world.
Green paintings were anathemas in the time of the Impressionists. No one at the auctions would buy them. Kandinsky perhaps further poisoned green for artists (and cows) when he said,
“Absolute green is the most anesthetizing color possible…similar to a fat cow, full of good health, lying down, rooted, capable only of ruminating and contemplating through its stupid, inexpressive eyes.”
Now green is a favorite because it signals an awareness that the planet is alive, perhaps fragile. Synthetic green paints come from non-renewable resources and contribute their poison whispers to living systems, but they’re still used to signal the presence of planet-loving intentions.
A blue from the underworld
The green in my hand is celadonite, or maybe a chlorite, says Melonie Ancheta, who hasn't seen it up close yet. Melonie has been researching the traditional use of pigments by Northwest Coast Native people for more than 20 years. When she started asking questions about traditional pigments she quickly discovered how little NW Coast scholars, and anyone else, were concerned with the topic of color, let alone pigments. Finding no satisfactory answers, she began a search that has turned into a lifetime project. All mentions (albeit brief) of the materials used for blue and green paint in NWC literature incorrectly identify them as copper oxides. Not so, Melonie discovered. The green, like the one I found may turn out to be, is celadonite. It's a muted, earthy green, and she has proven that the Coast Salish used it more than a thousand years earlier than any other culture in the world.
The blue is another story altogether, and a good one. In fact, Melonie is the first person to use scientific methods to correctly identify the blue pigment in traditional NWC Native art. It’s vivianite, a simple mineral compound of iron and phosphorus, which forms when iron in the soil and decomposing organic matter, especially calciferous materials like teeth and bones, make contact in conditions of very low oxygen. The fact that vivianite is a forming, renewable material is quite amazing: it even forms in the pipes of waste-water treatment plants. Another stunning thing about this unusual mineral is the second transformation is it goes through. Before exposure to light, vivianite is neutral or white. But when light strikes it, it blazes slowly into an incredible dark blue. It’s one of the many details of this otherworldly-seeming pigment that links it to the sky-realm.
A striking example of blue clay in Slovenia, near the Sava river. Unlike vivianite, however, this blue fades, rather than darkens upon exposure. It's not the presence of iron, but in fact it's absence, through leaching, which produces the blue. Found and photographed by potter Anja Slapnicar. Thanks for the image, Anja..and Heidi Gustafson and Morgan Williams for the info!!
Melonie, a pigment mentor to many, has convinced me of the importance of using electron microscopy to identify the mineral composition of pigments I gather. Knowing is a sacrament of the scientific age. If we can, we should. I’m reluctant to agree, but also eager to see how knowing will change me and what I talk about.
I talk about the ways that gathering, grinding and painting with plant and mineral pigments change me because I want people to go outside. Because wandering outside your thoughts in a landscape you borrow from and give to is on par with being struck down by new music, or scoring high in a video game, or having sex. And because I believe that philosophy, avant garde art, cultural awareness and ecology are capable of turning the big disaster fetish on its head.
And now, some news-like news...
UPCOMING WORKSHOPS on our radar:
ISLAND PIGMENT FORAGING with Heidi Gustafson, on Whidbey Island: June 1st! That's so soon. But it's not too late -- there are still some spots open. It's followed by SACRED OCHRE PRACTICE the next day. If you're sad you're missing those, no worries, she's got more coming in August. If you go, you'll see me there :)
Wild Pigment Project is excited to be offering a class, AN INTRODUCTION TO WILD PIGMENTS, led by me, Tilke Elkins, in Springfield, Oregon this June (on Father's Day ~ bring your dad for free, no?). Deets here. 10% of your contribution goes to supporting the Kommema Cultural Protection Association, which promotes Kalapuya culture and engages American Indian youth in leadership opportunities while dismantling entrenched anti-Indian beliefs, attitudes, and practices in Douglas County.
this book.
Okay, so it's not exactly new. It came out last summer. For critically & socially engaged artists interested in reciprocal relationships with interspecies populations, it'sLinda Weintraub's manifesto of sorts. That and Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
"A resolute commitment to hopeful outcomes concludes every Eco Material assessment of the current state and future prospects of the planet. Eco Materialists navigate this rocky zone of optimism, intent on halting society’s short-sighted and destructive practices and establishing alternatives that are long-term and life-enhancing."
Want to touch color and drink sound? On June 8th from 6 to 9 pm, Wild Pigment Project is presenting a synesthetic dry bar at a fun-raising party celebrating the 10th anniversary of Signal Fire, an organization run by genius artist-activists who take creatives (and other sensitives) into the backcountry for character-building and epiphanies of all kinds. Choose a colored object, then throw some words at me, and I'll mix you up a botanical beverage that will delight your senses. Think, narrative mixology. Plus, there's an Experiential Auction and more!
And finally, our Color Word-of-the-Month:
Irrorate adj : colored with dots or small sparkles of color. Anyone got a good photographic example? Send it to info@wildpigments and we'll put it in Issue No. 2 of Pied Midden. "Irrorate...."
This issue owes particular thanks to Melonie Ancheta, Heidi Gustafson, Scott Sutton, Eden Redmond…. and most certainly, Noelle Guetti. Thank you all for caring & giving your invaluable time and reflections to this project.