pied midden: issue no.6 : have you seen the horizon, lately? : caroline ross
Originally published December 2, 2019
sincerity in the face of ecocide
Did you grow up with one eye on the horizon’s darkening haze of pollution? I did. I remember writing about it in my journal when I was twelve. By eighteen, the phrase, born into a world that was not living, but dying was at the back of my mind whenever I sat down to write, but I resisted putting it to ink. Too…earnest, I policed. Or just — too negative.
What I really meant was, I felt too alone to say it out loud. To say it that baldly. I didn’t want my convictions to be flattened into caricature by social tropes: the Tree-Hugging Hippie, the Angry Anarchist, the Enviro-Yuppie. And I didn’t want to be exhausted by private angry righteousness. I wanted it to be normal and regular to be horrified, sick with grief, and steadily in pursuit of an appropriate response to the fact that the lifestyle of some humans was annihilating everything I love. Everything we all love. I wanted us to be saying it all together.
Seeking an appropriate response to ecocide while being in love with the world has determined how I've lived so far (living with tons of people for most of my life, not driving much, not buying a lot of new stuff, growing food & championing community gardens, making a 'radical magazine for kids ages 1 to 100 and up,' out of drawings and recycled paper, making creative work that aims to help connect people to their own in-love-ness with mystery, letting go of synthetic pigments and embracing wild ones...). Until recently, these activities were considered 'fringe' by Western culture. Right? But now, not so much. Not so much, thanks to really bad weather, politically freakish times, and a whole lot of extra-brave people who are not at all afraid to tell it like it is.
love is the bones of the revolution
Saying it like it is together, and saying it not just angrily but actually, joyfully, feels key. If I forget how to love then I forget why I care. That’s why the path of the artist is the one I wanna walk on — because that path is lit up by love. My dear singer-songwriter friend Carsie Blanton is quick to remind me of that.
Artist/forager Caroline Ross knows about this. She found her way back into creative reciprocal relationships with the other-than-human community after seven years of slogging through a philosophic era in art schools when connection to the material world was deemed irrelevant and, that’s right — too earnest.
Caroline is this month’s kind contributor to Ground Bright, Wild Pigment Project’s monthly pigment subscription offering. The chalk she foraged and sent over the ocean wrapped in a piece of brown paper (miraculous! the fact of it) comes from Wiltshire, U.K. a stone’s throw from Stonehenge. When I held the chalk in my hand it felt light, luminous, and yes, ancestral (nearly all parts of me hail from England, genetically speaking).
The interview that follows is a glimpse into what brought Caroline to the chalk stones, which she dug from the base of an oak tree. The interview is a little on the long side, but Caro’s responses to my questions were so eloquent, I didn’t want to leave any of them out. I'm sure you'll agree!
WPP: Do you remember the moment when you realized you could forage for materials you could use in your drawing and painting practice?
CR: Like most kids I made things out of what I found in the garden, especially mud pies, so I was probably playing with earth as soon as they let me outdoors as a toddler. I used to craft little things out of twigs and yarn, and much later at art college on foundation course, I saw the work of Andy Goldsworthy, and made a few student-y homages.
However, in the era in which did my BA and Masters in painting, there was absolutely no mention of environmental awareness, even at the level of toxicity of materials, in the entire 7 years I studied at college, university and later for an MA at Chelsea School of Art. Every kind of theory was explored, all kinds of identity politics, post-structuralist theory... but 'nature', along with 'environment', 'spirit', 'beauty' and many other terms were banned words, and any one even asking about such things was labelled 'earnest'. So sadly, the only person with any real knowledge of traditional oil painting technique, for instance, was ignored, as he was 'only the technician'.
Reading back what I just wrote, I can see that I am still angry. I understand the need for post-modernism, as it helped break the hegemony and it critiqued rigid power structures, introduced a far more diverse stream of ideas into art schools, cultural discourse, and into the media in general. However, all things have benefits and costs. The cost was a dismissal of many things that hold real value, and in some places, such as the London art world at that moment in time, a dismissal of almost all values themselves except for the arbitrary one of capital, which itself was mostly arbitrated by one Charles Saatchi, the uber-collector.
I found great solace in foraging for fungi to eat, and this became a serious hobby from the age of 22 onwards. My then partner and I would meet up or holiday with two artists who were also fungi fans and spend memorable autumn times in the woods of Hampshire and Aberdeenshire swooning at ceps and unearthing troops of Hedgehog fungi. Blaeberries, rowans, crabapples, raspberries and damsons were also abundant.
After abandoning the germ-free environment of art for the much more real life of being in a band, I did that for the next decade or so, keeping drawing going on the sly, privately. This secret art and craft practice, shoe-horned in between music commitments, continued for my six years in Scotland building a recording studio and recording lots with my band and others. Eventually I moved back to England to deepen my study of T'ai Chi and to be nearer my partner. In 2014 I was living on the river at last, immersed daily in nature, with 5 years of 'bushcraft' (often called earth skills or primitive skills in US) under my belt.
I had followed an urge and enrolled on a course called 'The Stuff of Drawing and Painting' with Daniel Chatto at The Royal Drawing School, to learn how to make and use traditional art materials. I also read Paul Kingsnorth's 'The Wake' at this time, set in the apocalypse of 1066, when the Normans invaded England. This was a catalyst for all my training, research and inclinations to come together at last, and for no reason I could tell you in words, I started making a basket of natural art materials that would have been available before William The Conqueror invaded. Quills, shell palettes and earths started to fill up my boat, oak galls and cherry tree gum came back with me on forages for other things, then took over my baskets entirely.
I went into class with archaic versions of the mainly Renaissance materials Daniel was teaching, which was fun for both of us. Some things I used were stone age, informed by my bushcraft making, such as the hide glue and hand ground ochre for paint. Other things were more refined, such as oak gall ink, parchment and quills, from the long era of illuminated manuscripts before printing took over in Europe. I found much to use in nature, and as my foraging threw up 'new ancient' materials, my research and experiments changed my art entirely, leading me to a new way of drawing, painting and making, all avoiding plastic, keeping to renewable natural materials.
On a whim I took this basket of materials and a sketchbook to Dark Mountain's 'Basecamp' event in 2016, and as soon as Paul saw the basket of 'pre-Norman' materials he commissioned me to make work for an illustrated version of 'The Wake'. Well, it never got funded to print, but that's no matter. The work exists (pictured above: Buccmaster, oak gall ink on rag paper) and has led me to where I am now, finally making the work I need to make, and having the great community of Dark Mountain artists and writers, of whom I am a part . Now I forage for so much of what I use, and trade with other natural materials people all over the world, sharing research and swapping pigments. Currently I draw exclusively with natural inks and paints I made myself and see the materials-making as equally important as the 'art'.
WPP: What’s an important lesson you’ve learned from your foraging practice?
CR: There are two, and they seem paradoxical, as all really interesting things are.
Firstly: You’ve got to collect the thing when you see it, not when it's convenient, or when you have the right gear, but now, right now, when it's available. That means hats full of hazelnuts and bread bags full of elderberries, pockets full of chalk. If you say, 'I will come back', you will end up too busy, or when you do return the squirrels will have beaten you to the acorns, as happened to me this year. After all, they have 24 hours a day to think about nuts. Imagine.
The second thing is: you have got to respect the context and only take what is appropriate, and sometimes that means taking nothing and going home empty-handed, or with something else than you planned. This reflects that other creatures need what you also want, so — leaving enough to share, especially if it's a primary food source for wildlife. It could be ensuring you leave enough of something to seed or spore, to regrow, as with carefully snipping seaweed, never pulling it from the rock, and not causing rock falls by chiseling crumbling cliffs. In some countries and territories something you would like to gather is held sacred by the local traditional guardians, or is protected for conservation reasons, and one should never violate the local rules in such cases.
We can do so much good by attending to each context as we encounter it, and not treating every situation as the same. Even the same place is different, every time we visit; perhaps a bird is feeding their young and needs the berries more than we do. Likewise we can do so much harm, turning up and taking what we want, with no thought for the human and non-human community of each place. It is a colonial mindset that says, 'I can take what I want', and an antidote to this is to do plenty of research, talk to local folks, and above all build real relationships to people, places and life-forms, not just be some extractive tourist.
The common thread between both being on one hand ready to forage and gather at the drop of a hat, and on the other being ready to not gather something, given good reason, even if it seems in profusion, is what you might call 'open expanded awareness'. It is a willingness to take a wide view of the context in which we find ourselves. When I first used to forage for food, I had some of that 'scarcity panic' mindset, as I do not come from an affluent background, and sometimes I gathered too much, with little thought for others' needs.
Now, it is a great privilege and a real heart training to broaden my awareness, both in the present moment of foraging, and in the wider context of social, environmental and ethical factors, and let this inform my hands and eyes as I move around the earth. In showing this care, I feel I receive back so many reciprocal gifts — a perfect shell here, a huge puddle of red clay there — with which to make my art materials. In these moments of sudden abundance, picking tiny berries in late sunshine, it feels like my ancestors, human and pre-human, are ranged behind me in a great wedge-shape, back to the farthest horizons, nibbling, laughing, sharing. It is the natural process of which we are all a part, whether we recognize it or not. When I forage, I know it in my bones like flint in chalk.
WPP: Do you think that foraged, hand-prepared materials can or should replace a significant percentage of the synthetic art materials currently in use?
CR: Yes absolutely. Though we will always need to trade, sell and buy certain things, for sure. What I would like to see is more questioning of the materiality of art, and less obsession on the so-called concept (and the fallacy that pre-moderns had no 'concept' in and of their art). Fridays For Future, Extinction Rebellion and Culture Declares Emergency have brought our dire environmental moment to people's attention. If our art still uses 100 video screens, huge infrastructure or many liters of acrylic, is this still appropriate? Artists need to find their own ways to face the existential issue at hand.
For me it's not a constraint at all. I actively want to use charcoal and ochre, chalk and berry juice. In fact, it's a liberation. My life and art are pretty closely aligned because I am no longer illustrating some idea. I am finally old and experienced enough to say I am not interested in 'the death of painting' or 'the end of history'. As Yoko Ono said: 'Have you seen the horizon lately?'
Thank you, thank you Caro for all you've shared and continue to share with your work and explorations!
And thank you for directing the 22% net proceeds of Ground Bright to Surfers Against Sewage, founded by a bunch of surfer heroes in the UK who have been instrumental in getting beaches cleaned up and waters transformed. They started in 1990, and have played a significant part in getting many single-use plastics banned in the UK. Also, they are all about letting people know what can be done to ACT NOW, so if you want guidance or inspiration to clean water or go plastic free, do check them out.
ground bright updates
I'm feeling exquisitely grateful to have been able to make donations to six different organizations this year through Ground Bright. For someone with a very modest income, this is a huge treat. Thanks to subscribers, funds have been directed to people who are doing powerful work in the world: Komemma Cultural Protection Association, which promotes Kalapuya culture, Native Paint Revealed, researching PNWC Native uses of pigments, the Intertribal Friendship House in Oakland, Lead to Life (turning guns into tree-planting shovels!) and now, Surfers Against Sewage.
Using pigments you find and prepare yourself is a good way to get off plastics. If you're looking for a little tactile guidance and inspiration (or you know someone who might need a holiday gift that would show them the way...), a subscription to Ground Bright could be a good portal into the wild pigment world. If you start them off this month, they'll get not one but two pigments in the mail, as it's a solstice month! Caroline's chalk will be one, and the other will be a surprise...
The Ground Bright packaging, which I assemble by hand from donated cardboard and repurposed paper (cut with a paper cutter) is nearly plastic free. The pigments ride in little baggies to avoid postal dust-storms -- but if you send yours back to me I will certainly reuse them. And, I'll continue to explore ways to do without them. I want to direct an enormous thanks this month to Rebecca Childers, a poet and book-binder who teaches letterpress and art writing at the University of Oregon, for helping me brainstorm ways to assemble the Ground Bright packages more efficiently, and for showing me around the incredible letterpress room she's assembled on campus. Let's just say, you can cut cardboard a LOT faster with a giant guillotine paper cutter (yes, it's pretty scary! but o so wonderful) than you can with a blade that only handles one sheet at a time. THANK YOU, REBECCA!
If you're already a subscriber, heads up: for new subscribers, the price has gone up a little, from $14 to $18. I hated to do this, but I've had to admit how much goes into the assembling & managing of this project, and make it a little more doable. This feels like the fair price for me, and I intend not to increase it any time soon. Don't worry: existing subscribers will have their lower-priced monthly rates grandfathered in for as long as they stay subscribed, but beware: if your credit card expires, and you need to resubscribe, you'll lose this rate. Apologies, but at least you stand warned.
Lastly, if you haven't visited the Wild Pigment Project 'Pigment People' page recently, you might want to treat yourself to a little journey down the worm-hole (into the earth! :) ). This month we're welcoming Elaine Su-Hui and several others to join us on this cozy community resource, an online hub for pigment researchers, foragers, artists and educators.
Much thanks to all of you who sent me kind & useful messages of appreciation for Issue no.5! My tail wags so hard when I read responses to Pied Midden. <3
Thank you all for reading and may you shout heart-bursting earnest declarations at the top of your lungs as we tilt back towards the sun!
~ Tilke
