Color has been a part of cultural development around the world and has deeply influenced the art of people and place. Without the use of local materials as a source of color whether they come from plants or minerals the world we live within would not be the same. It is the relationship between culture and nature that has created the diversity in the world that is rooted in the places we call home.
In today's modern world we are fortunate in many ways to have access to so many colors, but the majority of the colors we see were created through the chemistry developed over time by humanity. This development of synthetic pigments has created a whole new palette of colors, but many of them are derived from fossil fuels under the term organic pigments. The term organic is confusing in many ways because of how we associate with the food we eat, but these organic pigments can be toxic to the environments in which they are extracted from the earth, where they are synthesized from raw materials, and how they are used in the world from the pigment in paint on houses to the dyes used in coloring of our clothing. What the beauty of these synthetic colors are missing is the relationship to place.
There are also unknown environmental impacts of the extraction of the resources from the Earth are along with the pollution caused by the processing and manufacturing of the pigments themselves in laboratories and factories. Another important thing to consider is the health impacts on the very people that are employed to work in the mines or in the industrial environments where the synthetic dyes, pigments and paints are made.
This is why the use of locally harvested materials from minerals, plants, mushrooms, and lichens is more important now than ever before. We are living in world where the global economy has removed us from understanding the impacts we have as an individual in buying materials off a shelf in a store and not knowing where it came from, who it impacted, and the environmental destruction that it has caused. We can all do our part to lessen our own impacts on the global community by using local materials, supporting local farmers, and celebrating the art created in harmony with nature.
Vivianite blue : Mineral replacement of a Sitka Spruce cone.