field trip - “the pigment road trip” cornwall 2021
For the past ten years I have painted ground earth and mineral pigments onto cloth in a soya milk binder recipe I developed specifically for using with natural fibres. I have predominantly bought my ground pigments from the Okhra Conservatoire in Roussillon, occasionally collecting and processing my own.
Taking advantage of the 2021 lockdown I dedicated time to researching the geology of the mineral rich earth in Cornwall & Devon, red, yellow & purple iron oxide ochre resulting from the extensive tin and copper mining, the white china clay pits and naturally occurring green, grey and black pigments from the cliffs.
bone china clay quarry
st austell cornwall
Experimenting with ideas of incorporating porcelain into my textiles, the bone china quarries surrounding St Austell were my first stop, a landscape of ‘white mountains’ known as the Cornish Alps. I read that for every ton of china clay extracted six tons of mineral waste products are dumped forming the ‘Alps’.
Exploring the scrubland area on foot I stumbled upon the largest working quarry in the UK, a landscape of dumper truck roads rising high above the quarry floor where the clay was being extracted. It was a fascinating place but I also felt a sadness witnessing the scars on the landscape.
tin & copper mines define the cornish landscape
wheal maid valley - a poisoned landscape
The Wheal Maid Valley is a very scarred landscape, the orange lagoon waters have been poisoned by arsenic and nothing grows in the grey contaminated soil by the waters edge. Walking up to the pump house on higher ground between scrubby plants I found a source of good taupe and green earth pigment, but it was a haunted environment of “danger keep off signs”
I love the rugged windswept west coast of Cornwall and have walked the coastal path between Botallack and Levant/Geevor tin mines before, passing the pump houses perched precariously on the cliff edge, the shafts that go deep down and out 2 km under the seabed, with the waves crashing overhead against the cliffs that the miners could hear above them.
paintbox pigments - yellow through red to purple
shepherds hut & pop up studio
Arriving at my base, a cosy shepherds hut tucked in from the prevailing wind overlooking the North West Atlantic Coast I was questioning the environmental impact of what I’d seen and knew I did not want to work with contaminated soil.
bideford black
a natural occurring carbon based mineral formed 300 million years ago during the Carboniferous era from tree ferns when the area had a tropical climate, it runs in a seam below the coal from the coast to the town of Bideford where it was mined as a paint and used by Max Factor for mascara!
lyme regis jurassic coast
I stopped at Lyme Regis on the Jurraisic coast, home of the fossil hunter to collect some of the grey clay from the cliffs that alternates with layers of limestone. The clay was very sticky and contained lumps of hardened rock but eventually it ground down to a fabulous grey. I must have been the only person looking up at the cliffs - everyone else was bent over searching for fossils
processing the pigments
During the sunshine in June I processed the collected earth, washing, grinding it with a pestle and mortar, sieving it with finer and finer mesh, drying it and repeating the process until I had clean finely powdered pigment.
I love the slow mindful process of collecting and grinding the pigments and am excited about working with this beautiful subtle palette of colours.
standing stones
porcelain shavings on vintage hemp dyed with nettles
Tin and copper has been mined in Cornwall for centuries with the derelict pump houses still visible throughout the landscape alongside the scarred hillsides where the earth has been extracted.
south west coastal path
pendeen lighthouse to geevor mine
While walking the coastal path this time I met a retired miner who told me about the local geology, how the stunning turquoise running down the black locally named ‘killas’ rock was oxidised copper and that the mine owners discarded the lesser valuable iron oxide earth as they dug deeper for the valuable tin and copper.
the wild pigment project
making contact with Pete Ward an artist who has been collecting West Country earth pigments for the past decade and written an informative teachers guide with OS map references.
I visited him at the stunning Porthmeor Studios overlooking the beach in St Ives, we had an interesting conversation about our work and he was generous sharing his knowledge about the safety and mineral content of the various local soils.
trevellas cove
Shale found at Trevellas Cove on St Agnes Point grinds down to a beautiful french grey. The cliffs on this coast have been eroded by the relentless Atlantic Ocean, exposing millennia of rock strata in a subtle palette of blues, greens, greys and rusts with stunning rocks crisscrossed with lines that will definitely inspire mark making and stitching.
processing the pigments
I then mixed the pigments with the soya milk binder and painted it on linen and calico to create a sample book of the beautiful subtle palette of my collected natural earth pigments; finally I hand stitched the place of origin on each sample and stitched the book together (top photo)
Cornwall earth pigment collection 2021
cornwall paintbox cards
I really enjoyed the process of producing my own box of watercolour paints from the pigments, mixing them with gum arabic, honey and glycerine using my new ‘favourite’ acquisition - a glass muller.