WILD PIGMENT PROJECT HISTORY 2019 ~ 2024
Founded by artist Tilke Elkins in early 2019, Wild Pigment Project, now available as an archived online document, promoted ecological balance and regenerative economies through a passion for wild pigments, their places of origin, and their cultural histories. Textile artist Noel Guetti contributed significantly to the project’s creative establishment, founding and maintenance.
The project ‘connected artists to the land by providing resources, education and inspiration to integrate plant and mineral pigments, hand-gathered and prepared in local landscapes, into studio practice.’ The aim of the project was to create a living, growing and ever-transforming network of humans and other beings through shared passions for foraged art materials.
Wild Pigment Project fostered these connections through a public directory, the Pigment People page, which listed dozens of international artists and researchers whose work with wild pigments encourages community connections to the land. The directory can still be viewed, here. A monthly newsletter, Pied Midden, celebrated interviews with pigment practitioners, and a monthly pigment subscription, Ground Bright, funded the project and directed capital to land and cultural stewardship programs linked to the monthly pigment offerings. Each monthly pigment was contributed by a different artist who was responsible for selecting the organization that the 22% of Ground Bright’s monthly net profits would support. The set of more than 40 Ground Brights is archived online with information about pigment contributors, pigments, and supported organizations.
A lecture series, Pigments As Catalysts, featured lectures by artists collaborating with foraged pigments for ecological and social justice. Hannah Chalew and Marilú Rios Guerrero were amongst the presenters.
Within the framework of Wild Pigment Project, Tilke introduced principles of wild pigment practice to diverse creative communities, including Portland Community College, the University of Oregon, WildCraft Studio School, Lewis and Clark College, the Pacific Northwest College of Art and to arts educators and their students worldwide through her online comprehensive foraging and art-material-making course, Being With Pigments.
The last Ground Bright pigment was mailed out in May, 2024. A new subscription, Being With Pigments Transmissions, offers monthly pigment and land-relationship writings, recordings and videos from Tilke’s studio life.
Read more about Wild Pigment Project’s history, here.
