from Records of Being Held series:
Nothing Gold Can Stay (I) / Family (II) / double-sided
48 x 97 inches
Side I: Paint made from pigments foraged by the artist on unceded Kalapuya lands: riverbank green earths (possibly celadonaite, glaucontie), former basalt gravel pit green earths, hematite-rich soil, violet hematite from a clearcut, kaolinite & yellow ochre from an abandoned aluminum mine, red earth from a roadcut; walnut ink from gutter walnuts, oak gall ink from fallen winter galls, and charcoal made with carbonized blackberry vines; choke cherry gum and glair binders. Painted on reclaimed contractor-discarded plywood panel made from local trees.
Side II: Foraged pigments contributed by 33 artists (see list here), on reclaimed contractor-discarded plywood, choke cherry gum binder and glair.
Plywood panel offered for sale through form & concept gallery. Pigments for rent only, to be washed off and returned to the land at a time agreed upon at time of purchase of this work, with pigment “rental” monies going to the Kommema Cultural Protection Association to support Cha Tumenma, a land reclamation project.
Nothing Gold Can Stay (I)
Painted during the month of spring when the big leaf maples flower in the valley in long, edible green-gold blossoms, Nothing Gold Can Stay is a devotional record of life on the banks of the great river — perhaps once called “Whilamut,’ meaning, “where the river ripples and runs fast” in the Kalapuya language. In the time that I’ve been a guest here, this river and its many plant, animal and elemental people have become integral to the materials that make up my body. Maple blossoms, nettles and young douglas fir tips in spring, wild rose buds, blackberries and red huckleberries in summer, feral grapes, hazelnuts and walnuts in fall, rain, mist, clay and lichen in winter.
Nothing Gold Can Stay is a reference to to the fleeting nature of this season, and this performed painting: my brief engagement with these foraged pigments as paint, soon to be ceremonially washed off and returned to their land. Coin cannot hold any of these in place.
Family (II)
Family is a painting made with all 47 pigments, from 33 contributors, that were part of Wild Pigment Project’s Ground Bright monthly pigment subscription between 07.19 and 10.22. Each pigment is discrete but touches the surrounding pigments and represents the networks of relationship and collaboration that has made Wild Pigment Project possible. The record is of a riverbank location just downstream from the riverbank represented in other works in this series.
To identify each pigment, viewers can consult the Ground Bright Leaves & Balls Key: How to Identify 47 Pigments Through Comparison, here.
Photos by Byron Flesher, courtesy of form & concept gallery.