Artist Statement:
For this ongoing project, which I call From Pigment to Paint, I gather rocks and minerals and soils from around Arkansas and undergo a time-intensive process to refine them into a fine powder that I then mull with a binding agent to create oil paint.
Location is an important part of this project. I have limited the amount of samples I am collecting to those only mined, extracted, and scavenged from Arkansas. It is important to me to reference the land I call my home and pay homage to the earth that has housed me for most of my life. To interact with my materials further, I have gone out to different locations and harvested material myself. I have also sourced materials from the Arkansas Geologic Survey and plan to source materials from local geologists as well. Building and interacting with a community is just as important as interacting with the earth itself. Memory is shared. The memory of the earth is shared. By sourcing the raw materials myself and through a shared community, I am saturating my material with memory.
The memory I have of the process and the memory of the paint itself becomes an integral part of the finished paintings. The process informs the final paintings and those paintings will then inform my process. This project emphasizes the connection I have with my materials, and the influence we have on each other. As you observe my project, I ask you to think about what materials influence you, and what influence you have on them.