Sustainable Artist Award

Are you an Eco-Artist? Do you use recycled material or environmentally friendly studio practices?

Check out this new award for sustainable artists sponsored by Bash Creations.

Sustainability in Practice

I've recently returned from a trip which was a long standing dream of mine: a residency with Odd Nerdrum in Stavern, Norway. He accepts perhaps a dozen students a year who act as students, models, and studio assistants very much like the old apprentice system in the Renaissance. And so, his studio, with all of these painters working and living there could be quite a bio-hazard, especially given that they're on a closed- water system, relying on a well to supply their needs.

Not surprisingly, when I arrived I found an incredible example of not just an amazingly productive and inspiring environment, but also a superb model of a functioning artist studio that is striving towards ecological sustainability. Before even addressing the studio, I'll tell you about the minor life style changes that we made while residing there, that honestly weren't really that hard.

The studio is located on this beautiful farm by the sea (see photo above) which very much resembles many of the landscapes in his paintings. So, some of the things that we were able to do there, I have a hard time doing in New York. However, I think the best way is to build your own system around where you're located and you can have the same net result.

I'll give a few examples: All food waste was put into compost. Easy enough, as we just had a separate trash cans for compost, as well as glass, metal, plastic, and paper which were all recycled. Comparatively there was very minimal actual "trash". All the students were required to carpool if we needed to go into town. We had obvious rules about turning off the lights, which were on a timer, and we had a 20 min maximum time for the shower. Not to mention all the energy saving appliances and the fact that many simple things like making coffee for instance, we did with a french press instead of an electric coffee maker. And the most charming habit I found was that in the evening, instead of sitting in front of the TV we all gathered around the fireplace amidst the glow of tapered candles to sip wine and discuss philosophy, literature, art, and absolutely everything else beneath the stars.

While I was there, there was a dispute about the wooden siding on his house which was rotting. A contractor came by and kept advising him that he use pressure treated lumber, but Odd insisted
that they use natural, untreated wood. The pressure treated lumber, he said, had been used the previous time to replace that same wall, and that was the wall that was rotting, while all the other walls had the original untreated wood. Odd explained to me that not only was the original wood cheaper, but it also held up to the elements longer and did not release toxins into the environment.

He also told me a story of how he had been on a trip to visit Andrew Wyeth in Pennsylvania. During his stay, he visited an Amish settlement and felt very much at home there. He feels that the "modern conveniences" aren't all really that convenient. Some of them he would rather do without. So, when returned to Norway he attempted to buy a wagon to use for traveling to town (it was only a matter of a few miles) but the local authorities would not allow him to use it, even though the speed limit and infrequency of the cars in that area was so slow that a wagon really wouldn't effect the flow of traffic much. They seem to have no problem with it in Amish country, why would they in rural Norway?

On to the studio. Many of the things that he does, I already use in my own studio practice, such as recycling old t-shirts and cutting them into rags, using only earth pigments, which have a number of positive attributes (see tips for more info), and recycling old brushes for various uses. Even with a brush that is so frayed it looks as if his dog Pan has been chewing on it for a month, he uses these to create those very strange broken brush strokes that his work is so famous for. One major thing I found, which is equally conducive to his creative process, is that he never threw out a failed painting. In fact, every failed painting became a different one. A single canvas might have 6 incarnations before he's happy with it, which is part of the reason why he builds up such fascinating surface textures and why his technique is so mysterious. He also mixes his own ground and many of his own paints (or rather the students do).

The primary attribute I think is that they were conscious of the environment in all of their decisions. They didn't necessarily spend all of their time deliberating, but they made simple changes in their lifestyle when they could. Though this is not an example of a Utopian system, it is a reasonable and attainable goal for most artists. If we all did what we can, we will together make a vast difference.

In Search of an Ethical Brush

Question:

Is it better to use synthetic or natural hair brushes?

I've been thinking about this on a number of different levels.

1) Ethical: Are Badgers, Sable, or Mongooses (Mongeese?) killed in order to use their hair, or can they just be shaved?

Not likely, but I don't know the practices. Currently, I use these in my own studio because of superior quality. But, some of the synthetic Mongoose brushes are almost comparable.

2) Environmental: Many synthetic brushes are made from plastic polymers - petroleum products. The manufacturing process is further more complex and I would assume produces a greater carbon footprint.

Do you have any further information on this question or perhaps another way of analyzing the subject?

P.S. No Mongeese were killed in the making of this post.

Sustainable Arts Society - Artist Residency Program

It's the perfect combination for an artist -- the truth of the natural environment and the heritage of a lifestyle that's hundreds of years old. The Appalachian mountains of north Georgia is the setting for this unique and magical place, and home to an organization called the Sustainable Arts Society. It's an artist residency program on an authentic working farmstead.

The Sustainable Arts Society at Blue Ridge invites U.S. and international artists and creative professionals at all stages of their careers and working in a variety of mediums to participate in its Residency Program. Residents will be empowered to create works of significance in the arts and environmental conservation, to share ideas and inspiration with fellow residents, and to cultivate positive, intellectual growth and change while honoring the cultural and environmental integrity of this unique farm setting.

The Sustainable Arts Society is currently accepting applications for all dates. For an application and/or more information about the Society, please visit our website at http://www.sustainable-arts.org/.

Please also consider becoming a member of the Sustainable Arts Society and/or donating to its efforts, because in return, the arts sustain the most basic of human needs...our humanity.

Special Membership Rates for Artists. Please visit http://www.sustainable-arts.org/ or email at infoATsustainable-artsDOTorg.

Toxins in My Studio (first posted by Tracy Helgeson on 06/05/06)

Shadows Approaching, 2006, Oil on Panel, 24x24

Thanks so much to everyone for the sympathy, tips and information regarding my problem with drying paint. Despite Chris's opinion that humidity is not the major factor in the paint drying, and I do believe he is right, to some extent anyway, the humidity dropped over the last few days, and my underpaintings also dried (or oxidizes, may be more correct) pretty much overnight. So really, with this particular paint color, the humidity just seems to be the issue. There seems to be no other explanation in this case. Maybe there was a kink in the assembly line when they were making the batch of oil paint that I have.

With the comments on Friday's post veering off towards mediums and that safety of various materials, I thought I'd talk a bit more about that subject. After doing a google search, I found a few bad stories here and here about artists becoming ill from their materials and painting supplies, so clearly this is an issue for all of us to be concerned about. However, I made a point in the comments on Friday, and I stand by my opinion, that if proper safety precautions are taken, such as proper ventilation, wearing barriers such as gloves, then contact with these things should be no worse than the accumulation of the various pollutants in our food, air and water. I make an effort to eliminate as many toxins as I can in our daily lives and I also take care in the studio. On the other hand I don't go crazy trying to do so, I want to enjoy things and I want to paint in a manner that lets me feel expressive, not worried and stressed about the potential for illness and death.

In college and for a few years after, as is typical with young people who think that nothing can ever happen to them, I took little care in material safety. Most of us art students lived in one room dorms or studio apartments and worked with flammable solvents and paints in the same rooms that we slept in, cooked in and socialized in. We were much more concerned with getting our paint brushes cleaned properly than cleaning our hands before eating. No one wore gloves while painting, and if they did, they probably would have been ridiculed. There were some concessions, we had to leave the classroom to spray a drawing with fixative (great, so the hallways were toxic) and sometimes the windows were opened and occasionally there were fans in use in the printmaking studios. I imagine the building had general ventilation, though I don't recall that it made a big difference. We used turpentine like it was water, rags were soaked in it and in fact, I recall rinsing the oil paints off my hands by pouring turpentine on them and then scrubbing them. To this day, whenever I smell it, the odor of turpentine send me right back to those days of creativity, excitement in learning about art, all nighter's in the studios at school and being young (and stupid, let's face it!). Anyway, I didn't have any significant effects from all of this, with one exception. I used copal dryer for awhile but stopped when I realized I was getting terrible headaches each time that I worked with it. I imagine there are more safety precautions in place now in the schools than there were 20 years ago, at least I hope there are.

Somewhere along the way, I read a few things about how hazardous various materials were, Artist Beware by Michael McCann is a good resource and of course there is a ton of info now available on the internet. While I didn't really use most of the really bad ones very often, like acetone, I did decide to stop using turpentine in my underpaintings or as a medium. And then I stopped painting in oil altogether when I became pregnant. I worked in other mediums for awhile, acrylics, charcoal and then began my long break from art because of time issues. When I came back to painting, my work developed in a manner where using solvents wasn't necessary.

I take much more care now, but certainly could do better. When I do the underpainting, it is basically painted with a cloth and my hands, so I wear gloves at that stage, however I don't wear gloves later when I use brushes. That falls in to the category of sucking all of the fun out of it for me. The glazing medium I use is Liquin and while that is considered combustible, has harmful vapors and is "irritating to skin and eyes" I have never had any problems with it. I do take care with it, always keeping it in the container and promptly removing any unused portion when I am finished working each day. I have a few glass jars with coils, filled with turpenoid natural used for rinsing my brushes. The brushes are then washed with ivory soap and water or vegetable oil for the larger brushes. Periodically I dump out the dirty turpenoid into a plastic bucket that I keep in the garage and when that gets full I take it to the hazardous waste dump that is open just 2x per year. I use disposable palette paper and each day that I finish painting I put that, the little foil muffin cup that I use for the day's Liquin, and any rags that are loaded with paint into a plastic grocery bag and throw them into the garbage. Once I spent a day calling all over the place to see how I should dispose of those things. The hazardous waste people said it was too insignificant for them to deal with, and everyone else said it could just go in with the regular garbage. That doesn't seem quite right, but with no other alternative, that's what I do. I just try to use up all of the paint and Liquin that I put out each day. The paint I use for for the frames is acrylic based as well as the Gesso that I use to prime my panels. In the summer I sand them outside but I do it indoors in the winter and then clean up the dust right away. I wear a dust mask if I am doing a lot of sanding but if it's just one piece or something then I don't. Given that my studio is in the house and that the room is open to the other rooms I should have better ventilation (or perhaps that openness is enough ventilation for the small amount of supplies that I use), other than open windows in the summer. I am very careful about keeping containers closed and I generally only paint when the kids are not home. I keep meaning to get an air purifier, which would be good and when I get a new studio, having the right ventilation will be a priority. I use soap and water to wash my hands, and vegetable oil to remove paint if any gets on my hands, but I am not a very messy painter so that's usually not much of a problem. I do confess to drinking and eating in my studio, I know that's a no-no, but I do it anyway. I do refrain from dipping the crackers into the Liquin though.

So this is how I handle things right now. If I were to start working more with other mediums, like pastels or encaustics, which I probably won't do much of until I get a separate studio, clearly I would have to make changes. But for now, neither I, nor anyone in our family, has any health issues and while I do have concerns about long term effects, I am much more concerned about hydrogenated oils, aspartame, excess sugar, and all of the rest of the unpronounceable toxins in shampoos, cleaning supplies, and plastics in our lives. Not to mention car accidents, drowning or falling off a ladder. There's always something.

Please feel free to share your studio safety tips, of lack of, as the case may be. We all make different safety choices based on our various situations, sensitivities and personal concerns, but I always like to hear how others handle painting issues. Just a nosy nellie I guess.

(You can read the comment thread at Tracy's original post here. Thanks to Tracy for contributing and look for more of her posts here after the new year!)

An environmentally friendly ink, not to mention indelible

Yes black walnut ink is environmentally friendly and indelible, and unlike gall ink it is not corrosive, as far as I know. For ink users this dark wark brown ink is a very green option.

I began my interest in black walnut ink when I found a countless amount of big green things, later to be identified as black walnuts. I remembered a former professor commenting on how nice black walnut ink was so I decided to try my hand at it. Smiling with black-stained hands and about a gallon of ink, I finished my journey.

The rest of the story begins with my first attempt. Realizing that the green husk is what makes the ink, I carefully began cutting this flesh from the hard nut inside, without gloves - hence the black hands. This ink will stain anything. I dried the flesh and then brewed it like tea and then strained and reduced the liquid to make the ink nice and thick.

The nuts are also wonderful to eat and cost 2 dollars for 4 ounces at my supermarket. Collecting more nuts to eat, I found that by placing the black nuts in water to wash them made ink too. This can be seen in the pictures. Some of the husks get eaten by the husk fly and turn very dark and slimy. These are great for ink. I strain this and then let it thicken by evaporation because I wasn't sure if heat would effect the indelibility.

I have looked up a number of methods online which differ little from what I did. Most of the methods I found reduce the ink by boiling it, so it must not be harm the ink. Many boil the whole nut to extract the ink, skipping the husking process.

One thing of note is that some recipes call for a little acid to stop mold. And some add gum arabic to increase flow.

Being a poor artist I just do with out that. I even boiled it to a thick paste and used it with a stamp.

Another quick note is that the husks and ink have a toxin that can harm some plants so it is best not to compost the leftover husks. Sorry I guess sometimes it is hard to be 100% green. Have fun trying this yourselves and watch out - the squirrels like to steal your produce.

Tips for a Painting Studio

I've started a list of tips that one can use for a more ecologically (and socially) friendly painting practice. Please feel free to add to the list if you come up with an idea. We don't expect everyone to practice all of these, but I think if each of us do what is feasible for our lifestyle we can make a great cumulative impact.

1. Use earth pigments. The benefits are that they don't require much manufacturing and they're cheap. I use earth pigments for 90% of my painting and then touch up as needed with chromatics. I know some artists who make their own paints and if you have the time and tenacity, it can be a very rewarding endeavor. Ideally, this would allow you to reduce the carbon footprint from your paint production to nearly zero. But of course it's not practical for everyone.

2. Buy local if you can. In New York I have the fortunate liberty of purchasing paints from Vasari or Robert Doak, who manufacture their paints by hand. They're more expensive, but the earth pigments are still cheap and they're better quality. I buy whatever I can from a local manufacturer to cut down on shipping (gas). (Buying locally also stimulates your local economy, giving money back to the middle class and not to large corporations - which supports equality and therefore democracy)

3. Recycle. I think most artists already do this, but I want to encourage people to go even farther and be creative about it. I know an artist who sews the left over strips from stretching canvases together with old "failed" paintings and uses those to create another piece. I also recycle my solvent by using two jars: I pour the dirty solvent into the storage jar after use, the silt settles overnight and I have clean solvent to pour back into my painting jar the next day. Some recycle old drawings and make new paper with the pulp (think of all the cool textures you can put in your papers).

4. Environmentally friendly products. I haven't used it yet, but Abigail suggested SoySolv II, a solvent made only from soy beans which is non-toxic and water soluble. I also wonder if there's a company that makes brushes out of corn starch or some renewable resource.

5. The studio. Many people think about the toxicity of materials, but most don't think about the efficiency of the studio itself. My dream studio would have excellent insulation, (big low-emissivity glass windows on the north and south sides of course), a solar panel, and Walnut trees in the back so that I can make my own walnut ink. I could go on and on, as I'm sure we all could, but the idea is to save on energy use, produce clean energy, and also save your wallet.

So I guess some key elements to keep in mind are:

Cut down on Shipping, Manufacturing, buy local
Materials made from renewable resources (non petroleum/and protects biodiversity)
Reduce, reuse, recycle
Clean and efficient energy

Please add to the list if you think of anything!