In the kiln was a blue that glowed. Demanded attention. Disrupted operations. The blue redirected Subramanian’s life work - from semiconductors to color.
As many of our blues fade – the skies above polluting cities graying, warming ocean waters tingeing green – chemist Dr. Mas Subramanian guides new blues into being.
In his chemistry laboratory at Oregon State University, amongst beakers and desiccators sitting near marble mortars and pestles, rare-earth elements are meticulously selected from their labeled cabinets. Unassuming yellow, white, and gray dusts with exquisite properties are weighed by the particle. The ingredients are ground together in precise ratios and pressed into a circular pellet, held together only by pressure, before the dull round of powder is set in a ceramic crucible and transferred to the kiln. From this infernal dwelling emerges a singular, ecstatic material which transcends its origins – YInMn blue.
The process for making YInMn hasn’t always been so tidy. Named for its ingredients of Yttrium, Indium, and Manganese, YInMn required Subramanian to work backwards from blue. In 2009, while pursuing magnetodielectric materials for electronics, something unexpected emerged from Subramanian’s high-temperature furnace. Andrew E. Smith, a graduate student working in Subramanian’s lab at the time, opened the kiln door one day and was confronted by a lustrous blue. Entirely unreminiscent of its origins, it captivated the eye like gazing into the hottest flame. In the kiln was a blue that glowed. Demanded attention. Disrupted operations. The blue redirected Subramanian’s life work – from semiconductors to color.
Naturally inquisitive, the first thing Subramanian did was ask a question. He wanted to know where the blue came from, and how it was conceived immaculately, without a speck of cobalt. That afternoon he did what any good chemist would – he recreated the exact recipe of rare-earth elements and put them in the furnace at the same 2350° F temperature for the same number of hours. After a sleepless night, Subramanian eagerly arrived at his lab at five o’clock in the morning. He described his anticipation as feeling breathless, hoping the blue was not a mistake. When he opened the door, the kiln glowed with the soundness of repeatability – the fundament of chemists. YInMn blue was not a dream.
Model rendering by Mas Subramanian / Courtesy Oregon State University
When he tells the story, Subramanian settles comfortably on the word “serendipity”. Collaborating with chance is an unwritten step in Subramanian’s method. He glimmers when quoting French microbiologist and chemist Louis Pasteur: “In the fields of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind.” Happenstance may have set Subramanian’s new direction, but he diligently unpacked each “why?” behind his discovery until he had answers to each of his questions. Serendipity was the catalyst, but working backwards from blue to each molecule and their precise structural locations was the result of rigorous, scientific inquiry. As Subramanian reverently explained, “Blue isn’t magic – it’s chemistry.”
“Blue isn’t magic - it’s chemistry.”
With the elemental origins of YInMn confirmed, the destination for this blue material grew into a question. Where will this blue eventually go? Will it fade back into the earth from which it came? Subramanian answered, sharing YInMn’s special properties. It’s heat-resistant. It is unusually safe. And it’s exceedingly stable. YInMn blue is an isolated moment of permanence, a comforting and dependable source of blue. Though its binder may crumble, this blue pigment will last as close to forever as any color can.
YInMn blue is rendered from both the chemical composition and the arrangement of atoms in its crystalline structure, known as trigonal bipyramidal. With these truths established, Subramanian expanded his findings from one to several shades of blue. Not by adding white, but by changing the chemical ratios of each ingredient. Color is not only a set of conditions. It’s a math problem made with mutable variables like chance and instinct.
Color is not only a set of conditions. It’s a math problem made with mutable variables like chance and instinct.
In 2019, Subramanian discovered another entirely new class of pigments. From the rare-earth elements underfoot, Subramanian shifted his thinking to a crystalline structure that enters our atmosphere on the backs of meteorites. In 2019, he speculated that hibonite, a naturally occurring structure, could inform a second new blue. His intuition revealed that hibonite structures could indeed be reproduced in the lab with calcium and aluminum oxide, titanium and cobalt. Hibonite blue differs from traditional cobalt by needing only trace amounts of the contentious ingredient. Subramanian found that hibonite could facilitate blue in a more affordable, accessible way than previous blues.
Hibonite does not naturally come from the earth but instead from the most faraway reaches of the cosmos. Meteorites are mobile conduits, pulling mineral structures from the fabric of space through the atmosphere to Earth. When a meteor enters our blanketing atmosphere, it collides with our terrestrial rock, a crash at thousands of degrees. This severe heat is like a kiln, transforming and stabilizing the mineral’s structure. Evolving, metamorphosing into blue.
Photo by Carl Massdam / Courtesy Oregon State University
“I never imagined I would work in this area. Life is full of surprises. I never knew I would discover a new blue pigment.”
Across millennia, only a handful of new blues have ever been unearthed. Before YInMn, the most recent blue to be found was cobalt, 200 years prior. It’s remarkable to be alive at the same point in time a blue is discovered. There isn’t a word to describe how phenomenal it is we were here for a second. And that both of these blues will not fade in the sun or break down in the heat; they will not lose their depths when exposed to acids; they will not turn gray alongside our changing environments.
Subramanian has a practice of finding ingredients for blue underfoot and cultivating methodologies for blue overhead. His first pigment discovery – from earth – and his second from a meteorite are visceral discoveries that meet on a horizon where so much meaning vibrates. Blue, specifically, creates a channel between our planet and the sky, chemist and human, Subramanian and us. He describes his work’s richness by evoking the meaningful connectedness he has found with people around the world. People who are also overcome by the wordless power built into the structure of blue. In his characterizations of the new pigment, it feels sweet to wonder, is connectivity – not the electrical but the human kind – a component of color that should be analyzed too?
Subramanian never expected this to be his life’s work. He offered, “I never imagined I would work in this area. Life is full of surprises. I never knew I would discover a new blue pigment.” How fortunate are we that Subramanian is attuned to serendipity? And that he fearlessly follows the magic it presents until he has answers? Until he sees the chemistry of magic and not the other way around. Our world now has the gift of two ecstatic dependable blues – two bright, blue stars here on Earth.
Mas Subramanian is currently a University Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Milton Harris Chair of Materials Science at Oregon State University. He is internationally recognized for making several breakthrough discoveries in materials chemistry that include a novel durable blue pigment, YInMn Blue, the first new blue pigment discovery in more than 200 years. Professor Subramanian has received several national and international awards including prestigious International Perkin Medal from Society of Dyers and Colorists (UK) for the discovery of YInMn blue. He is also Fellow of American Association of Advancement of Science (AAAS).
To learn more about the research of Mas Subramanian visit @Mas_OregonState
Seed to seed, in the early spring, Rowland Ricketts plants and sows his future works of art into the soil. In the Midwestern state of Indiana, he is growing an ocean. A landlocked ocean, an inverse island, a pool of potential blue. The indigo seeds (Persicaria tinctorium) for which he is known are the beginning of his work. Ricketts is an artist, farmer, and educator. In the vat of his practice, these three ingredients swirl together to offer one origin of blue.
Ricketts offers a simple answer to the question “Where does blue come from?” He grows his own. But nothing about growing indigo is simple. It involves deep knowledge and immense care. The type of care that asks us to come second while caring for another life. In this case, it’s the life of the indigo vat – the bacteria, their sustenance, and their environment.
To see Ricketts’ work is to see a seed. His life work is embodied by textile installations, the growing and dyeing of indigo, and legacy sharing. Parallel, the life work of a seed is embodied in the minimalist outline of a husk, cotyledon, and embryo. In the billowing swaths of woven, dyed cloth, seemingly groundless in their blue luminosity, Ricketts feels his seeds, earth, and labor. Season after season, the work of Ricketts and the work of a seed reach ends and open to new beginnings. Both are the result of a patient, ecologically entangled process tied cyclically to the landscape. And both are beginnings for the next season, the next flower, the next installation.
Ricketts’ practice at first seems straightforward. He and his partner Chinami grow indigo. They harvest it. They dry it. They compost it. They vat it. They dye with it. And they begin again the next season with the next seed. That seed is not simple. That small, ridged dot (a pointy spheroid) that can be pinched between a forefinger and thumb holds a world of potential.
The seed and the vat are the core moments of excitement for Ricketts. There is a vast openness in what can happen when all options are available. Several paths are possible – a plant could deviate from the expected flower and Ricketts could, too, from one installation design to another. Motivation grows from these moments of potential before decisions are concretized. When all-that-can-happen can still happen.
Photo by Rowland Ricketts
Photo by Rowland Ricketts
Photo by Rowland Ricketts
In the billowing swaths of woven, dyed cloth, seemingly groundless in their blue luminosity, Ricketts feels his seeds, earth, and labor.
Photo by Rowland Ricketts
Photo by Anna Powell Teeter
After months of work and coordination with the climate’s compassion, the small seeds reach their own enlightenment. Pink flowers bloom in radial symmetry amidst unassuming green leaves. The seed’s potential is not emptied, however. Now begins the second life – the second blossoming – in the form of blue sculpture. While flowers go to seed for the next year’s indigo, the leaves are gathered as ingredients for Ricketts’ meticulous recipe for blue.
At first, the leaves follow that seemingly straightforward path: they are dried, composted, and fermented. Once prepared properly, the vat becomes charged with potential again. This time it’s not a living flower that could emerge, but instead a living color – blue. What will come from this alchemical solution? What fibers will it dye, and what will those fibers create in Ricketts’ hands? The vat offers not just one blue but many. With each dip, the color dives deeper into the abyss, like blue of the ocean or the sky, like bathymetry indicating the deepest point with the darkest blue.
The process of growing indigo is not separate from the germination of the next installation. The shades of blue vary from year to year, as the growing conditions intersect with the experiment of the season. The work is sensitive to the weather. An early frost, a drought, a temperature fluctuation – myriad calamities alter the possibilities available from one process to the next. These interdependencies are reminders that our actions, care for our environments, and material origins matter. Where does blue come from? A happy, healthy, cared-for field within a happy, healthy, cared-for world.
Motivation grows from these moments of potential before decisions are concretized. When all-that-can-happen can still happen.
Photos by Rowland Ricketts
Photo by Ron Blunt
Photo by Ron Blunt
The practice of working with indigo is part of a long history. The ancient seeds of knowledge for working with this plant must be thoughtfully collected, preserved, and passed on. Ricketts is both pollinator and flower. He perennially invites his students to join the cultivation process, transferring knowledge, like pollen, from one person to another. It is a long process which requires commitment and dictates his when and whereabouts. Once the labor is performed, and the knowledge shared, the artist blossoms with his indigo and with his sculpture.
Being part of something that crosses space and time boundaries is a profound experience. And, like climbing a mountain or swimming in the ocean, the legacy and lineage of indigo traditions are so vast that they return the body and ego to their proper proportion. Beyond widespread, horizontal rhizomes, Ricketts offers us a taproot, something deeper: blue is much larger than we can ever be.
Once the labor is performed, and the knowledge shared, the artist blossoms with his indigo and with his sculpture.
Photo by Anna Powell Teeter
Rowland Ricketts utilizes natural dyes and historical processes to create contemporary textiles that span art and design. Trained in indigo farming and dyeing in Japan, Rowland received his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2005 and is currently a Professor and Associate Dean in Indiana University’s Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design. His work has been exhibited at the Textile Museum in Washington, DC, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Seattle Asian Art Museum, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum Renwick Gallery. Rowland is a recipient of a United States Artists Fellowship.
THAT SUMMER CHANGED THE WAY I THOUGHT ABOUT THE OCEAN.
Under a waxing moon, my partner and I sailed our 37-foot sailboat, Bear, down the Chesapeake from Annapolis to Solomons Island. The sky was inky and the water flat calm for the last few hours. As per tradition, we set the anchor and hopped in our dinghy to go to shore for a celebratory cocktail. As we pulled away from Bear, the waters around the dinghy began to light up like fireworks reflecting in a pool. Brilliant blue light danced on the surface. This was my first experience up close and personal with bioluminescent dinoflagellates, and it spurred my cross-species creative research with this incredible light source.
That summer changed the way I thought about the ocean. It was the first season that we lived aboard our boat, traveling, working, entertaining, and recreating by the weather and tides. The rhythm of the sea became the rhythm of our lives, dictating our movements and moods. The bioluminescent sighting set off a flurry of synapses and a flood of curiosity that fueled my desire to better understand marine ecology and the interconnections of life.
The following year we added Solomons Island to our sailing itinerary again, so that I could spend more time with the sparkling seas. I returned to the same anchorage at the same time of year, excited to see the bioluminescence. I was met with disappointment. The blue was absent.
The following fall, I returned back to my academic position at Bradley University in Peoria, IL, with a need to understand why the blue light had been snuffed from the sea. I received a grant from the university to start a new research project investigating the power of bioluminescent organisms in the field of photography. I titled the project Growing Light; and I began by culturing the dinoflagellate Pyrocystis fusiformis, which are similar to the organisms I saw in the Chesapeake Bay. These single-cell marine plankton can generate a bright blue flash of light using a luciferin-luciferase chemical reaction. This biological capacity appears to be useful for startling potential predators, and it is commonly seen in the wave action at popular tourist sites, including Mosquito Bay in Vieques, Puerto Rico and Sam Mun Tsai Beach in Hong Kong.
Photo by Margaret LeJeune
Photo by Margaret LeJeune
The rhythm of the sea became the rhythm of our lives, dictating our movements and moods. The bioluminescent sighting set off a flurry of synapses and a flood of curiosity that fueled my desire to better understand marine ecology and the interconnections of life.
I made many mistakes in the beginning as I struggled to learn the proper handling techniques and environmental conditions that the organisms needed to survive. My studio made a slow but steady transition to lab space as I came to understand the circadian rhythm of the dinoflagellates, a life cycle that requires nurturing with the proper light, chemical, and temperature conditions.
With a longing to learn more about these organisms and the hopes of finding kindred spirits, I reached out to two bioluminescent specialists, Dr. Edith Widder of the Ocean Research and Conservation Association, and Dr. Jim Sullivan of Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. Both researchers were incredibly generous with their time and even shared “recipes” with me for the best way to chemically create sea water in which to culture dinoflagellates.
With the help of these scientists, and additional colleagues in the biology department at my home institution, I was able to successfully “grow” these organisms. I began to feel a kinship with the tiny glowing beings and found great joy in collaborating with them in the darkroom to create images. I shifted my working hours to be present during their more potent light-emitting hours, and developed a delicate system of movements to encourage light emission. The process was never a project of one – it was, and continues to be, a partnership that is cross-species and cross-discipline.
Photo by Margaret LeJeune
Photo by Margaret LeJeune
Photo by Margaret LeJeune
Photo by Margaret LeJeune
My initial photographic investigations with the glowing light were simple exposure charts to better understand the life and light cycles of the organisms. I needed to learn when the organisms would glow the brightest and how long it would take their light to produce a recording on the surface of photographic paper. I started this process by creating photograms of the organisms in petri dishes and Erlenmeyer flasks on black and white photographic papers. This allowed me to find the correct exposure times inherent to the organisms.
After I determined the technical parameters of working with each bioluminescent species, I transitioned to making images on large format color film. I continued the photogram process, documenting the natural growth patterns of the organisms and working with performance-like movements in the darkroom to create illusions of overlap and transparency in the two-dimensional photographic space.
My work took on a more painterly quality when I began to work with ostracods, a Crustacea organism about the size of a sesame seed. From the same family as shrimp and crab, this tiny marine creature can deploy a burst of blue bioluminescence into the water to warn off predators and attract mates. Drawing on the surface of film with re-animated ostracods, I began to experiment with mark making and gesture in reference to the growing number and strength of hurricanes churning across the northern Atlantic. These works, which appear to be part celestial and part sea, render the bioluminescence as navigator beacons mimicking the night sky for our attention.
While I wasn’t able to find the bioluminescence in the Chesapeake Bay again, these glowing organisms helped me to discover compelling interconnections between terrestrial and marine systems. When powerful storms flood concentrated animal feeding operations, excessive nutrients are released into the watershed. When these waters, with elevated levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, hit warming ocean waters, harmful algal blooms can develop. These blooms, often called Red Tide, are created by an overgrowth of dinoflagellates.
These cross-species collaborations reflect a curiosity and wonder at the natural world. By harnessing the fleeting light of dinoflagellates, bacteria, and other glowing species, I connect to these tiny creatures, and work toward a non-human-centered world. Wonder is a survival skill, an imperative to help us find hope and innovation amidst the climate crisis. And blue bioluminescence may guide the way.
Photo by Margaret LeJeune
Photo by Margaret LeJeune
Photo by Margaret LeJeune
Photo by Margaret LeJeune
Margaret LeJeune is an image-maker, curator, and educator from Rochester, New York (USA). She received an MFA from Visual Studies Workshop. Working predominantly with photographic-based mediums, LeJeune explores our precarious relationship to the natural world. Her work has been widely exhibited at institutions including The Griffin Museum of Photography (USA), The Center for Fine Art Photography (USA), ARC Gallery (USA), Circe Gallery Cape Town (South Africa), Science Cabin (South Korea), and Umbrella Arts (USA). LeJeune has been invited to create work at several residency programs which foster collaboration between the arts and sciences including the Global Nomadic Art Project – The Ephemeral River (England), University of Notre Dame Research Center (USA), D’art et de Reves(Canada), and Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences (USA). She has been awarded a Puffin Fellowship, The Sally A. Williams Artist Grant, and a Bradley University Research Excellence ‘New Directions’ Grant for her interdisciplinary project Growing Light. Her works have recently been published in Evolving The Forest from art.earth press (UK) and Becoming-Feral from Objet-a Creative Studio (UK). LeJeune is an Associate Professor of Photography at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. She is currently serving as a Visiting Associate Professor in the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).
It was never my intention to think about mountains, the sea, or the sky. It is just that they were there and I was desperate. I spent my youth many miles from the mountains and further from the salty sea. It was not an uninteresting landscape; for thousands of years glaciers carved kettles and left moraines filled with the richest of black earth. And maybe for this, I’ve always loved the earth, the soil, dirt, and clay. When I see good earth, my hands go in and I inhale; I want to burrow and submerge myself, and find understanding through it. And maybe because I am from a place carved out, we talk around things; our understanding comes in the negative space of things.
For what also seemed like thousands of years we curled together, wrapping our barren bodies around the most tender loss. The body of my dog curled at my stomach, my husband around me, all the others who’ve ever felt the same loss around us, like gradients of clay wrapping around a void, together creating the strength of an arch. Until one day, the morning light called our attention. The windows of our home now face the salty water of the sea to the west and mountains just beyond. The earliest light was projecting from the water to our bedroom wall as a train passed. And I realized we were still here in the world, with this broken peach light from the water, from the sky, moving across our wall, stunned and surprised that we did not disappear into our grief.
This void, this grief, like the remains of a slow-moving glacier, led me to the expanse of the sky. Having moved to Seattle several years ago, each day I observe the same panoramic view of the sky, the Olympic Mountains, and the salty water of the Salish Sea. However, this same scene is ever-changing, and the ephemerality of light and natural color is what most interests me. And just when I needed it, I learned about the Cyanometer, invented by Swiss alpine climber Dr. Saussure – a tool by which to measure the intensity of blue in the sky.
And I realized we were still here in the world with this broken peach light from the water, from the sky, moving across our wall, stunned and surprised we did not disappear into our grief.
I started making Cyanometers from clay and pigment, hand-pressed, slowly; drawn to the idea of having a tool by which to name and categorize such seemingly unnameable things. I mean, at what moment was the sky that particular tone of Cyan? It felt like trying to label or categorize my grief. And so, the sky was with me, changing yet staying, while I went through this thing. I did not force it to move more quickly, just paid attention.
At times we are all too quick to say the sky is blue. However, when we look and carefully observe, we can see that the colors vary from blue to pink, to orange, to pale grey peach fading into every other color. In this work, I am interested in seeing color for its moment. I want to touch it, manipulate it, squeeze it into form. I want to let it drift into another color, sometimes slowly. I want to have a physical knowledge of what it means to have color. I am using color as a metaphor.
My work examines the qualities of a moment, or the idea of a moment in physical form: temporal, fragile and fleeting. These moments are plastic; sometimes they seem to stretch translucent thin, changing in strength and quality. At other times the moments are slow to transition.
And so, the sky was with me, changing yet staying, while I went through this thing. I did not force it to move more quickly, just quietly paid attention.
The times to pay attention – these moments – can vary: from watching the monitors of my mother in the ICU unit, held by the steady breathing ventilator; to living far from home in isolation; to the work of hanging lace – a metaphor for living in the shadows of my grandmothers; to a panoramic view of many mountains and valleys; to waiting and watching the gradients of carefully controlled cells grow. A quiet, private grief plays out in the subtleties of my work, often speaking around things, just as we did back in the rural farmlands.
Sometimes at night when I look to the sky and Puget Sound, I am comforted by the darkness and by the kinship with the view from my childhood farm. The repetition of the waves, the planting of crops, the rows and rows to watch pass by. Some things constant while others change. Landscapes carved slowly over time, our bodies, our land – changing slowly.
Some things constant while others change. Landscapes carved slowly over time, our bodies, our land – changing slowly.
Amanda Salov was born in Savannah, Georgia and raised in the rural pottery town of Cambridge, Wisconsin. She received a BFA focusing in ceramics and an MFA focusing in ceramics, sculpture, and fibers. Amanda has shown her sculptures and installations nationally and abroad. She also can be found painting and writing. This is the first time her writing has been published and she finds it both exciting and terrifying to be so vulnerable. For the past decade while living in the Pacific Northwest, she’s been grappling with infertility, a thing almost no one speaks of openly, trying to understand it from her environment and spaces surrounding her. She lives and works in the beautiful blue city of Seattle, Washington.
Standing in front of a group of students sharing knowledge of indigo and other natural dye plants, I am acutely aware of the object permanence that this moment encapsulates. How knowledge endures through generations is a mystery. How and when it bubbles to the surface is not of our own devising. You might never be certain from whence it came. Yet here we are in the richness of this time, heirs of the garden of good and evil.
I am a descendant of farmers, as are many immigrant, indentured, and enslaved peoples. Service to the earth is not new, nor am I. The accumulation of my life is a direct articulation of my ancestors sowing. I am soil, seed and sun. My life and work up to this point have been built on layers and layers of legacies. I do not believe I made any of this on my own.
THE ACCUMULATION OF MY LIFE IS A DIRECT ARTICULATION OF MY ANCESTORS SOWING. I AM SOIL, SEED AND SUN.
Photograph by Colby Ware
Photograph by Kenya Miles
Photograph by Kenya Miles
Photograph by Kenya Miles
Photograph by Colby Ware
I AM INDIGO’S MOTHER. MY GREATEST AND MOST PRECIOUS SEED.
I find most of my understanding in dreams, submerged in water. Portals that create pathways between myself and things beyond invigorate faith and ignite intuition. There are days past and present where I find myself drawn to places and spaces without words or reason, only wonder. My time traversing landscapes and cultures, taking in craft at the feet of artisans, has always felt familial. I am grateful that traditions steeped in elemental harmony are upheld in the hearts and hands of the chosen.
I am an artist who collaborates with nature. I have delighted and immersed in the beauty of botanical color for over a decade, yet my knowledge of this alchemy is in its infancy. I see the soil as a story. One that is telling of all that it holds, of all that it bears. Lush and light in its insistence of hope and liberation. Intricate and endless in its connections and depths.
There are days in the garden when I leave it all on the ground. When the weight of what I carry is too intense and I am called to lay my burdens on the earth. It is with great care and welcoming that the dirt beneath me drinks of my tears as it did those of my ancestors. Soil regenerates to become fiber and blossoms that breathe color and weave wonders. How miraculous. As ever, earth reawakens us into something more.
To learn more about the work of Kenya Miles go here.
CARPETS CAN BE A REFUGE, BUT HERE THEY CAN PORTRAY DESTRUCTION IN A DIFFERENT WAY. THEY REPRESENT A FABRICATED BIOME, A METAPHOR TO THE MAN-MADE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE.”
Armed with a tufting machine, scissors, and a wildly expansive mind, Alexandra Kehayoglou creates lush, woolen terrains out of her Buenos Aires studio. Fiber is transformed into rivers, rocks, dense green foliage. There is a monumentality to Kehayoglou’s works, which often hang from walls and ceilings, sometimes inviting the viewer to remove shoes, or to lie down and bask in the feel of fibers, as if wading in a river, meadow, or field. Kehayoglou describes her work as “a fabricated biome, a metaphor for the man-made world in which we live,” and diving into their simulated terrain imbues us with sensation while inviting us to contemplate the authenticity of place.
As Kehayoglou constructs her landscapes, she allows the work to evolve over “the time they deserve to be produced,” as if she is tending or cultivating actual land. Fibers and threads are shaped and sheared like a manicured garden. Kehayoglou also carefully considers each material in her carpets, sourcing deadstock yarns from her family’s textile factory as a way to minimize waste. These choices collectively amount to a form of earth activism, her one-off sculptures made of upcycled textile waste standing in defiance of mass production. While decadent and celebratory of craft, Kehayoglou’s works describe environments that are being altered as a result of human interruption and climate change. The artist recognizes how these works can simultaneously comfort and unnerve.
KEHAYOGLOU CONSTRUCTS HER LANDSCAPES … AS IF SHE IS TENDING OR CULTIVATING ACTUAL LAND. FIBERS AND THREADS ARE SHAPED AND SHEARED LIKE A MANICURED GARDEN.
These manufactured landscapes hold intimate memory and meaning for the artist. Her father has his own carpet factory in Argentina, and his mother before him had a weaving practice back in Sparta, Greece. When Kehayoglou’s grandmother fled Greece for South America, she crossed the ocean into the unknown with but one possession: her loom. Elpiniki, a large, externally carpeted boat that Kehayoglou made in 2014, pays homage to her grandmother’s crossing. Formed in the shape of a giant shoe, the sculpture is based on a pair of carpeted shoes that her grandmother wore on her wedding day. Kehayoglou incorporated roses into the design, as documented in the original pair and in gentle homage to the town where her grandmother was born. Roses and carpets were what the town was famous for.
Recently Kehayoglou floated down the Paraná river in the massive shoe-boat, transforming the sculpture into an important part of a ritualistic performance. The act of being transported in the boat both acknowledges her grandmother’s long ocean journey, and connects her practice back to the earth, submerged in and transformed by landscape.
“Blue. Plant. Soil. Dust. Hope,” conceptual artist Madelaine Corbin answers, when asked about undercurrents that unify her different bodies of work. An aggregate of pigment, particles, living matter and aspiration permeate the work, asking us to question the boundaries which define things like ‘home,’ ‘value,’ ‘empathy,’ and our escalating crisis of climate change.
One example is a group of stenciled floor works. While each visually signifies a carpet, they aren’t woven, or even made of fiber. Corbin’s rugs are a purposeful dusting of matter (ash, dust, pigment), temporarily delineating a space on the floor, and representing the traditional domestic object. As we encounter them, we become acutely aware of our bodies in space and the potential effects of our movements. Excessive sway of an arm or skirt might stir a wind great enough to alter the work. A misstep could be devastating.
Surprisingly, Corbin is delighted by these unforeseen calamities. For this artist, the work lies in the ‘happening.’ Installation, deinstallation, even accidental rupture, are active, living moments that more accurately represent her concepts than do their periods of stasis on a gallery floor. A goal in the work is often to engage nature – but nature as collaborator, rather than subject. No matter how deliberate these floor offerings might be, their passive state is only a fragment of the idea.
Photograph by Nelly Kate
Photograph by Dominic Palarchio
THE SOIL IS ONE OF THE FIVE GREAT CARBON POOLS ON THE PLANET. THE PLANETARY EBB AND FLOW AMONG THESE POOLS OVER SHORT AND LONG PERIODS OF TIME FORMS THE ESSENCE OF THE NATURAL CARBON CYCLE.
It was a dear friend’s farm and home, lost to the California Paradise fire in 2018, that inspired Corbin’s first ‘rug.’ The pattern on the gallery floor composed entirely of dusted hardwood ash, A Lost Garden and Geographic Limit (Paradise) 2018 refers to traditional Iranian Garden of Paradise carpets. Woven oases of plants and rivers, growing together in harmony. Corbin’s gesture of a rug made of ash is extremely moving, a metaphor for the fragility, and impermanence of our homespaces. Living in Detroit, far from her friend’s loss, and unable to offer assistance, Corbin felt helpless. She began to wonder about disasters endured far away from where we are. She asked,”what are the geographical limits of empathy?” At what point does this gesture of particles on the floor expand and dissipate, so as to no longer be associated with home?
Corbin’s next rug, Underdust, 2019,was made of dust collected from beneath the historic rugs of Cranbrook House, a local building with a complicated history. Dust swept under its floor coverings was preserved and remade into a new rug. Corbin reminds us that dust is part of what we try to keep at bay. The defining of our homes is understood through the barrier of what we choose to let in and what we choose to keep out, and Corbin reminds us that dust, an inevitable byproduct of the process of our decomposing interiors, is a material we seek to banish. In Underdust Corbin proposes: if dust and dirt — materials we emotionally relegate to the outdoors — become a more welcome inhabitant of our interiors (a space we generally guard so carefully), might we eventually care more deeply about the space outside our walls? Would blurring this barrier make us better stewards of our shared outdoor environment?
In a third rug, At Home in the Blue, 2019, Corbin employs blue pigment. Blue is an oft-explored concept for the artist. She notes that the acidification of our oceans is causing them to be less blue. Corbin calls the climate crisis a ‘crisis of color.’ and finding ways measuring amounts of blue or evidence of its vanishing, have featured prominently. This rug, also patterned as a utopian garden in the most brilliant of blue hues, is no less ephemeral. We are forced to consider, knowing its deinstallation is imminent, that the blue of our world may also be fleeting.
Photo by Ray Im
WHAT IS HOPE, BUT AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT THAT THE NOW CAN BE IMPROVED?
In an effort to acknowledge just how deeply resonant are the active moments of de-installation, Corbin sculpted a broom for the sole purpose of erasing her work from the gallery floor. She explains that she made this broom as a gift to herself. The broom is formed in the shape of a wishbone. Ironically, an actual wishbone (the fork-shaped bone that fuses the clavicles of a bird) evolved to strengthen the thorax to withstand the rigors of flight. Corbin’s wishbone broom wondrously launches an infinity of particulate into the air. The work of art, now a heap of cloudy dust in a ghosting of its previous iteration, has transformed. And with it so has our idea of its value. The power of ephemeral work resides in its temporality.
In our world of the actual, a woven rug is the product of a zillion weft threads intersecting with a warp. Corbin’s rugs, devoid of twisted fiber somehow still rest squarely on this known structure. A warp of minerals and dust, crossing a weft of loss and hope. The artist has somehow found materiality in absence. In this space we are left to contemplate what matters, what we hope for, and how we might do better. And what is hope, but an acknowledgment that the now can be improved?
I designed the foraging apron nearly a decade ago, to facilitate connection as I gathered plants for my dye vat. For me, it has always been about connecting with nature. The apron freed my hands so that I could continue touching, feeling, and collecting with all of my senses.
An expression of what it means to gather and hold an experience, the apron accompanies the body, bridging us to nature. She holds tools, plant material and is fun to wear, but ultimately her function is to help re-awaken our human connection to the landscape. To our interdependence.
This Earth I walk and love, teaches me about our interconnectedness, deep relationships, and tending the wild. I have witnessed that when I approach the land with reverence and an open heart, the interaction can lift the vibration of an entire place, along with all of its species- who respond when they are acknowledged and supported.
A small thread in the vast tapestry of the natural world, I dance with her, listen and bless the land with eternal gratitude for this life. Foraging from the Earth, I have learned to be of service, to give more than I take, and above all, that I always receive far more than a pocketful of beautiful plant material.
I understand that even a garment bursting to capacity with wild treasures cannot contain all the blessings of our Earth. Each experience is embodied within us. My hope is that the foraging apron might facilitate a similar sense of joy and connection to the natural world for you, as she does for me.
Founded by artist Kristin Morrison-Marks, All Species is an expression of what it means to be connected to the earth, each other and All Species on the planet. It is a clothing label, art project, and incubator for thoughts and experiments on how we can model radical independence.
For more information on the work of Kristin Morrison-Marks visit loveallspecies.com
The moment we put on clothing there is a shift from individual to connected member of society. Cloth connects our bodies and minds to the group of makers that have brought each garment to life. The materiality connects us to the environment – where we stand in relationship to it and a legacy inherited from our ancestors.
The work that we do at 11:11 / eleven eleven is a form of resistance. It is unabashedly anti-industrial. It is a celebration and reflects the art of slow living. We have found an alternative to fast fashion in humble, hand spun yarn and hand loomed fabric. We take refuge in the historical structure of warp and weft. We find ourselves in the meditative qualities of hand knitting and painting on cloth, the enlivening form of bandhani, the earthiness of natural dye and the pure power of collective effort. There is meaning in materiality, and a message in our process.
From start to finish, each piece of our clothing line passes through the attention fields and hands of many artisans. Every step adds a layer of expertise. The resulting garments hold the energetic signature of all who have contributed to the process and the land it originates from. Each garment produced by 11.11 / eleven eleven can be seen as a collectors item - signed, numbered, and dated, there is full traceability from ‘seed to stitch’.
Dismantling systemic oppression happens through a reordering of the priorities which, in turn, inform new actions and incite new patterns of behavior. We do this by consistently centering the Artisans and Farmers at the foundation of our supply chain. Operating on a zero waste principle, we assign value to every piece of material, down to the last thread. Our supply chain is a value chain.
These Artisans and Farmers are the custodians of living history. They are located across the length and breadth of India and are essential to this work.
The technique of patchwork is a manifestation of valuing all fragments of cloth and is a metaphor for the repair we need as individuals and communities.
The transformation of cotton to cloth is a manifestation of our collaborative relationship with nature. Textile heritage allows us to wear a landscape through tactile materiality. Cloth has a powerful way of recording memories, and the process of making clothing has the power to build social cohesion, embedding equity and environmental consciousness into each and every garment.
As we learn to piece together the ruptured parts of our identities and lives, we can take a lead from this tradition. Patchwork offers the possibility of transformation and hope that we can turn a fractured present into something that can function again. A wholeness whose beauty is found in rupture and whose greatness is beyond the sum of its many parts – including everything it connects to.
Many of the Artisans we have partnered with work from home. The spinning, weaving and kitchen activities happen in the same space. It is common for family members to work as a team. Many grow their own food and co-exist with animals. These remote craft communities have some of the smallest carbon footprints on the planet. This self sufficient model has never felt more inspiring or relevant as a model for living. We see re-ruralisation as a viable future of manufacturing – engaging networked village economies as a way to decentralize production away from urban centers.
Each season, we center soil, farmers, artisans, process, heritage, culture and community. 11.11 / eleven eleven is a life affirming living organism that grows and evolves according to access to resources, care and positive conditions.
Mia Morikawa is the Director and Co-founder of 11.11 / eleven eleven clothing, a brand renowned for its use of indigenous cotton and 100% natural dyes. The label uses heritage techniques such as hand spinning, hand loom weaving, hand painting, miniature tie-dyeing, and quilting and maintains its unique handmade vision by departing from mainstream manufacturing, producing small batch slow-made clothing in collaboration with groups of artisans located all across India.
For more information about 11.11/ eleven eleven and their collections visit here and here.
100% of the proceeds of purchases from the 11.11 / eleven eleven site this month will be going towards Covid Relief in India : orders will be fulfilled when their headquarters reopen at the end of the month. Shop here.
The current health crisis in India has highlighted the lack of ease of access to healthcare that our rurally located partners face.
After consulting doctors – our team assembled medical kits including : thermometers, paracetamol and oximeters for monitoring oxygen saturation.
Medical kits have been sent to craft communities which reside in villages in Kutch : Bhujpar, Kera, Vadala, Dudhai, Maringna and in West Bengal : Sashinara, East Burdwan, Nayada, Bankura, Prattapur and Purulia.
There is a growing need to build awareness and understanding for how the vaccine works – we will allocate a team for this communication exercise – as of now it seems many of the Artisans are resisting the idea of getting vaccinated once it becomes available to them.
We are pledging to work towards facilitating annual and emergency care checkups – in the form of a mobile clinic that can travel from village to village.
Nature is full of cycles. Plants and animals are born, grow, reproduce, and die, returning to the earth from which all life springs. The carbon cycle moves molecules through and between ancient carbon pools on the planet, including oceans, plants, soils, and the atmosphere. One vital carbon flow in particular is the movement of carbon dioxide from the air into a plant leaf, then to roots and soil, before a portion returns to the sky. Nature cycles and recycles, returning organic material to its source – the soil – to start again. We are increasingly aware that there is no way to “throw away” what we make — there is no “away.” Yet through decomposition, our materials can nourish new life.
Picture a hungry herbivore consuming plants in a meadow, turning the carbon into various types of protein, including the animal’s coat – wool for example. The wool is then shorn, processed, and dyed with natural colors, thus becoming yarn. Soon it is made into a sweater. After many years of repeated use, the sweater containing that original carbon molecule ends up in a compost pile, gently decomposing. Eventually the finished compost finds its way to a garden, farm, or rangeland where it feeds the soil microbes that help to maintain a healthy plant community, and so begins the cycle again.
NATURE CYCLES AND RECYCLES, RETURNING ORGANIC MATERIAL TO ITS SOURCE—THE SOIL—TO START AGAIN. WE ARE INCREASINGLY AWARE THAT THERE IS NO WAY TO “THROW AWAY” WHAT WE MAKE—THERE IS NO “AWAY.”
THE SOIL IS ONE OF THE FIVE GREAT CARBON POOLS ON THE PLANET. THE PLANETARY EBB AND FLOW AMONG THESE POOLS OVER SHORT AND LONG PERIODS OF TIME FORMS THE ESSENCE OF THE NATURAL CARBON CYCLE.
When we consider our clothing choices, we often make decisions based on color, size, and style, not on the carbon pool from which a piece of clothing originates. But the ultimate source of our clothes makes a huge difference. We should be considering clothing in the context of the following questions: Are our clothes designed to return to the carbon pool from which they came? Can we compost our clothes and return them to the soil? Then we must discontinue our part in the production of carbon dioxide emissions by divesting heavily from fossil carbon sources of clothing: virgin acrylic, nylon, and polyester, as well as synthetic dyes and finishing agents. Once we regain our focus on natural fiber systems the opportunity to restore carbon to our soils becomes a reality.
The soil is one of the five great carbon pools on the planet. The planetary ebb and flow among these pools over short and long periods of time forms the essence of the natural carbon cycle. Since the Industrial Revolution, our energy systems and agricultural systems have released excess carbon into the atmosphere, through the continuous burning of coal, oil, and natural gas deposits and through the loss of soil carbon with heavy tillage and other methods that disrupt the soil ecosystem. This carbon imbalance is driving climate chaos that is now part of the lived experience for many people around the world. We need to stop contributing more carbon to the atmosphere, but for a safe and healthy planet, we need to contribute to removing the legacy load of atmospheric carbon. In food and fiber production systems, land stewardship practices can be layered into production models to measurably contribute to this goal. We call this carbon farming, because these place-based activities enhance the flow of carbon from the atmosphere and into soil and plant life. Many of these practices have been recognized for generations of farmers as soil and water conservation practices. Long before that many practices root in Indigenous teachings of producing food and fiber while regenerating life in the ecosystem. Our food and fiber systems are intertwined, sharing land in our communities, supporting livelihoods from farming to processing and creating, and experiencing threats of climate instability from water shortages to wildfires. When we connect to the soil-to-soil systems in our home communities, we can work together to take responsibility for the impacts of our essential needs, and support the regeneration of resilient ecosystems.
Fibershed is a registered 501(c)3. Fibershed develops regional fiber systems that build soil and protect the health of our biosphere. For more information on how you can get involved, visit: www.fibershed.org
