Ever since I did the 100 Mile ART Project for the city of Cambridge in 2008, the studio has used indigo for its blue pigment. Finding a local blue in southern Ontario was one of the project’s biggest challenges. As with most of the work, it was the fantastic community that formed around the project … Read more
Since a few people have asked for more details about how to plant woad seed before the winter snows get too deep, my daughter and I decided to create a short video about how we do it here at the studio. Please feel free to ask for additional information in the comments section below, and … Read more
If you’re someone who follows what the Conestoga Iconographic Studio is doing, you’ll know that we really like the colours we create here in the village. And one of our favourite local colours is the woad blue we make every year. Creating indigo blue from woad plants goes back into Neolithic history, and the colour … Read more
It seems to me that all blues are the colour of the air—and this is certainly the case for woad blue. As fall comes to Canada, the hazy sky of summer clears and becomes a blue as deep as eternity, offset by the flaming yellows and reds of the trees’ autumn leaves. It always feels … Read more
Cobalt is an amazing town to visit for local colour! A century ago it had a floating population of 12,000 people living in it, mined almost 1,000 tons of silver in a single year (30,000,000 ounces), and even had the cheek to dub Toronto as, “the place where you catch the train to Cobalt”. It’s … Read more
This week I fired some ochres and bones at my studio in Conestoga. I love this process, and was excited to see the results of heating a few different soils and clays from here in the village in my outdoor firing pit. I’d also been given a large bag of bones last fall from a friend who had … Read more
Last weekend, with the help of the whole family, we got to work setting up for growing a new batch of woad here in Conestoga. Using old tires from the garage beside my studio, we set up fifty planters for what I hope will create an ideal place for last year’s woad seeds to grow. It … Read more
I’ve wanted to visit the Kootenay Paint Pots since I first read about them a decade ago—and last week I did! Since a conference at the Banff Art Centre was bringing me to Alberta, I took the opportunity to cross into Kootenay National Park and visit the Paint Pots on three different occasions. Arriving in Calgary early in the … Read more
Last week I had the opportunity to work with a wonderful bunch of people out in Edmonton, Alberta in celebrating, finishing, and perhaps resurrecting Betty Spackman’s Found Wanting exhibition. I was lucky enough to attend the exhibition when it appeared at the Reach Gallery Museum in Abbotsford, British Columbia in 2011. At that time, the … Read more
Until this year, Prince Edward Island had been one of the few provinces in Canada where I hadn’t yet gone on a local colour pilgrimage — looking for potential earth pigments in a community. The island is famous for its reds, so I was especially excited to take this trip and see the colours for myself. My hotel … Read more