One ounce of Specularite: The end

After 10 hours of grinding the specularite specimen from Londonderry Nova Scotia, here’s a photograph of what I’ve revealed: The bright, fiery red inside it.  This vermilion coloured pigment is so fine that when dry it will float away like smoke on the slightest movement of the air.

The ritual around creating this colour went well, and although it was exhausting work, I found myself looking forward to the quiet and focused time of grinding.

The other significant aspect to this colour, is how much of understanding it’s creation I owe to my reading about mediƦval methods of scientific understanding (where were in fact based on Plato’s elements).  Rather than thinking that I was changing the sample, I understood that something of the rock’s nature was being revealed as I ground it (this distinction is very helpful in my research at present).

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