An L.A. Artist Devoted to the Process of Paint | UNW

What’s the origin of the paint making?

I started researching the color preparations and the painting materials that had been traditionally used in the history of image making. Many of them are botanically based and mineral based. And so over the past 10 years, I’ve dedicated myself to learning how to extract color, precipitate a dye, crush minerals, levigate them and clean them.

Where do the materials come from, and where do you do your research?

I’ve gone very in-depth with conducting field study and being off-grid, camping with no Wi-Fi and no creature comforts for three to five days, sometimes 12 days, researching native plants of the Southwest that are endemic to the region and exist nowhere else in the world.

I normally go with one or two people; typically I’ll go with friends who are also plant enthusiasts, herbalists, botanists. This last time, the museum director for the Huntington came with me for the night.

Where did you camp?

We were in the Anza-Borrego Desert, which is part of the Sonoran Desert. Because we’ve had all this crazy rain, things that should not be popping and blooming are gorgeous. The lavender plants, desert lavender, were fully in bloom. The ocotillo is fully in bloom. And it was just what I needed.

What are your most frequently used materials for making paint?

There’s a range. And I’ll say that I’ve moved more toward the mineral-based color, because the plant color is so fugitive. For plants, logwood; and for insects, cochineal.

Tell me about the cochineal.

She’s tiny and she’s beautiful. A small insect also known as nochesley in the Indigenous Nahua language. She eats only paddle-tail cactus. When she eats it, her body digests it and it becomes carmine red.