From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 10/03/01-02:11:45 AM Z
On Tue, 2 Oct 2001, lva wrote:
> There is one thing, though, that I am wondering about. To produce
> ochres, siennas and umbers on a commercial basis, the companies involved
> in this probably cannot take pigment straight from the veins. It would
> become much too expensive. So I have the suspicion that if I get to a
> site where a beautiful pigment is being produced commercially and I get
> access to a vein where the pigment is in its pure state, I could get a
> superior powder pigment. Or?
In the 1960s when I first bought the new Liquitex acrylic paint in a jar,
there was a color called Venetian Red which was probably the most intense
color in the history of the world, so intense you couldn't actually use
much of it, but in due course it dried up, as acrylic paints sometimes do.
The replacement Venetian Red was pathetic, lifeless. I went up the chain
of information to a chemist at the company who explained that that
particular mine (near Venice I suppose) was exhausted, and they'd had to
go to another.
Moral: pick your source and take your chances... Or, if you find a color
you like lay in a bunch.
> Also, I CAN'T STAND BIG-TIME INDUSTRY!
That, with various elaborations, was the idea behind the term
"Post-Factory Photography." But there ought to be a happy medium (so to
speak) -- where do you stop? There only are 36 hours in a day. I also
think of Man Ray who said (now maybe someone has the exact quote?) to
make art you have to have absolute contempt for your materials, or words
to that effect. I know that if I get the least bit precious about a paint
or a paper, or a "beautiful" scene for that matter, the print usually
sucks.
> ...What's the use of all these
> gigantic machines producing day and night while millions of people are
> jobless. I like cottage industry. Less greed. More fun. I don't want a
> robot produce my shoes. I want a guy doing that, a guy who LIKES making
> shoes, a guy who's proud of being a good shoemaker. Back to a society
> that's based on agriculture I say! Hold it, hold it. We're getting
That's a very romantic view, based on the Swedish educational system
perhaps (at least as it was when my relatives lived in Stockholm) -- at a
certain age you take an exam, if you don't pass you go to trade school,
possibly to become a shoemaker.
In this country, where anyone who wants to can go to some college or
other, so that making shoes is no longer a viable option, we have to get
our shoes made in countries where this is not the case.
> I've got a hundred things to do before I head for Sardinia, so there's
> not much time for expansion. But you know what would interest me? I'd
> like to find a way to make Green Earth pigments darker. The print I've
Mix in a little burnt umber. Mayer, incidentally, claims that a mix of
pigment is always livelier than one alone.
> made the other day with a blue-green Cyprian green earth powder pigment
> (OD'd the pigment brutally) came out very nice, but I'd still like to
> have it darker. Any idea? Maybe one can burn it???
Judy
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