Pigment + Place Workshop

Join us for thie Pigments + Place Workshop from Friday, October 4th, 2024 to Tuesday, October 8th, 2024, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Pine Meadow Ranch Center for Arts & Agriculture!

Are you ready for the world to become your palette? This workshop will introduce you to the vibrant world of natural pigments. You’ll learn how to ethically forage pigments from the earth — rocks, flowers, roots, bark, bones — and how to transform these materials into any type of paint or ink. You’ll also learn about pigments as a way to creatively engage with ecological issues, including climate change.

Pigments allow us to feel forms of time that our daily lives can obscure: geologic time, photosynthetic time, or what is often called “deep time.” Pigments provide an opportunity to interact directly with ancient rhythms, offering a balm for the challenging emotions that ecological crises can provoke.

This course will include demonstrations, guided conversation, guided foraging outings, creative prompts, and time for individual and group creation and reflection. You’ll leave with a shared palette sourced from the Sisters bioregion and the skills to continue this practice on your own.

This course is appropriate for all skill levels. No experience of any kind is necessary though some previous engagement with some form of creative practice is helpful. Participants should be comfortable being outside and engaging in short nature walks. Your instructor is a certified wilderness guide so you can feel safe on our outings.

Days 1-2: Learn and practice basic pigment-making skills in a guided, supported setting. Discuss and practice foraging for pigments. Learn about each other and the ways we are impacted by environmental issues. Discuss the poetics of pigment.

Days 2 - 4: Guided and supported work on a range of creative prompts designed for all backgrounds and skill levels.

Day 5: Share work, receive and offer feedback, and talk about how to carry this practice into daily life. Leave with a personalized pigment and a parting prompt.

All skill levels are welcome!

About the Instructor:

Daniela Naomi Molnar is an artist, poet, and pigment worker collaborating with the mediums of language, image, paint, pigment, and place. She is also a wilderness guide, educator, and eternal student. An entry in the Oregon Encyclopedia states, “Molnar pioneered the notion that art can speak to climate change.” Her large-scale, abstract, color-driven paintings speak to this and other thorny issues by inviting the viewer to sense and feel. Using colors she makes herself, her work creates contemplative spaces in which we can re-engage our senses in order to arrive at new, better questions about what it means to be human at a time of crisis. Her work aims to shift us from despair to creative possibility, from trauma to wonder, from isolation to collective purpose. Her work is the subject of a front- page feature in the Los Angeles Times, an Oregon Art Beat profile, and a feature in Poetry Daily. Her visual work has been shown nationally, is in public and private collections internationally, and has been recognized by numerous grants, fellowships, and residencies. Her debut book CHORUS is a finalist for the 2024 Oregon Book Award and was selected by Kazim Ali as the winner of Omnidawn’s 1st/2nd Book Award. Forthcoming books include: PROTOCOLS (Ayin Press, 2025), The Ecopoetry Anthology (Trinity University Press, 2025), and Light / Remains (Bored Wolves, 2026). She founded the Art + Ecology program at the Pacific Northwest College of Art and helped start and run the backcountry artist residency Signal Fire. Her work often occurs outdoors, in collaboration with global public wildlands.

www.danielamolnar.com / Instagram: @daniela_naomi_molnar

You can read more about her work with pigments here.

Cancellation Policy:

$20 cancellation fee

Less than 1 week before workshop: 0% refund

7-14 Days before workshop, 50% refund

Full refunds will be given if PMRCAA cancels the event due to inclement weather, or if the instructor cannot teach the workshop.

All workshop cancellation requests must be submitted in writing to [email protected]

Host or Publisher Pine Meadow Ranch Center for Arts & Agriculture