Montana River Rocks & Walnut Oil on Canvas
30 x 30 Inches
Missoula Artist Turns River Rock into Pigment for Paintings
Sierra Cistone, January 26, 2023
In an era where our environmental impact is on the minds of many, one Missoula-based artist is carving out a niche for sustainable and environmental art.
Talia Roberts is a local painter who has brought her craft back to earth by creating her own paints out of materials she finds in nature. Using rocks, plants and plant-based oils, she has hearkened back to a time when paints were traditionally made by hand from natural pigments.
Producing her own paints was something that grew out of an increased understanding about the toxicity of many kinds of synthetic paints.
“It started with me thinking about it with my own body,” Roberts said. “If it’s so toxic and could give me cancer, something then could give the earth cancer and it’s a domino effect.”
Many widely available acrylic paints contain heavy metals such as cadmium, cobalt and lead.
The health effects of these heavy metals can be severe in heavy doses and paint manufacturers are required by law to label the products with hazard warnings. There is even an entire 1988 amendment for labeling art materials under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act.
Brandon Reintjes, the senior curator for Missoula Art Museum, said that when he was painting consistently, he went once to get his blood tested for heavy metals. He was fortunate to not have accumulations but said he remembers the anxiety around thinking it was a possibility.
“Every artist, I think, has to figure out a relationship with their materials, right?” Reintjes said. “And especially when things are so toxic.”
Reintjes says in his time as curator, he has seen the movement toward sustainable art become a common topic in the world of ceramics but less so for painting.
But paint making is an ancient craft and Roberts remembers learning about it while studying studio art in college. When beginning to think about how to make her own paints, Roberts recalled the basics: combine a pigment and fat or oil to create paint. From there, she began her deep dive into researching historical paint making and best practices to create the product that she wanted to work with.
Roberts’ process begins by collecting natural materials from around the Missoula area. River rocks have become a staple in her paints and she uses a geological hammer to break the rocks into smaller pieces. She then grinds the pieces in her mortar and pestle and creates a fine dust, which she says can take days to get it to be as fine as she needs it to be.
She then sifts the dust and cleans it, which allows her to see an unadulterated version of what color that particular rock may become. Once she has a fine rock dust, Roberts then adds plant-based oil, like linseed, to create the final product. There can be an element of surprise when certain color rocks produce a different color paint, said Roberts. For example, a particular blue rock turned out to produce a green paint.
“I feel like there is a certain aliveness,” Roberts said. “Because people ... can feel what they see outside brought to life in a new form.”
For the past year, she has been perfecting the process and letting her paints reshape her work and how she thinks about her art form.
Her more recent works depict simple circles in a certain pigment with a different colored background. Some of these works can be seen at the Missoula Art Museum in the “Imaging the Sacred” exhibit and in the museum’s auction room.
The simplicity of painting just a single circle was in part inspired by the tremendous amount of time Roberts spent grinding the material in her mortar and pestle using circular motions. But the painted circles are not perfect.
“I think all the imperfection is natural and is something that’s been here for a while,” Roberts said. “The stones kind of give me that feeling too because they have been here for a lot longer than we have.”
When Roberts was still painting with synthetic paints she had been working “more chaotically and into surrealism.” But painting with her handmade paints required different techniques and gestures and forced her to slow down as she worked.
Roberts likens the technique required to use the paints to using a fountain pen. The paint must remain wet while painting on the canvas and this requires a constant dipping of the brush into the paint. Slowing down, however, gave Roberts the time and space to focus on the pigments themselves and her relationship to each color.
Using only natural materials has its limits on what colors are available. But the limitations reflect Roberts’ mindset around ethical and thoughtful use of products and the creation of art.
“There’s just an over-consumption that irks me that we can have everything so easily,” Roberts said. “Not having the whole spectrum, I think, is important a little bit to deepen love.”