Never have I been so excited about being given a whole lot of mud (well, I probably have, but in the context of growing things… which I guess connects all these ideas).
Thanks to ceramicist Elsa Naveda as well as the serendipitous materials index curated in the education space at Museo Tamayo back in Mexico City who started my collection of earth samples
and of course, discovering that the various Oaxacan earth processed by Margarita De La Peña back in 2014 (and who had inspired this trip) were still available to use at the studio.
They are used in combination with a glutinous rice flour as a binder for Moku Hanga.
And after a couple of days grinding and sieving, I finally got to work…
So, the first question before delving further into the colours, was how was I going to bind them to the page? I wanted to see what I could source from the local market, everyday ingredients that you find in the kitchen…or Mexican kitchen at least. We know that egg tempera paintings we found in Egyptian tombs and knowing the significance of Nopal in Mexico, known for its waterproofing quality for paints, Nopal pads were also on my shopping list.
Another culturally significant starch is of course maize flour since this is another indigenous species to this part of the world, having first been domesticated here some 10,000 years ago.
Señora Marce advised me on how to extract the “baba de nopal” (nopal dribble or slime), cutting it and massaging it before leaving it to exude.
Though since these binders also had to have a good consistency for screen printing I looked for other alternatives (nopal and egg had both been quite watery). Luckily there is such an appetite for DIY products that Drogueria Cosmopolitana has at least two shops in Mexico city for all your chemical ingredients, the kind of thing you have to look online for in the UK. So here I asked for all their natural gums and came away with Guar, Tragacanth, Xanthan and Gum Arabic.
