Elisabeth Heying demonstrates paint making at the Holland Arts East Building. (Margo Ashmore)
“Is that where the phrase ‘mulling it over’ came from?” asked an audience member at Elisabeth Heying’s Art-A-Whirl demonstration of making paint. She was meditatively working the smallest of pigment particles with a muller, a lump of glass that’s flat on the bottom, against a slab of glass.
The bright pigments used in paints come mostly from finely ground minerals from clay, stones or gems: for example, common earth tones like ochre or the rusts of iron oxide, or the rare lapis lazuli which makes a bright blue. She chose a naturally-derived green for the demonstration. First step: Water, which she worked in with a palette knife. Then binder, in this case gum arabic. In her art practice, she often uses egg (think egg tempera). The goal is to suspend the color in the binder, which marries it to whatever substrate – canvas, paper, etc. As the water leaves the formula, the paint dries.
At this event at the Holland Arts East Building on May 18, Heying passed around samples of the the raw materials for pigments and binders. Against a backdrop of the Mississippi Tempest sculpture by Michael and Kelly Helsinger which appeared on this year’s Art-A-Whirl directory cover, she let members of the intimately gathered appreciative audience take turns with the muller. At times the tool slid easily, at others it ground to a halt, forming almost a vacuum from which one would break loose, re-gather the material and start again.
One of the quiet Sunday moments amid the din.
Heying’s studio is in the Holland Arts West Building, Studio 8C, Elisabeth.heying@gmail.com, 651-276-043. She is a painter, material researcher and educator.