Artifacts

Anchors for connection

One by one in the morning window light, I snipped the little anthers from their stems and watched them softly pile into a tiny glass jar.

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Instructions: Looking back through this year, identify at least one small material artifact that holds meaning for you.

An artifact is a fragment that holds the essence of its origin. To me they function as memory souvenirs, talismans, seeds of understanding, and remnants that connect me to something bigger. Apparently, it is a part of my practice to cherish the small sheddings of life, and sometimes create with them. (See: making paint out of crushed rocks, etc.)

In our living room, next to the record player, you’ll see a small woven wicker dish holding four sturdy small spheres Henry and I rolled with our hands from clay we found underneath our cement doorstep during the height of the pandemic when he was 6 years old and all we could do was, well, stuff like that. These handmade raw earth marbles remind me of such a significant time, one I now realize was so much more about connection than disconnection. Each one a literal touchstone, a stone to touch, bringing more substance to my understanding over time like the clay and water and hands that combined to create them.

Memory marbles.

There is a feather of a bluebird too, one half of a walnut shell, and a few dried chamomile heads. Actually, one of the cats got the feather, but in my mind it’s still there. Inches away from the ghost of feather, another palm-sized terra cotta vessel from India contains three very (oddly) bright pink colored maple seeds from down the street. Rocks. A paintbrush I made from palm tree bark from down south. A brass dish full of soft colored beach glass and small, elusive, lake Michigan fossils.

All of these little things remind me of something.

Doesn’t everyone have a pebble or two in a jacket pocket from a time they spent in awe?

In my studio, crushed rocks in a little jar, sealed with a cork. Objects from the river. Empty seed pods. Tiny yellow sticks leftover from the incense. Little tester strips of color. A container of sand.

Hiding in a drawer, a tiny fragment of a moon meteorite, glued to the inside of a small locket. Every card or letter I’ve ever received. And, a peculiar dried flower that reminds me of another special time with my child.

And more recently…

Pollen from the windowsill.

Before

After

The potent, pungent, red-orange-brown dust, when smeared between the fingertips, illuminates to a rich golden yellow balm. Dispelling the illusion of darkness or dullness, this pollen-as-guru is the pollen of many lily flowers, lightly collecting in the glass.

Did you ever rub a dandelion flower on your wrist as a kid to turn it yellow? I think if you rubbed it on your friend’s wrist it meant you’d be friends forever?

The lilies that many of us have placed on the long windowsill to honor the passing of Sharathji have also been passing, and passing something on: their pollen. Growing stronger with the decay of the almost opalescent white petals. I can’t help but feel the intensity of the pollen’s shimmering color, as I am nudged by the truth of pollen as a symbol of rootedness, lineage, succession, interconnection.

The falling pollen is an artifact, and an anchor for connection. Something small that carries the DNA of something more whole, or even infinite.

Collecting artifacts feels instinctual. It’s a natural tendency to cherish the tiny bits of the big things that touch our hearts. To hold on to the smallest pieces as we let go.

The expression of rubbing the pollen onto paper is a motion through my body transformed into a delightful tiny offering to share. Who better to share with than to those around me who brought the flowers, who remind me of the kind of resilience and togetherness that pollen advocates for?

So.

This whole sentimental shenanigan carried itself away and turned into a mini design project.

Story of my life!

First, I tore small pieces of cotton paper into squares and rubbed the pollen into ovals (I didn’t decide this, it was designed by a formula that looks like: pollen + body + instinct) and then I labeled it with gold pencil.

Then, I created little folding cards on textured honey colored card stock printed with metallic gold ink on my Risograph, to protect the pollen impressions, and to provide some words.

Lastly, I sealed them up in semitransparent glassine envelopes to be shared as gifts on the solstice this past Sunday for fellow ashtanga friends in effort to share in delight and inspiration through keepsake. I love thinking about each small piece of the memorial flowers being tucked away in a random or special place somewhere. I loved “pollenating” everyone by handing each one out personally*

The finished result, a little solstice gift. *If you’re someone who would have been there last Sunday but had other holiday stuff, I have one saved for you.

This year-end experience has combined a few recent themes around creative practice for me that I’ve written about here throughout this year. Thinking about what’s left behind, framing art-making as gift-making, and to go back to my very first post of 2024, exploring concepts of renewal.

What a year. I really am so grateful to have these kinds of things to think about, to feel about, and to write about. Thank you for reading this newsletter, I hope it has felt vibrant and curious and brought you some beauty this year.

Now I am thinking about ways to incorporate more found+cherished objects and meaningful artifacts into my artwork, maybe even as their three dimensional forms and not only as artifact-turned-pigment-turned-paint (or turned-smudge in this case). We will see if this sentimentality as art practice takes deeper roots some more this coming year.

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Artifact questions for your practice:

What is sentimental to you?

How do you incorporate that sentimentality into what you create?

What do you like to collect?

What stops you in your tracks?

What do you find yourself picking up off of the ground?

Is the act of collection an art itself?

How can you transform what you notice in your surroundings into something meaningful?

How can you share it with others?

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Palette of the Month coming soon ⟡

I will be sending December’s Palette of the Month transmission very soon. If you enjoy my writing and want to become a paid subscriber to support my work and receive an additional monthly dispatch about my creative process with natural pigments, you can read more about that here and decide if you’d like to subscribe!

Other than that, I will write to you in the new year. Have a wonderful last week of 2024.

With you as we head into a new year

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-Kristen