Sustainability for Artists: "Greening Art" supplies

"Pigment dust should not go into the earth, water or landfill, but into paint," says Robert Gamblin (Owner of Gamblin Artists Colors)

I was pleased to be invited to give a sustainability workshop for artists at the Dairy Center for the Arts this week, as part of the EcoArts program. EcoArts is a wonderful set of events organized by my friend and colleague Marda Kirn. The project bring artists and scientists together to raise public awareness of climate change and sustainable living. EcoArts happens from September 12 through October 9 this year, and the schedule of events may be found online.

Marda asked me to find out about "Greening Art", or how to make the practices of art more sustainable. I found that if someone wants to write a book about "greening" art, the field is wide open. Information on environmental practices in art is scattered throughout the internet and print world, but it seems the field is only just beginning to consider how to be more sustainable. It goes way beyond using recycled materials.

Information on health and safety is more widely available than environmental information, so I presumed that if a material is toxic or accumulates in humans, it is probably not a good thing to put into the environment. It turns out that just going by Material Data Safety Sheets (MSDS) is not adequate; they are based upon warning of short-term toxicity after eight hour exposure of a healthy adult. MSDS don't warn of chronic health risks. Also, an artist with a home studio may be exposed 24/7, or may be way more "familiar" with their materials than just daubing them on a canvas with a brush. If children or elderly people are present in the home they may experience a more significant risk. Some pigments which have not been tested are considered "non-toxic" because no one has proven them harmful. Furthermore, "natural" labeling does not mean safe. Citrus-based solvents contain d-limonene, which is also used as a pesticide, and has a safe permissible exposure limit much lower than that of other solvents. "Biodegradable" does not necessarily mean non-toxic. So, what's a health and environment conscious artist to do?

The Arts and Creative Materials Institute (ACMI) provides labeling that is more conservative, for both short-term and chronic hazards. The ACMI labels materials "AP" Approved Product or "CL" Cautionary Labeling. The most stringent labeling is that of the California Proposition 65, but the only art materials that include Prop 65 labeling is the Golden Artist line. The others are for the most part battling having to use the Prop 65 label, according to my reading.

I went to the big art supply store in Denver, where the most environmental manufacturer was thought to be Gamblin. The Gamblin solvent is less toxic than others, and the company captures the pigments lost in their manufacturing process. Once a year, Gamblin makes an oil paint out of the accumulated residue, which is of course, gray. Some years it's a warm gray, some years it's a cool gray, and the tubes are given away for free. The nice gentleman at Meinenger's gave me a tube of this "Torrit" gray. The Gamblin company has a competition every year for the best values-based oil painting made only with Torrit gray, black and white paint. You can see the winners of the 2007 competition here. Isn't that the elegant thing about sustainability, making something of beauty and creativity that respects limits and efficiency?

So where do you get these more environmental art supplies? I found one on-line art supply store called Eco-Art Supplies , which carries Gamblin and Golden Artist Colors among other supplies.

More sustainable practices in art topics include reducing waste, recycling supplies, and "green" promotion, but that will need to wait for another post.

Here are some helpful resources I found on the topic of hazardous art materials, again presuming that if it's bad for you it's bad to dump in a landfill or down the toilet:

Artist Beware: The Hazards in Working with All Art and Craft Materials-and the Precautions Every Artist and Photographer Should Take by Michael McCann

The Artist’s Complete Health and Safety Guide by Monona Rossol

Facts Sheets on Art Safety Topics by Monona Rossol, at her company ACTS. Free with postal address Example titles: All About Wax (5 pages), Art Painting (5 pages), Ceramic Ware Hazards (7 pages), Dyes and Pigments (5 pages), Labels: Reading Between the Lies (6 pages)

Material Safety Data Sheets for art supplies at BLICK art materials

Online Health and Safety in the Arts Library ; University of Illinois at Chicago

California Proposition 65: Most stringent labeling list for hazardous substances

Independence days Update #5

This week has been pretty busy, but we did get some things done. We took a couple of days off while Pat went to football camp and the rest of us hung around the house. We shopped for school supplies and are in general looking forward to Fall. Or wishing summer would last longer, as the case may be.

Planted: Buckwheat and Good Bug Blend.

Harvested: Onions, tomatoes, parsley, eggplant, peppers, clover (for rabbits). Lizzie harvested plantain and we picked chokecherries down along the bike trail.

Prepped: Bought double of everything on our list at the grocery store, bought 50 lbs of organic hard red winter wheat from Golden Organics, acquired some more items for our two week reserves. Maintained inventory. Patrick dug up a little more vegetable bed in the backyard.

Preserved: Made parsley up into pesto with home grown garlic and froze in ice cube trays. The chokecherries are to be juiced and made into syrup.

Lizzie made plantain oil. She used fresh plantain leaf poultice on a nasty bruise for a few days and is convinced the it healed her. She really did heal very quickly. She submerged the leaves in olive oil and put it in the crock pot on low for a couple of days. Reading other people's instructions, we should have wilted the leaves to reduce the moisture content and increase the shelf life of the oil, so we will keep it in the refrigerator. If we get some beeswax we can make the oil into a salve. It's easy to find instructions on the internet.

Reduced waste: Commited to a solar photovoltaic system. The system will meet all of our yearly electricity needs and then a little. We get a big rebate from XCel, and there is a $2000 federal tax credit. I will be out of pocket by about $12K, of which about $9K will immediately accrue back to us as higher property value. I decided not to get a battery backup system at this time, but it would mean that if the power goes out our inverter will shut off and we will be down also. I'm not happy with that but since battery technology is improving it seems like a good decision for now.

Learned a new skill: Making plantain oil was new, and I did learn what lambsquarter looks like. It's edible.

Cooked something: Everything ricotta, since we made ricotta when we intended to make mozzarella. I made ricotta sauce for pasta, sweet ricotta stuffed in apricots, roasted peppers and squash blossoms. I used ricotta in bread pudding and in smoothies.

The whey from cheese making got used in apricot smoothies made from frozen Farmer's Market apricots, and it was pretty good. I'm the only one who will knowingly use the whey It's just part of the milk, so where's the logic?

Managed reserves: Rotated and added to stock. We are closing in on our goal to have two weeks worth stored. I have a hard time believing that all of this food and stuff would be needed for just two weeks, but maybe I'd feel differently if I actually needed it.

Local food systems: I went through a friend's garden, inherited whole and lush from the previous homeowners. I identified all the herbs and edible plants I knew and he and his girlfriend were thrilled to know more about their treasure. They have a magical place there.

My quarter of a grass-fed steer has been processed and I have alerted the people who will split it with me. I found out that the pasta I have been buying from Farmer's Market is not actually local-bummer. The market bunnies are growing like mad, going through food like crazy. We take them to the 4-H Fair on Thursday. I am ambivalent, but it is a good exercise in knowing where food comes from.

An aside: Lizzie drew me a picture yesterday. It had a crescent moon and a bunch of stars in the sky. One of the stars was a flower. She said I am the flower because I'm not like the other moms. She says that's ok, so that's a relief.

Ricotta and Apricot Recipes for Breakfast and Dessert

The ricotta glut is now officially over. I made the ricotta that was supposed to be mozzarella into a sweet filling by adding a couple tablespoons of honey, a teaspoon of vanilla extract and a good sprinkling of cinnamon. I had some dry leftover bread and a container of apricot-rum sauce we made to eat with the coffee cake Pat made.

Apricot-Rum sauce:
If you are a locavore, buy apricots at Farmer's Market or grow them yourself. The Western Slope Colorado apricot season was in full swing the last couple of weeks and the apricots were luscious. I got a twenty pound box for $30. Pick ten of the sweetest, most ripe fruits. Pit and chop. In a saucepan, cook on low-medium. Add rum to taste as a flavoring, sugar or honey to taste and cinnamon to taste. Simmer on low-medium heat until cooked through and then mash with a potato masher. Add water if a thinner sauce is desired.

Ricotta and Apricot-Rum Bread Pudding:
Grease a casserole pan with oil or shortening. Cut up dry bread into small chunks. Dot the top of the first bread layer with the sweet ricotta mixture and the apricot-rum sauce. Add another layer of bread chunks. Dot with more apricot sauce. Crack eggs into a measuring cup. For every egg cracked into the measuring cup add milk to equal a half cup mixture per egg. For example, in a two cup measuring cup, crack in four eggs and add milk until two cups is reached. Whisk in sugar or honey to taste and add about a teaspoon each of cinnamon and vanilla. Remember the sugar and seasonings in the custard mix will be spread through the bread, so make the custard a little more seasoned than you want it to taste. Pour the mixture into the casserole pan. If the level doesn't reach the top of the bread layers make more. Let sit for ten minutes so the bread can soak up the custard mix. Push down any bread chunks that are staying dry. Bake at 375F for 30-45 minutes, or until golden brown and non-mushy on top and a knife comes out mostly clean from the center. I think this tastes best slightly warm, not hot just out of the oven and not cold just out of the refrigerator.

Sweet Ricotta-Stuffed Apricots:
Pick firm fruit, wash and dry gently. Pit the fruit carefully by cutting in half. For this recipe, add only enough honey and vanilla to the ricotta to flavor, not so much that the mixture is runny and won't hold its shape. The batch pictured is a little too runny. Carefully pipe or spoon the sweet ricotta mixture into the apricots and sprinkle with cinnamon. This makes a nice breakfast, dessert or brunch dish. And it's easy.

P.S. I made that tray in pottery class with Lizzie. Forming things on a mold is way easier than throwing on the wheel. Also I realized yesterday that I've had my bread pudding pan for 25 years. Eventually I will have cookie sheets that are old enough to be President.

Enjoy!

Creamy Homemade Goodness: Pasta with Ricotta Sauce

Since we tried to make mozzarella and ended up with ricotta instead I have much more ricotta than I'm used to having. So, I tried a new ricotta recipe.

For dinner, we made Pasta with Ricotta Tomato Sauce, with a bunch of other stuff from the garden. I was really pleased with this recipe for the sheer unaccustomed homemade and homegrown feeling of accomplishment.

Here's a photo of the homemade/homegrown stuff that went into it. The ricotta was homemade from local milk, the tomato, peppers, little eggplants, parsley, scallions, garlic and rosemary were all from the garden. We used Cracked Pepper Fettucini from Pappardelles from the Golden Farmer's Market. The bummer is that when I looked up the Pappardelles website I found that they are a national company that distributes through farmers markets. The pasta is still good, but now I don't want to pay those prices for something that's not local. Guess we'll have to learn to make pasta. The parmesan, pinenuts and olive oil were also nonlocal but substitutions can be made.

We adapted from the original recipe which used rotini and didn't include the other vegetables.

Here is our recipe:
Cut eggplants, peppers, peapods and scallions in small chunks. Finely mince three cloves garlic. Spray pan with olive oil and saute, adding more olive as needed.

Start pasta cooking.

Combine about 15 oz ricotta cheese with 1/4 c. finely grated parmesan cheese and one tsp. black pepper. Mix 1/4 c. hot pasta water into the ricotta mixture.

Cut tomatoes into small chunks, mix with two tablespoons olive oil and 1/4 cup minced parsley.

When the pasta is al dente, drain and put in a big bowl. Spoon ricotta sauce onto the bed of pasta and toss with big forks. Add the sauted vegetables and the tomato/parsley mixture on top, toss lightly.

Serve with grated parmesan and pinenuts on the side. Lizzie and I made the little bowls in pottery class. We are not accomplished potters, which means we have an abundance of tiny bowls. In hindsight, I think rotini really would have been better, since the sauce is better suited for a chunky pasta.

Great Balls of Seeds

"Giving up your ego is the shortest way to unification with nature."
Masanobu Fukuoka

Yesterday I finally got around to trying something I've wondered about often. I have lots of good bug blend seed mix, buckwheat, clover and vetch seed from Peaceful Valley Farm, and I want to establish it in the dry barren hinterlands of the backyard where I rarely go. In this heat I know that I will only really keep the vegetables watered and won't be able to keep cover crop seed beds moist. Seedballs to the rescue!

Seedballs, or "Earth Dumplings" are an ancient technique reintroduced by Masanobu Fukuoka, pioneer of modern natural farming and author of "The One Straw Revolution". Seeds are mixed with compost, dry clay and water, then the mixture is shaped into marble-sized balls and dried. Once dry the seedballs can be broadcast into weedy or barren areas to sprout when conditions are right. The clay helps retain moisture and the seeds sprout protected inside the ball. You can even be a stealth gardener and seed weedy vacant lots in your neighborhood, but don't ever throw them into a natural area.

I made buckwheat seedballs for the hindmost piece of sandy backyard hell where only quack grass would grow. That way I'm hoping if I manage to water it a couple of times it will take and I can still go camping for a few days. I want to repeat this with the beneficial bug mix to go along the fence row with the currants/gooseberries/blackberry/rasberries. I have clover and vetch to go under the elderberries and under the pine. I suppose I should mix in some innoculant for the nitrogen-fixers. It seems like it would work for some of the herbs and flowers going to seed in the front, such as the sorrel and parsley and the coreopsis, yarrow, monarda and wild sunflowers. Instead of just deadheading and throwing the seeds into new areas unprotected, they might have a better chance as seedballs.

It took me probably forty minutes to form two trays of seedballs, so that's pretty labor intensive for a woman of my schedule. But, it's a perfect kid job. Lizzie digs in the mud and makes sculptures and pies for fun, so I think she will be willing to make mud balls for profit.

Seedball recipe:
Mix one part seeds (your choice) with three parts compost and five parts dry powdered clay. I used store bought compost, but too late I thought my vermicompost would work. Some recipes say terra cotta powder from a craft store, but you can also use clay from the garden. If you buy wet clay it has to be dried and powdered for some reason. I used clay from the yard that I had sifted when removing the hated gravel.

Add one to two parts water and mix well. Shape into small marble-sized balls and dry. The Path to Freedom site says the balls should be penny sized-mine were bigger. Throw about and add patience. It might take a long time until conditions are right. Seeds I threw around two years ago have just come up this year.

Interview with Masanobu Fukuoka: http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC14/Fukuoka.htm

June and July Retrospective

I’m finding there is an inherent tension between making hay while the sun shines and writing about making hay. That's why the radio silence the last two months. Plus, we were gone to California for a couple of weeks, tooling a rented Prius to Six Flags Magic Mountain where they have a roller coaster that shoots flames at you when you go by. And we visited my family.

I can’t believe how much food there is there-lemons roll about on the sidewalks, dripping off the backyard walls. We u-picked some blueberries at Underwood Family Farms and feasted until we were sick of them. Turns out the kids mostly wanted to pick them, not eat them.

We’ve been getting a lot done, so this will be a thumbnail sketch that I will flesh out in later posts.

But first, I have to share the oddest compliment a mother has ever received. We were talking and Lizzie said “Mom, if there wasn’t any food I would want to live with you because you would know how to make earthworms taste good.” I’m conflicted: I’m proud because she thinks I’m a good cook or at least good to have around in a tight spot, but I don’t want her to be worried about food. I am storing food as a hedge against many contingencies, some of which are personal, not TEOTWAWKI.

Planted: Beans and more beans. But something is eating them as soon as they come up-likely culprits are legions of pillbugs.

Harvested: Garlic, peas, lavender, elderflower, mint, bell peppers, hot peppers, salad peppers, cherry tomatoes, strawberries (a few per day), potato (that’s right, single as in one potato, not bushels). But, for many of these things it’s the first successful bit of food out of several attempts. Harvested clover for the bunnies.

Prepped: Bought two fifteen gallon water containers from Emergency Essentials, bought a few vegetable oil lamp set ups to use spent frying oil. Mylar storage bags and oxygen absorbers arrived a while back. Bought more canning jars.

Preserved: Elderflower and mint tea, dried lavender, made apricot fruit leather and dried plums and apricots in the back of the car (it worked!), canned apricot and plum jam (20 half pints). Froze apricots and peaches in batches for jam making or fruit leather, and by halves for use in winter fruit smoothies. Lizzie made lavender water by soaking the flowers in the sun for awhile. It smells amazing and she spritzed it on everything for a weekend. Since there is no preservative I froze it in ice cube trays to keep for tea/linens/refreshing spray/baking flavoring.

Reduced waste: Not sure if this is where it fits, but I had my roof evaluated by Namaste Solar Electric and am awaiting a bid. I’m definitely going forward, finally. I’ll end up with about a 3 kw photovoltaic system. The nice young man who came out said he sees electricity usage three times ours in houses our size. Plus, though these months used to be our worst for electricity due to AC, we have cut our usage down by 75% because of the insulation we put in last year. Go Team Buhr!

Learned a new skill: We tried making cheese. It turns out that either we messed up or our Longmont Dairy milk is ultra-pasteurized after all. Instead of making mozzarella we ended up with ricotta. But, the ricotta is good and hope springs eternal so next time we are going to try the dry milk and cream recipe from New England Cheese Making Supply .

Cooked something: See cheese under learned something new. The leftover whey does make a refreshing lemonade with a touch of lemon and sugar or honey, and makes a good smoothie. I'm the only one who will drink it, but I don't see why buying powdered whey to put in a smoothie would be better than the fresh stuff.

I made jam for the first time since the kids were little. The kitchen was *really* hot. Apricot fruit leather dehydrated in the car worked great. I'm not as enamored of the dried apricots and plums, but it did work.

Managed reserves: La familia is getting used to writing it down when they take something from storage. That way I can keep the inventory up to date. Lizzie thought it looked like fun, so she learned how to use the food storage inventory software. I made up inventory sheets modeled after the ones described here for the family to mark up as items are taken. Bought a variety of beans for storage, some canned fruit and vegetables, socks and underwear and toiletries.

Local food systems: The big news is that we picked up a pen of three Californian breed meat rabbits to raise for the 4-H fair. Three kids from our rabbit club are raising meat pens for the livestock auction for the first time in about ten years.

Meat rabbits were once a common sight in urban backyards. These days, many people see rabbits as pets only, and view the idea of raising them for meat with repugnance. We have always had pets, not livestock, so I am sympathetic. However, meat rabbits provide a healthy meat, are an environmental choice for protein as part of an integrated backyard food system, and add to a family's self-sufficiency. We'll see how this baby step goes. Gentle readers-what do you think?

I sent in my deposit for a quarter of a grass-fed steer from Colorado's Best Beef. It will result in about 150 lbs of beef (six times what we used last year), but some of my co-workers will share. Since Patrick is growing like a time-lapse film of a growing boy and he is starting football he wants more meat and complains if we don't have it periodically.

I also potted up some parsley plants for my coworker.

We are far from where I would eventually like to be, but it adds up over time.

Photo credits:
http://www.wildlifetrust.org.uk/cheshire/watch_earthworms.htm

Independence Days Update #3

Wow, it's June already. This is the first summer for StepWise Family blog, and I can tell you it's hard to come in and write on the computer when the outside is so glorious.

Since I wrote last I have attended the Spring American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in Ft. Lauderdale, where among other things, I learned that honey bee colony collapse disorder is not related to climate change. This, according to a NASA researcher-beekeeper who has kept great records and uses satellite data to study changes in nectar availability. However, the nectar season is starting earlier than a decade ago according to his data.

On the home front, I have been going great guns, but not writing about it. So here goes as an update:

Planted: Cabbage, onions, blackberry, raspberry, jostaberry, more strawberry, comfrey, squash, zucchini, pumpkins, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, oregano. Volunteer potatoes are coming up from last year's patch, also volunteer parsley. I threw some columbine seeds around two years ago and they are just coming up.

Harvested: Mint, chives, dandelions (leaves and blossoms), garlic scapes, sorrel.

Preserved: Started to preserve dandelion blossoms. Why? Because I came across some dandelion candy from South Korea and thought it would be fun to try making dandelion jellies, as in candies, not a spread for toast. I cut the petals off hundreds of blossoms. Midway through, Lizzie came up and watched me cut the petals off dandelion blossoms. I just kept going expecting her to ask *what the heck!* I was doing, but she didn't. She just watched for about a minute, then she looked up and caught my eye and we both fell all around laughing like crazy. What cracks me up is that the kids aren't even surprised anymore by whatever might happen. Later, I found myself thinking someone else must have a lot of time to do whatever fool thing they were doing and I had to remind myself I had just cut the petals off hundreds of dandelions, so who am I to talk.

Stored: Bought 25 lb black beans from the bulk organic warehouse and 30 lbs raisins. I bagged all the raisins in 2 lb sacks, which is not fun. Stocked up at the grocery store on canned tuna and clams. These are of course not local, but they are the only canned meat we eat. Also bought more at the grocery store to lead up to two weeks stores in the pantry.

Prepped: A lot. I am reading "Gardening When It Counts", which is a useful counterpoint to the other gardening books I read. I was able to let go of my perfectionism and practice the "Hills and Survival Gardening" section in the book, finally getting started on digging up a section of grass that I have been coveting for vegetables for years. I just dug hills within the grass and planted them, with the rest of the digging scheduled for the rest of the summer. Just dig as you go and don't freak out over it or think it has to look like a magazine.

Hung codling moth lures in the pear and apple trees and added Tanglefoot traps to the trunks. One of the lures is filled with moths on the tree where the Tanglefoot came away. The other has just one or two. I must research the codling moth lifecycle-is it the moths that climb up the tree or the larva?

Prepped and Managed: I added new drip irrigation to the elderberry bushes and the front garden where it used to be grass but now it's vegetables.

I bought Mylar bags and oxygen absorbers for my long term storage items, and my Freecycle buddy brought over some buckets. We bought Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) for the 72-hour preparedness kit and some first aid kits from Emergency Essentials. I bought the Revelar Food Storage Planner software, which has been really helpful. You can get free software but I liked the functionality of the Revelar software.

We are working on two weeks worth of storage, which has been a goal of mine ever since I become aware of bird flu. People sometimes think this kind of attention is due to alarmism or a survivalist bent. I am rather thinking of it as insurance, and as a reserve in the same way I have reserves of money and of time (sometimes). I'll never be sorry to be prepared. The other day when I was stacking cans in the storage pantry I thought "I'll never have to run to the grocery for dinner at the last minute again".

Cooked Something New: When I got up Saturday, 10 yo Lizzie was downstairs making sopapillas. She had gotten up, looked up a recipe on the Internet and was preparing the yeast dough when I stumbled down in search of coffee. She made the dough, and went through the knead, rise, rest, roll, cut cycles all by herself, then I fried them. I am so impressed that she can do this by herself at ten, and not even feel she needs to ask for help. We can make this treat from our storage easily. Well, not easily, but using what we have.

We tried some new things in the solar oven; corn bread and baked eggs. The eggs were overcooked and could have been done in a third the time, but it worked like a charm.

Worked on local food systems:
We went to the 4-H garden at St. Joan of Arc, where we were greeted by overwhelming weeds. The whole garden had to be re-rototilled and the warm season transplants planted.

We also found a local independent butcher who has local buffalo and rabbit meat.

Reduced waste: Just composting as usual.

Learned a skill: I learned how to set up the drip irrigation. It took a little learning curve but I can at least work with the tubing and connectors thingies now, even though at first my hand strength was not adequate. I have to drill a small pilot hole in the 1/2" polytube for the connector to work. Stronger people probably don't have to do that, but it's what worked for me.

Also, I'm happy to have baked bread in the solar oven. It has more of a steamed texture than baked, but it is pleasingly dense and a good option.

A couple of weekend days I intentionally stayed outside all day long working in the garden and not concerned with work or housework or cooking or paying bills. Those are restful days, though I come in filthy and sunburned, scratched and with lower back aches. Just like when I was a kid, except without the lower back pain.

Saturday I found an aspen seedling in my parsley patch, which I would normally pull. But, this one was covered with aphids and ladybug larva. I showed Lizzie what ladybug larva look like, since they are so alarming looking a person might just think they were bad and get rid of them. Since this aspen seedling is a ladybug farm I left it.

I love finding the volunteer plants coming up all around. I think the soil life is slowly getting better so that seeds which couldn't find purchase before are now emerging.

I'll try to post much more frequently, that may be the only way I can keep up. It sure is the busy season!