an ode to alizarin

and other thoughts on a saturday morning

Color sky, Havana lake

Color sky, rose carmethene

Alizarin crimson

—Donovan, Wear Your Love Like Heaven

There is a song I have loved since childhood that has followed me all the way through to now. Singing it back then, I simply loved the way the words felt in my mouth, exotic, unfamiliar. Now, an artist entering her seventh decade on earth, the words have a deeper meaning, far more familiar, but still just as delicious flowing from the tongue. I admit my favourite rendition of this song is not Donovan’s original, but the more transportive version from the gossamer voice of Sarah MacLachlan. Take a listen, if you wish.

Rose carmethene was a watercolour made by Winsor & Newton, discontinued in the 1960s for lightfastness issues. It was mostly used for tinting photographs, and was a gentle warm rose colour, a bit brighter than Rose Madder Genuine that is another pigment known to have lightfastness issues, but still manufactured in the traditional way by Winsor & Newton. Havana Lake still exists in gouache form, but I could only find one company making it, and my computer alerted me that the website was unsafe, so I did not investigate it further. Alizarin Crimson though…she is alive and well and at this time still available for purchase by many well-known manufacturers. At least for now.

You see I came across an Instagram post and then a couple of articles saying that the Alizarin pigment, PR83, is not being manufactured any longer, and many brands are issuing statements that their current stock will be the end of it. Why, you ask? Apparently for issues of lightfastness and the availability of more time-sturdy versions of the same deep red-magenta hue. Paints, all paints, are made from pigments or dyes, and some do fade over time. We can see this in the works of artists like Turner, whose paintings have changed over the years as certain pigments faded or turned grey. This has never stopped me from standing in awe of those Turner paintings, or having fugitive pigments in my own palette; I simply would not use them if I were creating a work that was to be sold or needed to stand up to the ravages of time.

My feelings about the permanence issue have changed dramatically over my years as an artist. What is permanence anyway? What about the immense beauty and pleasure of the moment of creation, or enjoying something for its lifespan and then recycling it and returning it to the earth? It’s far more important to me to choose pigments that are non-toxic and to use substrates that are recyclable than it is to use things that will stand the test of time for hundreds or thousands of years, like the plastics in acrylic paints, for instance. When I paint in my journals that I hope will be read by my great-grandchildren and their grandchildren, I am painting inside a book of archival paper that will be closed to light, and even if it does fade a bit over time, does it make it worth any less? What is it with us artists that feel like our every scribble must be legible a thousand years from now?

Not everyone who paints does so to sell their work or to be recognised. I imagine there are millions of us who do it as the intimate work of our soul, and we know there is no pricetag in the world that can be put on the true work of the soul. Money and true art make very strange bedfellows, when created with the dollar signs in mind. I might even stick my neck out and say that anything created with dollar signs in mind will never rise to the true work of the soul—art. There are many examples of great work eventually being sold, traded, displayed in perpetuity in the marble halls of museums, and thank goodness we have that public access to those works. But who has benefitted from those sales? Rarely the original artist.

I digress. The “Art” business world, especially when “Art” is judged and juried or entered into contests is a touchy subject for me. Maybe I will be brave enough to expound on it in the future, but not today.

Back to beauty.

Alizarin Crimson is the red of my soul. I have tried every possible known substitute that the paint companies call more permanent versions of her robust ruby glory—none can compare. There is a syrupy, even blood-like quality to the genuine pigment that is as much a visceral experience as a visual one. When I need to experience red, I reach for Alizarin. I cannot imagine my paintbox without her when I am painting for my spirit, which is almost always these days.

Yesterday I wrote to Winsor & Newton, who makes the most beautiful Alizarin watercolour, in my opinion, and I asked about the fate of my one and only favourite red. I received a response right away, but not a complete one:

Dear Kateri,

Thank you for contacting Winsor & Newton.

I haven't heard this but I did a Google search and found a bulletin from Golden that their source for PR83 has discontinued the color.

​We manufacture in Europe so it's possible our supplier is still making it but I'll need to ask the brand team and factory.  Everyone is gone for the weekend but I should have an answer next week.

You can bet I will be following up. And if it is indeed true that PR83 will cease to be made worldwide, I will be buying myself a lifetime supply.

I wrote in my journal about this yesterday and it led me to an interesting place, musing about impermanence and the illusion of permanence, and the hubris of that illusion. What if we created more art that was meant to dissolve back into the earth, safely? What if we created more beauty, each and everyone one of us, ourselves with the knowing that our art that must be shared now with others, to be appreciated within a lifetime and then recycled back into the earth, just like any other fleeting, breathing, living thing? What does that mean to you? What does it look like? Does it mean more or less? I’m going to keep thinking about it, exploring. I would love to hear your thoughts, too.

My conscience must end with this: war criminals disguised as leaders are still getting away with murder and devastating destruction, every single moment of every single day. I have to say it feels trite to even write about something as comparatively insignificant as watercolour pigments when these atrocities continue. And yet, it is what humans can and must do—be sustained by beauty and by our questions and mysteries so we can carry on with what is good and necessary and continue to have hope. I read these words by Patti Smith this morning, from the final chapter of her book, Year of the Monkey. I often reread them when I need a bolstering, when I need to remember why I create even in the midst of such sorrow about the world.

This is what I know. Sam is dead. My brother is dead. My mother is dead. My father is dead. My husband is dead. My cat is dead. And my dog who was dead in 1957 is still dead. Yet still I keep thinking that something wonderful is about to happen. Maybe tomorrow. A tomorrow following a whole succession of tomorrows.

Maybe tomorrow. For now, we keep our eyes wide open, we keep the questions flowing, and we create.