Emma Hogbin, letterpress printer, on single-origin ink:
Not every colour is available in every season, but across the year most are possible. In spring, nettles, docks and gorse petals yield green and yellow inks. In summer, Molinia grass produces a shocking green. In autumn, the berries of rowan, holly and hawthorn create reds, browns and oranges. Ivy berries, elderberries, blackcurrants and blackberries produce short-lived pinks, blues, purples and greens. Woody material, including windfallen willow and Sitka spruce bark, produces varying shades of warm brown.
We conceive of ecological change in myriad ways: the extent of the forest, the abundance of species, the level of pollution. Rarely do we think of it in terms of colour.
Emma is working on a special pigment from alder trees, taking her time because of their relative scarcity in the area:
My hope is to one day make ink from this alder: a bottle of colour that will capture this stretch of the moor. I store the dried fruit, which look like little pine cones, in a jam jar. Once it is full, I should be able to make a small vial of caramel liquid that can be shifted to black and grey by the addition of iron.
I anticipate it will take several years to collect enough.