Alicia Hauff Studio

Mixed Media Fine Artist in Fargo, ND

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Creative Journey

Raw Color

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Earth Mothering

"Making rock into pigment is simple and primal and can suddenly--often without warning--churn the depths of your being. Humbling questions and creative capacities emerge from following that inward and earthward momentum."

-Heidi Gustafson in her book "Book of Earth"

     The photo above was taken a few weeks ago on a rainy spring day in lakes country, MN. My oldest, who has taken a keen interest in working with clay to create ceramic artworks, ventured out with me to forage a bit. I had informed him "there's plenty of raw clay around here" and he was all in. As I began pointing out what was clay and what was soil, he picked up the clay in excitement. "I want to make something with it!" My smile was in the variety of 'you do you, bud,' and the photos below are of the clay pinch pot he made over a small fire he'd also made himself later that day. He eagerly told me about how to process clay to remove impurities and how they affect the clay in heat. My son, the fiery one who loves to create with earth and heat. 

As we looked closer into the pile of clay, we noticed other colors--streaks of orange, rust, and deep red.  He exclaims, "Look at this!" and hands me a small red pebble. I ran it between my thumb and index finger, and it left a trail of red on my skin.

Ochre. Raw pigment!

The clay itself is an earth pigment with varietal hues of tan and beige. We scooped some into a bucket to create with later. I felt something akin to humble pride in witnessing my son's creativity in action and facilitating his connection with the earth. 

Prima Materia

     The history of pigment, the history of earth, goes back to humanity's earliest days. As Heidi Gustafson writes in her book "Book of Earth," "Ochre and earth pigments are situated at the nexus of huge elemental cycles: a gazillion years of outer space galaxy creation, a few billion years of geologic and biologic growth on (and of) Earth, and several hundred thousand recent years of human evolution. To explore ochres as a unique and wild prima materia, or raw cosmic material, and talk about their influence today..." We are of the earth, we evolved with the earth and all her other species, and pigments and ochres carry such weight of meaning across time and place. Humans have a primal need to create, communicate, and mark moments. Cultural practices with ochres and pigments vary and relate to ancestral land, medicine, memory, ecology, and ceremony. 

     While earth pigments are mineral in nature, the natural pigment category is broader and includes the ink I create. Jason Logan, author of "Make Ink," writes "What distinguishes ink from other art supplies is its use as a tool for communication. People have been leaving marks with berries, burnt sticks, or colored rocks since the dawn of humanity--but the use of ink as a transmitter of language can be traced back to the first evidence of civilization in China and Mesopotamia...gaining the ability to permanently mark symbols on a flat surface meant that ideas could be saved, transported, and shared." One of the recipes in his book is made with oak galls, small balls on oak trees made from a gall wasp laying eggs on the bark--and was created and used to write in some of the oldest Bibles and the Magna Carta. 

     Our existence is forever linked to the earth and her iron; iron is a primary driver of universal elements and runs in our blood. I read a quote recently that said something like "landscapes that are long gone live inside you." When I go out foraging for fodder for my next creation, I engage all of my senses and ground down into my body--this body that is of the earth that will become its dirt again someday. 

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The land works on us, too

     In my last blog, I spoke about kinship with the land. Working with earth pigments is the next step in this journey I didn't ask for, it seemed to ask for me. Thus far, it has included foraging and, to some degree, processing. Foraging--grinding--refining--washing/levigating--using heat to shift color--using mordants to shift color (ink)--these are all becoming familiar to me as a practice. 

     And for what? Why do this? Isn't it so much work?

     It is, but it is work that changes you--a sort of spiritual alchemy--a return to something primal, instinctual, and it carries a sense of place, time, and belonging. I did have to unlearn the mindset of 'things' and relearn the ancestral mindset of 'interspecies ecology.' Plus, it's a double act of creation; there's the creation of the paint/ink/etc., and then the creation of art work with these natural media.

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     Nick Neddo, a fully organic/land-based artist from Vermont, writes in his book "The Organic Artist," "Much of this satisfaction comes form the process of transformation that occurs each time we make something form another thing. One of the results of making things from the landscape by hand is the unavoidable deepening of one's knowledge of (and relationship to) the local bioregion where we live. Through working with raw materials, we begin to learn to speak the language of that particular material. We have to use our awareness to observe the specific characteristics, strengths, and limitations that are unique to the material...this level of participation with the landscape is a path to help us remember that we are part of its natural history and ecology, not just a visitor like an astronaut on a foreign planet."

     I have witnessed this, and am learning to embody this practice. When I make ink, there is no other way to put it than that the ink tells me what it wants to do, especially putting inks together on paper. The way they mix, produce new colors, and where they go/won't go on the paper is absolutely intriguing. It's very much a conversation, a call and response. The creative process is interactive with the forces and species that created the material you're working with. Earth pigments found near each other can even be different based on a variety of factors. This week I ground three pigments that I thought were the same, and as I looked at the small jar, noted they were all a bit different from each other!

Change is the only constant

As I continue on this journey of curious exploration and creative expansion, I invite you to consider our ancestors' ingenuity, revolution, and our collective evolution. Re-root yourselves to the history of your place and time, and how you came to be here. At some point we became disconnected from 'nature' and began to see ourselves as apart from nature. It's quite the contrary.

"What if death is not necessarily a departure from this world, but rather a transformation in how we inhabit it? I am made out of water and atoms and carbon. The evidence of my senses suggests that I stay here forever--at least in some capacity, shifting forms."  

-Anohni 

Cheers, friends. 

Kinship With the Land

Getting to the Root

It's been one of the more extreme winters up here on the Northern Plains--plenty of snow and ice, and wondering when it's finally over. Who can relate?! Whether we like it or not, the winter season slows us down literally and energetically. January was a time to go inward and listen for what was calling me creatively.

Last summer, I launched a small series of desert botanicals and connected it to Southwestern ecology. The concepts of "roots" and "home" were sitting with me, and I continue to joke that I have long taproots that reach that area. This was a clue of things to come.

But the lid of my practice blew off just a month later when three things happened: I read "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, took an eco-printing class, and began a foraging practice. My world was changed. I found meaning in what I could create, and it grounded my practice literally and figuratively. It meant making some decisions around my creative identity to accommodate this evolution.

Another element has been at play in my practice since last summer: ancestral healing and connection. Spiritually, this has been both gratifying and necessary. To understand my worldview, I needed to understand where it came from.

Like many of us, I grew up with the teaching of land being for cultivating, shaping, and working to survive; cared for, but not as kin or as a living being. Foraging put my relationship with the land front and center. Like any relationship, I needed to get to know the land beyond practicing the Honorable Harvest principles.

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Ethnobotanical Journey

IAll that winter introspection could be reduced to this central question: how can I celebrate and honor the land we call home on these Northern Plains? I planned to bring more realistic botanicals into my work and wanted to try painting on raw, stretched canvas.

Research began for my spring series, "Spring on the Prairie," with my usual internet browsing (my version of 'scratching,' as Twyla Tharpe calls it in her book "The Creative Habit"). I came across a North Dakota Game and Fish directory of prairie wildflowers and grasses of ND, and it was instantly the springboard for this series. It discussed the history of native prairie ecosystem decline, why that matters, and some of the history and folklore.

This is where my ethnobotanical journey began.

From badlands to woodlands, sand dunes to rolling hills, our prairie ecosystem has been one of the most diverse and highly endangered in the world. Much of that diversity is underneath our feet, in the soil. The cause for the loss? Settlement, agricultural development, invasive species, and the near-extinction of many native animals.

Though we have lost so much of our native prairie wildlife, our grasslands are adaptable and tough. We remain an important force in the evolution and restoration of the prairie. Indigenous practices and ways of life must be at the forefront of these efforts--the original stewards of this land. We cannot see ourselves as separate from the land; we are inextricably linked, as Indigenous people have known for millennia. 

Ethnobotany studies the interrelationship between plants and people/cultures, and ethnobotanists "have become advocates for environmental justice, applied conservationism, and Indigenous rights." [ Enrique Salmón, author of Iwígara: The Kinship of Plants and People]  He continues, "In a worldview based on iwígara, humans are no more important to the natural world than any other form of life. This notion influences how I lead my own life and guides many of my decisions. Knowing that I am related to everything around me and share breath with all living things helps me focus on my responsibility to honor all forms of life. I carefully consider all living and non-living things when making choices or weighing actions I might take. In short, I see myself as one of many stewards of the land and natural world. I share breath with it, so I endeavor to minister to it with appropriate ritual, thought, and ceremony."

Scientific knowledge is just one thread in the ethnobotanical fabric. Natural history, folklore, and cultural implications are also part of the picture. Knowledge and traditions have been passed down predominantly via story and oral teachings; stories are part of our identities as people.

Becoming Indigenous to Place

My most recent ancestors migrated from Western Europe to the Russian steppe in the 1700s to escape war and poverty, answering the call from Russian Empress Catherine for farmers, tradesmen, and artisans of all kinds. They migrated to the U.S. in the 1800s due to land shortages and Russification, leaving the Black Sea region where they built villages with successful farming and trade. Settlers here were required to homestead, and they brought their farming and trade skills with them.

Two hundred years later, I am tracing origins and adopting new views of the land. Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about 'becoming Indigenous to place' in her book Braiding Sweetgrass. She writes, "After all these generations since Columbus, some of the wisest of Native elders still puzzle over the people who came to our shores. They look at the toll on the land and say, 'The problem with these new people is that they don't have both feet on the shore. One is still on the boat...' For the sake of the peoples and the land, the urgent work of the Second Man may be to set aside the ways of the colonist and become Indigenous to place. But can Americans, as a nation of immigrants, learn to live here as if we were staying? With both feet on the shore? What happens when we truly become native to a place, when we finally make a home? Where are the stories that lead the way?"

Just as we get to know the names of cities and streets, I seek to know the names of the flowers, grasses and trees around me. In getting to know them, I can connect and celebrate them.

I hope you will join me in celebrating this first series "Spring on the Prairie" and remember their stories.

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Creative Identity and Ritual: Lessons from Inktober

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"I believe that true identity is found in creative activity springing from within. It is found when one loses oneself."

-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Every artist asks the questions: who am I? Where do I and my art fit in? What art do I even make or want to be known for? These and many other questions have been swirling. I asked my mother recently, "is there a memory you have of the moment you thought, 'That girl is an artist'? "

Her response was comforting and not surprising. "It's more like a collage of memories of you totally locked in when you were creating. The whole world slipped away. You were all in. That photo of you looking at me with your earphones on at our kitchen table is what I feel when I think of your life of art. 100% in the process."

All in.

She was referring to a state of "flow," characterized by a balance between challenge and skill with an intrinsic reward. (If you've seen the film Soul, you know.) You can read more about this psychology here (it's very interesting). How anyone gets into a flow state is based on the individual. I do know, however, that that activity is based on following your spark--what lights you up. What keeps drawing you back and in. What keeps you awake at night or restlessly daydreaming during the day. What makes you giddy.

Creative Identity

Whether it's a blank canvas, screen, or room, every creative person faces the same decision: start making something, or quit. Make something that has never existed before, or abandon ship. It's a wild thought.

I'm reading "The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life" by Twyla Tharp. Chapter 2 discusses rituals of preparation--the things we do to set ourselves up for creative action and flow. Habits are strong patterns of behavior that can be honed for creative success. How and when do you begin your day? Where do you create? What do you surround yourself with, and what tools do you use? Do you listen to music, or is that too distracting? What music?

One week I was struggling with a painting. It wasn't telling me what it needed, and I couldn't see how to finish it. My kids all had tennis practice that evening, so I went into the studio for 90 minutes. I turned on some rock music (AD/DC, Foo Fighters, and the like) and basked in being completely alone in the whole building. I painted with ease and finished it the next day. Sometimes it pays to switch it up, even though I am talking about creating habits.

I always write at night. It's the only time everything is finally quiet, and I can hear my thoughts again. I wrote my whole dissertation at night for FNP school; I felt chained to that desk, but I got it done. I'm still learning about how I create and what the common thread is. I can tell you a primary factor is being utterly left alone, without distraction. Only then can I sink into that flow state.

Twyla writes, "...a little self-knowledge goes a long way. If you understand the strands of your creative DNA, you begin to see how they mutate into common threads in your work. You begin to see the "story" that you're trying to tell; why you do the things you do (both positive and self-destructive); where you are strong and where you are weak (which prevents a lot of false starts), and how you see the world and function in it."

Creative identity is more than artistic style and voice. It's how you creatively process and function. I just met an artist who stares at the corner of a room until she gets a breakthrough--cutting out stimuli to allow her creative flow of ideas. White noise, no noise; once you figure out how you creatively tick, creativity flows.

When you have a "Eureka!" moment, take note of the factors that may have helped you get to that moment. Or what helps you mentally switch gears, to reset. And, of course, what factors you can control.

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Inktober & Creative Ritual

If you're not familiar with Inktober (I only learned about it last year), it's a month-long challenge to improve creative skills and habits. Artists create sketches according to the word prompts and share them online. I was asked in September to participate in a local business's Inktober gallery with other area artists. I saw it as a chance to start testing the wild inks I'd been making and see what comes of it.

Here are a few key takeaways from that month:

  • This was indeed a challenge. I didn't feel like doing it some of the days, or the word prompt wasn't really inspiring. But I showed up and did them anyway (I played catchup and did three on Mondays!).
  • It brought me back to painting some realism, which was both frustrating and rewarding. Switching gears made me appreciate my abstract lean even more.
  • I learned how the wild inks blend and sit with each other on paper. The results were absolutely delightful.
  • Creative exercises with set limitations (in this case, the prompt) get you to focus and move past your inner critic.
  • I started my days in the studio with my ink sketches and shared them on Instagram. It became my little morning studio ritual and warm-up.
  • It was all more time-consuming than I anticipated, but I created things I would never choose to create otherwise. (Except booger. Nope. I refused.)

Now that Inktober has been over, I am taking what I learned last month and starting most of my studio days with a larger wild ink sketch (series is on the way). Same ritual, different subject matter. It might be time to start making my tea again in the studio...

Tell me in the comments: what are your creative rituals?

What makes you tick?

Thanks for reading.

A Year of Growth: 10 Takeaways

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It's Been a Year

One year ago I was gathering--thoughts, wits, and the pieces of myself that had been fragmented. After I left healthcare and its community, I began traveling down this path in the darkness of uncertainty. As the days grew darker, it seemed to match my need to go inward and recalibrate, reassess, slow down. Those first several months were very quiet in the studio. I felt like an exposed nerve, awkward, lonely.

But each day I stepped into the studio, I thought to myself, "sanctuary." It has been a haven I created with my creative energies: warm, nurturing, curious, bright and grounded. I showed up each day to meet myself where I was--not where I wanted to be, but where I was. I tinkered with media and researched art business practices. Slowly, things started to take shape.

I took my first soft commission in January, then another in March/April. The website took months to build and launched in April...and I was off and running. It was a spring start, with a summer explosion of growth. Now I am gathering, harvesting a crop of lessons, growth edges, and twinkling insights into the future of my business.

Gathering

Maybe it's my artist brain, but I frequently think metaphorically. Here I hold a basket filled with lessons and notes gathered from a year into this business. Perhaps it will be helpful for others on this journey.

Creativity is intertwined with curious experimentation and risk. I continue to follow the breadcrumb trail and map the terrain, every day.

  • Meet yourself where you are, not where you want to be. This leads to authenticity.
  • Yes, starting a business is expensive, but you do have to start somewhere. Use your resources and create your goals for the future, even a visual board for this.
  • Keep going a little outside your comfort zone.
  • Ask yourself, "how would I do this or that?" when admiring other successful creatives and their styles/ideas. Ask, "what do I want to do?" Follow the spark and the joy.
  • Networking is not only good for business, it's vital to artists' health and balance. It's an exchange of ideas, connections, and troubleshooting.
  • Trust your intuition and allow for plenty of freewheeling and play. There's a sense of letting yourself get out of the way to let things come through, of being a channel. Follow the hunches.
  • But also, do your research, of the market, products, tools, practices, resources.
  • Stay focused, and as Steve Jobs said, "stay hungry, stay foolish."
  • Maintain a growth mentality. We can't be good at everything, but we can learn to do just about anything. Give things time, and keep showing up.
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The Path Ahead

For the first time this year, really, I am beginning to gain some clarity and direction. As things take shape and form, I start to see the greater picture. Just as I craft a painting in broad and small brushstrokes, so it is with a business. I see many things in my mind's eye coming up ahead, but I remain open to the opportunities not yet seen.

What are you harvesting or gathering this season?

I would love to hear in the comments.

A World of Color: Natural Ink Making

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A Sense of Place

I have tried to answer the question "how did I get here?" with natural ink. The truth is I do not remember any one thing that led me here. After nearly a full year in this professional art business, I know that my creative path (and I would guess most others') is like a breadcrumb trail.  The trail has taken me from watercolor class to acrylic paper making, to eco printing, and to natural ink making in one year. I am finding my way in the world of creative expression--and understanding my need for connection to the earth. Grounding. Freeing. The fresh air. The wild.

I previously shared about my foraging and the Honorable Harvest, and the foraging experience continues to be a serendipitous venture. Every walk I take seems to lead to surprising finds. I thought oak galls (small round brown balls that grow on oak branches) would be difficult to find, yet an oak tree along the boulevard near my house had a large cache of them. Now I can make the famous oak gall black ink used to write the Magna Carta and Beowulf. Learning the history of pigments and inks can be just as fascinating as finding the ingredients. On an evening walk, I noticed some bright yellow-topped bushes in the open field along a pond south of our house. I snapped a photo to identify it and was delighted to find it was goldenrod---and it was everywhere. The best acorn caps for gray ink were right along the boulevard entering my neighborhood. The abundance of natural color sources continues to amaze me and fills me with a sense of gratitude and place.

Natural ink making is like creating twice: the creation of the ink, then creating with the inks that were made. I can alchemize part of a place into color(s). How amazing is that? Ink making finds a purpose in what otherwise is overlooked, even discarded, similar to eco printing. I am simultaneously deepening my relationship with the places I inhabit; it is grounding.

The Kitchen Lab

This past week I was home with COVID and boy, it kicked my ass for a few days. I am still a little deconditioned and coming out of the brain fog. However, I promised myself I would try my first batch of ink and just get going. The oak gall ink is still in progress, needing to soak for a few days. What I was able to make the same day were an acorn cap gray and a rich dark black walnut brown. The first batch of acorn cap color was higher in rust to acorn ratio, but I like having variations of the colors. I created a short video here:

And here are a few photos from the day. I am recording and archiving all the test strips and steps I take. The final ink portraits are in progress, as I may add another color or two once created.

On the Inking Docket & Beyond

There is something very liberating about sourcing my own ink materials. I am already training my eye to see more, to be more mindful and conscious. Open mind, open eyes.

So what's next? I hope you'll follow along on this ink making journey. The materials yet to be transformed include: serviceberries, chokeberries, oak bark, birch bark, pigmented rocks, clay, and goldenrod, to name a few. Harvest season is such a great time for foraging.

The week after Halloween I will be sharing the eco printing process with my 7 year-old son's class. His teacher excitedly told me about how she wants to introduce the concept of art with nature, and I am very happy to share what I have learned. I have been collecting materials for them on my evening walks and trail hikes.

 

Cheers and happy harvest season!

Inktober is upon us!

The Honorable Harvest: Inspiring Art and Life

A Story and a Practice

I was sitting at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport on a layover with some time to spend. Looking for something to read, I wandered into the nearest bookstore to peruse the latest. Glancing over some of the brassier titles in the forefront, I disinterestedly meandered to the back of the store. A few books by James Baldwin sat on a back upper shelf, and I chose one to read on the plane. Then another book caught my eye with its simple yet beautiful front: "Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants." Something in me knew this book would be more than a story. It sat on my office shelf for several weeks, waiting for me to carve out the time to begin.

Then one evening, I was chatting with my sister, and she mentioned the book. It was the gentle prompt I needed to begin.

Within the first chapter, my worldview was being deconstructed. The simple truth of the power of story and narrative began peeling back layers of conditioned response to the world around me. She tells the Indigenous creation story, the Skywoman story, and its contrast to the story of Eden. "Same species, same earth, different stories. Like Creation stories everywhere, cosmologies are a source of identity and orientation to the world. They tell us who we are...And then they met--the offspring of Skywoman and the children of Eve--and the land around us bears the scars of that meeting..." [excerpt from Braiding Sweetgrass]

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Dr. Kimmerer beautifully weaves Indigenous stories and principles, scientific knowledge of plants, and what a future would be like if we all abided by the "Honorable Harvest." The Honorable Harvest is an Indigenous set of practices governing the exchange between people and the Earth. They are 'rules' that "govern our taking so that the world is as rich for the seventh generation as it is for us. They are not written down but would look something like this:

  • Ask permission of the ones whose lives you seek. Abide by the answer.
  • Never take the first. Never take the last.
  • Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.
  • Take only what you need and leave some for others.
  • Use everything you take.
  • Take only that which is given to you.
  • Share it, as the Earth has shared with you.
  • Be grateful.
  • Reciprocate the gift.
  • Sustain the ones who sustain you, and the Earth will last forever.

Though we witness and participate in exploitative economies and policies, we can choose differently. How can we reciprocate the gifts of the Earth?

The Honorable Harvest in Creating

Fast forward several months. I walk into the Center for Creativity in downtown Fargo for a new class: eco printing. I had just finished reading "Making Ink: A Forager's Guide to Natural Inkmaking" by Jason Logan. Sitting down, I read through the two sheets offered for the class. My heart smiles as I read the first sheet's title: "The Honorable Harvest: Lessons from an Indigenous Tradition of Giving Thanks" by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The other sheet is a bibliography of recommended reading for monotypes with botanical inks and natural pigments. The first title? Making Ink.

When the Universe conspires to bring things full circle, I perk up.

The eco printing class stoked the flames of new ideas and creative plans. I learned how to tenderly gather and forage for plant material according to the Honorable Harvest and one way to use it in printmaking. Much of the process is left to the materials--a way of letting what happens to happen. I can create ripe conditions for beautiful prints, placing the elements where I like, but the magic is in the spontaneous mix of materials.

I rolled up my layers of paper, mordant, and plant material around a tin can, wrapped it in string and placed my bundle into a vat of logwood dye. An hour later, I brought it home to set for 24 hours to allow for more crisp prints. Below is a link to the video of my son Gabe and I unfurling the bundle to reveal the prints:

https://www.instagram.com/tv/Cg5eZbZhjq9/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet 

The class brought up a lot of interconnected themes: climate crisis, eco grief, and the exploitative "taking" nature of many institutions and policies. Looking beyond foraging for materials, I think about our relationships with each other and the land we occupy. What do we know about the land on which we're settled? Who is thriving, and who is just surviving? How do we treat the living beings around us?

"In Healing the Earth, We Heal Ourselves"

In the earliest stage of envisioning what my art practice and business would be, I knew it would involve a deep connection to the Earth. Learning to create natural pigments, inks, and prints will truly forge a deeper, more generative connection to the land. I have barely scratched the surface of this relationship and am honored to take this direction.

As I continue on the journey and become more skilled, I hope to offer some of the fruits of this labor of love for the Earth and her gifts. This may take the form of sharing about the ink recipes I follow or create, offering one-of-a-kind eco prints, and thoughtfully sharing my findings.

If you'd like to listen to Dr. Kimmerer discuss the Honorable Harvest, here is a link to a short video you may enjoy:

The Honorable Harvest with Robin Kimmerer

 

Thank you for reading. Let me know your thoughts in the comments! 

Have a great week.