Hosanna White is a pigment forager, potter, and earth artist of European-American descent living on Kalapuya land in the foothills of the Cascades in Western Oregon. She collects and hand processes small batches of soil and stone pigments for paint making. She also sculpts with foraged clays of the Pacific Northwest and fires her pottery using traditional pit fire methods. She is dedicated to slow crafts that teach patience, cultivate gratitude, and help her shed expectations of consumption and convenience culture.

Hosanna’s Process:

I collect colorful earth for paint making from roadsides all over the Pacific Northwest. My foraging practice has extended beyond painting, into studying geology, the natural history of the landscape, native histories, and the history of art. It is my passion to create a fine arts medium for artists that is wholly sourced and known from land to paintbrush. I often crush soft rocks with a mortar and pestle and extract the finest pigment particles with water. The dried pigments are mulled into a traditional watercolor binder and finished in a reclaimed wood palette.

I have made a number of paintings with only these watercolors and have learned that each color truly has its own mineral personality; even as fine dust, they each spread and relate differently with water. My paintings are inspired by my connection to the Earth, the mineral and ecological communities from which these earth pigments come.