Natalie Stopka

 
 

Natalie Stopka

Studio Location:: Yonkers, NY

Title of Piece: Marmolado Índigo

Materials Used: Homegrown indigo (Persicaria tinctoria) and eggshell watercolors on paper.

Price: $80

Primary Techniques: Marbling

Type of Vat:

Other Applications: Fermentation extraction for homemade watercolor

Artist Bio: Natalie Stopka is an artist and educator who works in collaboration with the materials and forces of the natural world. Her drawings and prints incorporate plant dyes and natural pigments, which provide a seasonally evolving vocabulary of texture and color. Natalie’s freelance studio and dye garden are located in Yonkers, New York. She is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, and a current MFA candidate at the University of New Mexico.

Artist Statement about Piece: Growing, extracting, and processing indigo into watercolor paints is a labor of love and a form of time travel: indigo pigment was favored by European marblers from the 17th-19th century. In 1881's The Whole Art of Marbling, Charles Woolnough wrote that "This colour is a most valuable article, and cannot be dispensed with under any consideration." As every dyer knows, indigo powder is loath to mix with water, to sink under the surface of the vat and give up its blue form. But indigo pigment's low specific gravity, its buoyancy, is ideal for marbling. Here, it floats happily in delicate ripples across the paper. The design is inspired by a pattern called Spanish Moiré, as hinted in the title.