Historic Ink from Wasp Nests

Patricia Miranda

Oak wasps are from the Cynipidae family of the order Hymenoptera and are classified with the Apocrita suborder of wasps in the superfamily Cynipoidea. The size of a sesame seed, they lay their eggs on oak tree leaves and branches. The eggs deposit a chemical that causes a reaction in the tree, making it form a gall around the eggs. The wasps gestate into larvae, and eat their way out of this gall (note the holes in the oak galls). There are many different species of oak trees and gall wasps, making many different kinds of galls. Oak galls are high in tannin and gallic acid. Mixing with Ferrous Sulfate causes a chemical reaction to create an iron-gallic ink.

Oak gall ink was one of the two most common inks used throughout history around the world,, known by the Romans and in common use into the 20th century. Iron-gallic ink is caustic, acidic in nature, and bites into the surface of parchment, paper or cloth. The word ink comes from the Latin encaustum, “to burn in, a reflection of the property of an irongallic dye. Countless historical documents were written using Oak Gall Ink including The Dead Sea Scrolls, all European illuminated manuscripts before the printing press, Constitution, Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln’s letters, and Hebrew Torah — which still uses oak gall ink today. Palimpsests originate from the permanent “biting” nature of irongallic ink on animal skin parchment,. The ink on a manuscript page in which the original writing has been scraped away to make room for later writing leaves invisible traces in the skin The text is then revealed through x-ray, which allowed more ancient texts to be discovered.

Gather oak gals in the fall or winter, once the wasps have finished with them and the leaves are gone. You will find them on the branches and sometimes the leaves of the trees. There will always be in groups- if you find one- — there will be more to discover!

Recipe:

3 parts crushed oak gall wasp nest

2 parts Ferrous Sulphate

1 part Gum Arabic

Crush

Grind oak galls into a powder in a marble mortar and pestle, or wrap them in cloth and carefully crush as fine as possible using a hammer. Pour 1/4 cup boiling water into a lidded jar. Add 3 parts ground oak galls and make a tea. After 15 minutes add 2 parts Ferrous Sulfate. Filter this through fine cheese cloth or a wet coffee filter. After filtering add 1 part powdered gum arabic. Stir, making sure to dissolve all lumps. You can optionally add ground eggshell to neutralize some of the acidity of the ink. Oak gall ink darkens in the jar and on the page. This ink works well on all writing surfaces, while being ideal on animal skin parchment due to its acidic nature. www.patriciamiranda.com

At times, the value of reuse is the strongest message an object delivers (e.g. spectacularly faded leggings submerged in the Ionion Sea become an enviable fashion item and conversation starter when worn by the Gleaner)

1. Scout beaches for vagrant plastic

2. Upon forensic eexamination, determine its use value vs. exchange value*

3. Decipher the message that ocean delivers you through the plastic drifter

4. Spread the word

*At times, thhe value of reuse is the strongest message an object delivers (e.g. speectacularly faded leggings submerged in the loinon Sea beecome and envaible fashion item and conversation starter wheen worn by the Gleaner).

Rachel Frank

In the summer of 2020 during the height of the pandemic, I was an artist-in-residence at Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, MN, where I made a large-scale ceramic offering vessel based on the cross-border relationships between pollinators and plants. I was drawn to the landscape of the sculpture park because of the prairie. Grasses and flowers here have been allowed to grow throughout the park with minimal mowing occurring only around the artists’ sculptures. In the middle of summer, the prairie is swarming with life: monarchs feeding on the explosions of flowering milkweed; goldfinches, song sparrows, and other migrating birds gathering seed and insects amongst the coneflower and echinacea; thirteen-lined ground-squirrels making their burrows; and on some mornings, sandhill cranes foraging in the grasses. I have family in Minnesota, but I realized that in all my trips out to the state there’d been few times I had really experienced a prairie ecosystem.

Prairie grasslands historically covered onethird of North America. Prairies with their tall grass, forbs, and various flowering plants support numerous pollinating insect species, migrating birds, and browsing mammals. Their deep root system and an expanse of rhizomes beneath the surface of the soil allows them to survive the extremes of drought-prone summers, annual fires, deep winter snows, and the grazing of species like bison and elk. Today, prairie grasslands cover less than 4% of their original area making them one of the most endangered landscape ecosystems in the world. For the last ten years, I have worked on projects that explore rewilding—the environmental practice of reintroducing species back to areas where they had formerly thrived to help restore ecosystems. Concurrent with my rewilding projects, I have been developing a series of ceramic of hand-built ceramic works based on ancient Eurasian offering vessels. This series includes the rhyton vessel, an animal-shaped vessel that traditionally held wine or olive oil as offerings. Both projects seek to form a connection with the environment and the idea of offering, past to future.

In August of 2022, I returned to Franconia to stage a participatory performance Rewilding the Prairie for the 4Ground: Midwest Land Art Biennial. I sculpted several heavier ceramic animalshaped rhyton offering vessels. Participants were invited to select and use an offering vessel to symbolically rewild the prairie landscape with an offering of water. Some people took the opportunity to connect to very particular area of the prairie venturing far off into the park, while those participating with families tended to stay close by. This simple act both encouraged participants to feel that they had a more active role in the rewilding of the prairie while also inviting them to have a more intimate connection with the landscape itself. By entrusting visitors with a ceramic vessel—something breakable if dropped—I form a temporary intimate trust; likewise, when the participants carefully chose their place in the prairie to connect with, they also are encouraged to carefully see and experience the prairie in a more intimate manner forming a relationship with this endangered landscape.

This Rewilding the Prairie performance found a way to connect people to a particular landscape ecosystem through the incorporation of ritual. In today’s busy urbanized world, both ritual and an intimate connection with the land are missing from many people’s lives. This participatory performance using sculpture was one such way of reforming this connection, but there are many ways people can encourage an intimacy and generate small actions that give back to the landscapes around us. Rather than submit an exact recipe for finding that connection and creatingthat ritual, I encourage one to find their own path that is specific as the diverse terrain, plants, and animals that create an ecosystem within a landscape.

• Choose an environment you want to connect with

• Create a ritual that engages with or gives back to this environment

• Be Mindful

• Repeat/Reflect

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1. Find a Recipe that touches your heart.

2. Create a thoughtful response with materials, ingredients and ideas of your own mind/body/spirit.

3. Go to an ancient wooded wilderness, or a special place in nature that speaks to you deeply.

4. Offer your artwork to the forest floor, amongst the trees, wherever it calls to be. Dance, sing, dream. Breathe. Be.

5. Document your experience and expression.

6. Share. Widely. Repeat. Often.

Placed in a local ancient woods with native

Irish trees these fragile paper porcelain circles by Rosalind Lowry are a gentle response to the recipe for Creating In Circles by Riva Weinstein. The land was owned by an old gentleman who returned home to China many years ago. It’s wilderness now.

When the call for Earth Keepers came out, Rosalind Lowry responded to a post on the ecoartspace Facebook page seeking a collaborator to create images for a recipe by Riva Weinstein.

Though Rosalind lives and works in Northern Ireland and Riva in New York’s Hudson River Valley, they connected easily across time zones.

Words by Riva Weinstein. Images by Rosalind Lowry.