Artists are mesmerized by colour. We swirl it on the palette and stare at the patterns it makes.
I was recently given some Canadian handmade paint from the Stoneground Paint Company by one of my dearest friends. (Thank you, Bronwen!). I was swirling some incredible Manganese Violet on a natural palette: a pearlescent shell collected from the shore by her lovely daughter. (Thank you, Indy!).
There is evidence that Van Gogh, in his passion for colour or perhaps due to his mental illness, squeezed paint from the tube directly into his mouth; the bright yellow pigment staining his copper coloured beard.
You can only imagine my reaction as I was listening to a You Tube podcast about food when I heard the health expert announce that a popular protein bar had Titanium Dioxide as one of the ingredients. I dropped my dust cloth and rewound the video to make sure...yes, he had said those words.
Folks, Titanium Dioxide, although a naturally occurring mineral, is literally the base of Titanium White Paint. Yes, it's added to foods to whiten or brighten, but that doesn't make it OK. I can't speak to the morality of the food companies or advertisers that inform us that these foods are "healthy". I can't even pretend that I'll stop eating candy, which is apparently loaded with it.
I can tell you however, that when I paint, I wear gloves to protect my skin from absorbing the toxins. (Genotoxins that damage the DNA). After some research, I can tell you that Europe banned the use of E171/Titanium Dioxide in 2022. (It's also the reason that when paint is packaged in Europe, there are drawings of dead trees and dead fish on the sides of the tubes to clearly illustrate the paint's toxicity).
Checking the Canadian/North American guides to food additives, I read the typical, Blah, Blah, "we are continuing to monitor emerging science".
Perhaps we should speak to food companies the way we would to toddlers: "Food is for TUMMIES, Paint is for CANVAS."
Maybe I wanted to ignore the ingredient list on my favourite treats so I wouldn't have to face the reality that these companies were adding the very toxins to food that I was trying to protect myself from. Maybe I didn't believe that they would endanger our health just to make a bit more profit. Maybe ignorance IS bliss, in a way. To an artist though, the bottom line is that paint only belongs on a palette.
Thank you for spending this time with me,
Lori xx