Turning Toxins into Beautiful Color

Introducing the Gamblin Limited Edition Oil Paint Set of Reclaimed Earth Colors 

Do you remember our post from April 2018, letting you know about the amazing work being done to remove toxins from streams in Ohio? See what has happened… read on!

A Gamblin collaboration with artist John Sabraw and engineer
Guy Riefler supporting communities and healthier ecosystems.

Saving waterways from coalmine pollution (acid mine drainage – AMD) by removing it and turning it into valuable pigments and paints.

Toxic Art is the collaboration of artist John Sabraw, watershed coordinator Michelle Shively and engineer Guy Riefler, joining forces to turn pollution into nontoxic paint and pigments.  They say –

“How beautiful is our AMD pigment? So beautiful that Gamblin Artist Colors, a leading American artist paint manufacturer in Portland, Oregon is making the first limited edition of 37ml tubes of oil paint using our pigments.”

“Gamblin is deeply invested in artist’s materials and studio practices, so naturally they are also concerned with sustainability and environmental issues. They have been testing our pigments for some time now helping us shape our process to get better and better quality, and now they want to help us share them with you!”

The Problem:

For decades, pollution from abandoned underground coalmines has been killing aquatic life in our waterways. This high concentration of acid and heavy metals is called acid mine drainage, or ‘AMD’, and pollutes over 1,300 miles of streams in Ohio alone.

Some of these AMD polluting mine seeps release over one million gallons of toxic water each day. There is so much pollution in this water it’s like junking two cars a day into a stream.

We think we found a way to fix it.

Our Solution:

Our team of artists, engineers, watershed specialists and students are working to prove a process that will intercept this pollution, extract the heavy metal (iron oxide) and turn it into stunning pigments and paints, and then return the clean and safe water back to the stream, restoring aquatic life.

The collected pigment is fired at different temperatures to make new colors. The pigment can then be blended with different binders to make oil, acrylic, watercolor and other paints.

Right now our process works at the lab level in small batches. We are building this scaled pilot plant to prove it can work at a sustainable, industrial scale.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1068577064/toxic-art-turning-pollution-into-paint

This beautiful limited edition set of 3 reclaimed colors nestled in a cradled panel is available at Art Central while supplies last for $39.