Making ink

24 August, 2021

I read Jason Logan’s book Make Ink while sitting in my car during a five and a half hour wait for a COVID-19 test in 2021. It transformed a time that could have been frustrating and boring into a life-changing moment.

What struck me most about Logan’s poetic writing was a feeling of connection. Logan’s respect and curiosity for our world is evident on every page, and it is contagious.

After reading this book, I became very aware of my surroundings. I noticed plants that would usually have been invisible. Daily walks have become quests, and I feel like the world is brighter somehow.

Ink has this fluidity about it that is mesmerising. Ink flows within the boundaries of water brushed onto paper. Ink is a duality of chaos and control. Jason Logan talks about ink and colour interchangeably. He describes natural ink as being alive, fading, darkening, intensifying and in the case of Buckthorn Berry ink, even shifting across the spectrum over time. ¹

Making ink is about embracing your failures, being in a heightened state of constant learning, and ignoring the rules of art and crafts to instead follow pure experimentation. My deep attraction to ink making stems from the unknown. You could make ink from the same plant day after day and get different results each time. Natural colours are wild, rebellious beings, intoxicating in their beauty. Sasha Duerr, a natural dye expert, describes extracting colour from plants as a gateway drug,² and I have to agree.

In the unprecedented lockdown situation, the spontaneity of making ink is a relief from the sameness of each day. It injects magic into reality, and I honestly don’t know how I would have survived the enduring isolation without Jason Logan’s inspiring book.

1. Jason Logan, Make Ink: A Forager’s Guide to Natural Inkmaking (New York: Abrams, 2018).
2. Keith Recker, True Colors: World Masters of Natural Dyes and Pigments (Loveland, Colorado: Thrums Books, 2019), 227.