Climate Week: The Living History of Color: From Plant to Figure

Where does color come from? This Climate Week collaboration, led by Professor Gina Gregorio, follows pigment through a complete material transformation—living plant, extracted color, lake pigment, paint and ink, illustrated figure—bringing together three practices: Natalie Stopka’s research into the historical material culture of pigments, the Pratt Textile Dye Garden’s living palette, and Susan Cianciolo’s experimental approach to illustration.

The source shapes the use. Plants grown and harvested in the Dye Garden become artist materials, and Fashion Illustration students draw the living figure with them, moving from living plant to living model, and treating color not as an abstract choice but as a physical material grown from another living system.

The collaboration starts before Climate Week itself: at the start of the fall semester, students receive pigments, inks, and paints made by the Dye Garden crew using processes drawn from Stopka’s From Plant to Pigment. They meet her scholarship through making first, so when they hear her speak, they can connect it to materials already in their hands.