Colourmakers Collective
Colourmakers’ Draw for Palestine: solidarity fundraiser
Fundraising for Medical Aid for Palestinians
Story
A prize draw of gifts made with and from our lands in honour of the Palestinian people and their right for safety and security within their own lands.
All money raised will go to Medical Aid for Palestinians.
No minimum donation required, please give in line with your own access to resources. You must enter an email address as your ‘name to appear on page’ in order to be entered so we know how to contact you.
Scroll down for details of the gifts, the artists contributing and how you can enter for the chance of receiving. View gallery for images of what's on offer.
‘We oppose genocide and we oppose ethnic cleansing and we oppose collective punishment. This is not complicated. That is the only call at this point, that is the call: Ceasefire. Stop bombing the 2.2 million people who are captive in Gaza, the 2.2 million people half of whom are children. There is no confusion there.
For everyone, for everyone, ceasefire now - it doesn’t need to be more complicated than that.’
Medical Aid for Palestinians
MAP works with Palestinian communities to deliver locally-led health and medical care to those worst affected by conflict, occupation and displacement.
More than 20,000 people have been killed and at least 52,000 injured in Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza. Attacks on healthcare are exacerbating the crisis: the reported number of healthcare workers killed in the past ten weeks has exceeded the total number killed in all countries in conflict globally in any single year since 2016. Infectious diseases are spreading rapidly in overcrowded shelters, with 360,000 cases reported including respiratory infections, diarrhoea, hepatitis and skin diseases. Meanwhile, hospitals and clinics seeking to care for them face acute shortages of supplies including medicines, fuel, water and food.
As Israel’s military offensive continues to escalate over the Christmas period, and with only a few remaining lifelines of medical care left, MAP urges the international community not to turn a blind eye to this catastrophe.
Urgent action is needed right now. Attacks on healthcare must cease, Israel’s complete siege must be lifted, and an immediate ceasefire must be brokered to safeguard innocent lives and allow the health system to recover as soon as possible.
Who we are
We are a group of natural dyers, ink makers, ecological artists & community practitioners from the UK, Ireland, Canada and Mexico. We are all colourmakers: we make natural inks, pigments and dyes from plants, minerals and waste stream products (such as food waste and discarded metals). We forage, gather, grow and tend to the earth below our feet. We believe in reciprocity, not extraction, and understand ourselves as connected to a wide web of beings, human and more-than-human. As such, we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their right to food, safety and a sense of belonging and interconnectedness in their own land. Given our practices as foragers, makers, and lovers of the land, it is through our craft that we take action.
Grief is love with nowhere to go.
- Leah Manaema, sharing indigenous teaching from the Moana Lassi of Tuvalu @co_cu1tur3
This project is one way of directing our love and grief. Inspiration comes from the beautiful quilt draw that Public Library Quilts and Decolonise the Garden ran in 2020 for Land In Our Names.
We are each contributing art, craft or learning from our practices to offer the following:
Strength and Peace wall hanging
Irish linen eco print wall hanging - olive branch and oak gall/iron background. 20cm x 25cm. The Irish Oak that is soaked into the background of the linen surrounds and cradles the peaceful Palestinian Olive branch with its symbolic strength and endurance in the hopes that our persistent voices, actions and protests will soon make peace a reality.
I created this textile eco print as a form of processing my own grief of the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. Their lives, deaths and hardships were never far from my thoughts during its creation. More than 18,000 innocent souls needlessly slaughtered. Ceasefire Now. Strength and Peace.
Palestine-inspired ink set & Stork Migration prints
A set of 3 drawing inks in black, red and green, made with with oak gall, avocado stone and monterrey pine (with copper) respectively. Inspired by the colours of the Palestinian flag and in solidarity with indigenous land struggles in Mexico (where illegal logging for the expansion of avocado production is leading to deforestation, exploitation and water scarcity for P’urhépecha communities in Michoacan).
Plus, 2 digital art prints of stork migration drawings (148x148mm), originally created with oak gall ink. A call for freedom for all those who are displaced and forced to migrate. Read about the white stork migration here.
Ceasefire shibori scarf
A 100% silk scarf* dyed with organic indigo. The pattern is made by using a traditional Japanese shibori resist technique called Arashi, which has a meaning similar to 'storm'. This piece is gifted with the wish that we find the strength to get through this incomprehensible storm of suffering, and find the compassion needed for peace. It is blue and white, a flag calling for Ceasefire and Peace.
*The scarf is dyed the same as the one pictured, but proportions are long rather than square.
Bel Black Ink Making Kit & Greeting Card Set
This kit comes with pigment of ground bramble charcoal, harvested in Co. Tipperary and charred over the Beltane fire of 2020. Gum Arabic in its powder form is also included along with detailed instructions for the creation of your water based ink (also suitable for oil or crayon creation). The kit also includes The Wild Hedge Ink Co signature glass bottle and dropper with a sweet, hand printed organic cotton bag.
Plus, a set of five square greeting cards, printed in Ireland and each boasting a different hedge ink sample, blank inside. Choose from Bel Black, Havoc Yellow, Hawthorn Berry, Oak Gall & Copper Detritus and Splash (hawthorn carbon, weld and copper detritus).
Seasonal Hues guidebook
A beginners guide to natural colour from the landscape of Ontario, Canada. Includes a seasonal guide to 23 plants with herbal and pigments recipes alongside stories of each plant, a reference guide to natural dyeing from a bioregional & seasonal perspective.
Plants & Colour Gift Voucher
£65 voucher, giving access to a variety of online classes and talks from artists and artisans all about making natural dyes, inks, and paints. From indigo dye processes, to making your own pastels with foraged ochres, connect with the natural world through the craft of colour.
Found and Ground how-to book
A practical guide to making your own foraged paints, this book covers every aspect of making natural paints, from finding the raw materials to the techniques needed to refine it into a pigment. Suitable for the complete beginner as well as those with some experience in art, the ideal reference book for artists and crafters who want to move away from synthetic materials.
Pigment Organic Dyes sample pack
A pack of 9 plant dyes for trying out natural colour: the perfect kit for trying out different colours for future projects or for someone wanting to explore natural colour. It's the most wonderful selection of dried organic dye flowers, which makes it a joy to open.
I work with people on the land who don't usually get opportunities to explore their own work preferences and passions and it feels deeply unjust to me that anyone, for any reason, is excluded from their landscape or the victim of prejudice.
How to enter
Make a donation to Medical Aid for Palestinians. There is no minimum amount, please give in line with your access to resource & financial privilege.
If you want to be entered into the draw, you must enter an email address as your ‘name to appear on page’ (view gallery for screenshot example) so we know how to contact you should you win. If you are not comfortable leaving your email address here, or you forget to do so, you can email ionemariastudio@gmail.com with a screenshot of your donation receipt to be added to the list.
One entry per person, all entries will be considered equally regardless of amount donated. The draw will close and winners be announced on Friday 26th January. Thank you.
It’s a very, very peculiar situation to be in that in order to justify the humanity of my people against the collective punishment of millions of people I need to somehow provide expert opinion and an alternative on what to do with terrorism… Do you think the Israeli government and the US government and whoever is supporting this, this mass killing and collective punishment right now, has an answer? It’s absolutely infuriating to me that I am expected as a peace activist who is asking not to kill thousands of children, to have an alternative to war, while people are killing so many people with no intention of actually providing us peace.
All you have to know right now is you are against genocide. And if you are against genocide and we can stand together against genocide, we can go very far.
- adrienne maree brown, speaking on Ceasefire_How to Survive the End of the World podcast