2020 Charcoal Ink (Future Library Special Edition)

In 2020, we (Taryn Kneteman and Alma Louise Visscher) created several bottles of charcoal ink that we gave as gifts to makers and other folks in our community. This ink was made on the last evening of 2020 with the hope of creating something from the residual energy and material of the previous year. We made the ink at a recreational site managed by the City of Edmonton, situated in the North Saskatchewan River Valley in Amiskwaciwâskahikan (so-called Edmonton). 

Carbon cycles

This ink was made from gathered willow branches that we put in empty Altoids mints tins and then placed in the embers of a campfire for several hours. This method carbonizes the wood (slowly removes the oxygen from the wood, only leaving the charcoal – which is carbon and minerals – behind). The carbonized wood was then pulverized to a fine powder in a coffee grinder and water and Gum Arabic were added to it.

Carbon reservoirs

This project was an inquiry into the living, tangled, shifting, and changeable nature of shared resources, natural processes, and collective making or not making. The ink was given with no expectations or parameters of a final product or results and the participants were invited to use it however they felt was necessary for them.

This project, including participant drawings, was featured as part of Blackflash Expanded’s, ‘How to Guide’ series: Hhttps://blackflash.ca/expanded/how-to-make-ink/

Alongside the How to Make Ink guide published on BlackFlash Expanded, we'd love to hear about your own experiments of making inks and dyes.

Have you made some ink using any of the recipes described in this guide? Have you made something with it? Or do you have your own recipe you would like to share? We would love to see/read/hear about it — please fill out this form here to share your process! Ink Contributions (Google Form)