This 10-night workshop/residency is an immersive experience designed for all pigment workers; whether you are new or continuing, you will find your place in this inspiring course. You’ll receive the expert guidance of two dedicated pigment workers: artist/poet Daniela Naomi Molnar and artist/ochre specialist Heidi Gustafson. In collaboration with PLAYA’s unique landscape, you’ll learn to see the world as your palette, a transformative practice that will spark change in your creative life. The skills you learn will also apply to your home bioregion, and you’ll also bring home creative collaborations, gorgeous colors, and a revitalized creative life.
We’ll begin where you are. If you’ve never made a pigment before, you’ll learn all the skills you need to do so. If you’ve been making pigments for years, you’ll dive into exploring advanced techniques and ideas. You’ll learn how to ethically forage pigments and transform them into any type of paint or ink while exploring the poetics and philosophies of a pigment-making practice. And you’ll gain new insights into the ways pigment-making can catalyze creative engagement with ecological issues, including climate change.
Here in the vast, open space, making pigments from rocks, plants, bones, and wild waters, you’ll interact directly with ancient timescales, finding new insights, inspiration, and artistic paths. Pigment-work makes accessible forms of time our daily lives can obscure — geologic time, photosynthetic time, or what is often called “deep time.” In opening up different timescales, pigments offer a balm for the confusion and challenging emotions that our ecological crises can provoke.
Guided field trips will offer the opportunity to explore this exceptionally beautiful and diverse region. We’ll go on short hikes to get to know pigment sites, ancient petroglyphs, and other regional wonders. Daniela is a certified wilderness guide with backcountry medical training so you can feel safe on these outings. You can expect lots of laughter, camaraderie, inspiring ideas, beautiful expeditions, collaborations, gorgeous colors, and new ideas and techniques for your creative practice.
Days 2 – 4 of this class will cover basic pigment-work and foraging skills. Experienced pigment workers will have the option to refresh their skills or dive into creative prompts and studio visits. Everyone will receive optional readings and have the opportunity to participate in guided field trips, slideshows, and conversations. Days 5 – 6 will offer individual studio time with optional studio visits from the instructor to discuss your questions, interests, and goals. Day 7 is a guided field trip, followed by 2 more days (days 8 – 9) of studio time with optional individual studio visits. We will wrap up on day 10 with the opportunity to share your work and receive supportive feedback from the group.
Details and Agenda
Instructor: Daniela Naomi Molnar
Guest Instructor: Heidi Gustafson
Dates: Friday, May 22 – Monday, June 1, 2026
Arrival: Friday, May 22, 2026 1:00-4:00 PM
Departure: Monday, June 1, 2026 11:00 AM
Skill Level: This course is appropriate for everyone. Whether you’ve never made pigments or you’ve been working with them for years, you’ll find your place in this workshop.
Mobility: Moderate – ability to walk on uneven gravel and dirt surfaces in the outdoors and explore outdoor areas for 1-3 hours at a time, with options for longer hikes. The workshop can also be easily adapted for those with limited mobility. While PLAYA is accessible, the sites off campus are not. Please inquire if you have any questions or concerns.
See below the agenda for important information about what supplies to bring with you.
Agenda
Day 1 // Friday, May 22, 2026
1:00 – 4:00 PM: Arrival
6:00 PM: Meet and Greet (BYOB and snacks). Everyone: Receive optional readings; Advanced students: Receive creative prompts.
Day 2 // Saturday, May 23, 2026
Morning – Everyone: Introductory slideshow and optional foraging field trip
Afternoon – Beginning students: Pigment-work techniques; Advanced students: Solo or collaborative work on creative prompts
Day 3 // Sunday, May 24, 2026
Morning and afternoon – Beginning students: Pigment-work techniques; Advanced students: Solo or collaborative work on creative prompts, studio visits
Evening – Everyone: Optional conversation about readings, receive more readings
Day 4 // Monday, May 25, 2026
Morning – Everyone: Optional foraging field trip
Afternoon – Beginning students: Pigment-work techniques; Advanced students: Solo or collaborative work on creative prompts, studio visits
6:00 PM: Group dinner provided by PLAYA
Day 5 // Tuesday, May 26, 2026
Morning and afternoon – Everyone: Individual studio visits + self-guided studio time
Evening – Everyone: Optional conversation about readings, receive more readings
Day 6 // Wednesday, May 27, 2026
Everyone: Individual studio visits + self-guided studio time
Day 7 // Thursday, May 28, 2026
Morning – Everyone: Group feedback
Afternoon – Everyone: Optional hike
Evening – Everyone: Optional conversation about readings, receive more readings
6:00 PM: Group dinner provided by PLAYA
Day 8 // Friday, May 29, 2026
Everyone: Individual studio visits + self-guided studio time
Day 9 // Saturday, May 30, 2026
Morning and afternoon – Everyone: Individual studio visits + self-guided studio time
Evening – Everyone: Optional conversation about readings, receive more readings
Day 10 // Sunday, May 31, 2026
Morning and afternoon – Everyone: Share work
Evening – Shared potluck dinner
Day 11 // Monday, June 1, 2026
Depart by 11:00 AM
Instructor Bio
Daniela Naomi Molnar is a poet, artist and writer who creates with color, water, language, and place. Her paintings are created with pigments she makes from plants, bones, stones, rainwater and glacial melt. Her artwork has been shown widely and is in public and private collections internationally. Her work is the subject of a front-page feature in the Los Angeles Times, a PBS Oregon Art Beat profile, an entry in theOregon Encyclopedia, an interview withThe Creative Independent, and a feature in Poetry Daily. She’s been honored by numerous grants, fellowships, and residencies.
Molnar’s training in both science and art informs her work; she previously worked as an Art Director with Scientific American and later founded and directed the Art + Ecology program at the Pacific Northwest College of Art and helped found and run the artist residency Signal Fire.
Poems and essays are created alongside the pigments and paintings; the practices overlap and influence each other, creating new ecologies. Her debut book CHORUS won the 2024 Oregon Book Award for Poetry. PROTOCOLS: An Erasure was published by Ayin Press in June of 2025. Forthcoming books include Memory of a Larger Mind, a book written in collaboration with glaciers (Omnidawn, October 2026) and Light / Remains, a book of visual art, poems, and essays.
She lives in Portland, Oregon where the forest meets the city. www.danielamolnar.com / Instagram: @daniela_naomi_molnar
All year, she looks forward to teaching this course at PLAYA. It never fails to be a beautiful and transformative experience for all.
www.danielamolnar.com / Instagram:@daniela_naomi_molnar
Heidi Gustafson is an artist, ochre specialist, and necromancer who lives and works on the Salish Sea in the Pacific Ring of Fire. Her highly collaborative and intuitive projects include the Ochre Archive, one of the “best known, broadest reaching and most carefully amassed” collective of natural ochre and iron-earth pigments on the planet.
She’s the author of Book of Earth: A Guide to Ochre, Pigment, and Raw Color, and her highly collaborative and intuitive practice has been featured in the New York Times, American Craft, Art Das Kunstmagazin, The Dark Mountain Project, Kinfolk, China Life Magazine, The International Database for Artistic Research, The Soil Keepers and elsewhere.
Graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art, studied forensic science at the University of Baltimore, and received an MA in Philosophy and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Find her at earlyfutures.com and on instagram @heidilynnheidilynn.
Materials List to Bring
(Please don’t hesitate to be in touch with any questions about supplies)
OUTDOOR + FORAGING SUPPLIES
Required:
- Layers for changing weather
- Sturdy and comfortable shoes
- A backpack, basket, shoulder bag, or other collecting bag
- A permanent marker for labeling
- Gardening or work gloves (if you have them)
- Water bottle
- Small plastic or cloth bags – reusing existing bags is fine
Optional:
- Hiking poles for traction (if you have them)
- Shears
- A small trowel or spade
- A small hammer or a rock hammer
- A chisel
PIGMENT-MAKING SUPPLIES
Optional:
- A medium/large mortar and pestle
- Glass jars with lids (reused, clean jam jars or similar are great) – bring as many as you can, of varying sizes
- A muller and glass plate if you want to invest in one. If you’d like to purchase this, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Daniela for suggestions, their quality varies widely.
- A small empty spray bottle for water
- Gum arabic (in powdered or liquid form) and/or a small jar of honey
ART SUPPLIES
Required:
- A palette for mixing colors – an old white plate or pan is fine.
- Bring any watercolor paper you already own and like working with. If possible, please bring 2 or more sheets of large, high-quality watercolor paper. I recommend Arches 300 lb, 16 x 20 or 22×30 (or larger) AND a small pad or loose sheets of inexpensive watercolor paper to experiment on.
Optional (bring these if you have them, if not, don’t worry about it!)
- An empty watercolor pan with fillable half pans
- Bring any paints you already own and like using. Please don’t bring any paints with fumes. Paints to bring include: watercolor, acrylic, gouache, tempera, or water-soluble oil paints. If you don’t own any paints yet, you don’t need to rush out and buy any. If you’d like to purchase paints, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Daniela for suggestions.
- Any brushes and mark-making tools you already own. If you’d like to purchase brushes, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Daniela for suggestions.
- Drawing board to hold your paper and clips to hold paper to your board
- Artists tape or painters tape
- Any pencils you like to use and a pencil sharpener
- Kneaded eraser, or other erasers (kneaded, Mars plastic, fine-tip eraser)
- Any colored pencils and/or pastel pencils you already own and like to use
- Any dry pastels or oil pastels you already own and like to use
- Tracing paper
- A bottle of rubbing alcohol
- A ruler
- Rags or paper towels
- X-acto knife and/or scissors
- Glue, glue stick, Modge Podge, or acrylic matte medium
- Any charcoal you already own and like to use
MISCELLANEOUS
- A notebook or something to write with and on
- A phone or camera
No pets allowed. Thank you.
