DEATH VALLEY MARBLED
Marbled Together is an online field notes, with projects to try and stories to experience. The idea is that the site would be a place to observe, question, and explore on the journey to knowing thyself and others. Our motto is “Access to Sustain” which means access to learning is the way to sustainability. We also think knowledge can be accessed all around us, so many of our projects are geared to looking around you to learn.
In collaboration with Death Valley Nails and inspired by the Dust to Dust Collection we want to take a deeper look at color and pigment and how it impacts our world. The use of soil and bones to create beauty products with color grabbed our attention, and motivated us to ask questions about color and place.
There are two projects for you to engage with.
The first: "Observing Color in Nature."
The second: "Observing Color in Our Skin." Voices of Color was created out of this project. It is a multidimensional space to highlight Black and Brown voices in all their variations.
Voices of Color
Video - https://marbledtogether.com/huesvideo
Poetry Inspired by Voices of Color Interviews - Inspired by Me (@chelsalive)
The sun rises and it kisses my eyes
“You are my sweet child, Adeline”
I sink my toes into the soil
I am lifted up like a tree whose branches bare fruit
Preciously valued, desired
Here in the yellow, orange, and gold rays of light
I am free, loved, and nothing that surrounds me is in fright
Where could this be?
A world I do not know
Where the assumptions lie dormant
The judgments are no more
What lies between you and I is understanding,
an easy landing,
melding
Into a piece that is one
A noble crown
Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh - Inspired by Benita and in tandem with the "Bone" polish in the Dust to Dust collection.
I couldn’t be anything else
RESILIENT
My skin shows my scars, all the places I’ve fallen
My skin, my bone-
is all of me
I thrive, because I am in a constant battle to live my life
Freely
One struggle with the next, coexisting against oppression
Each experience, different from the next
But see me black
Acknowledge me, deal with with me, this is unignorable
Like a tree planted by water, yields fruit in its season - Inspired by Katherine White (@kwhitewrites) and in tandem with the "Sandstone" polish in the Dust to Dust collection.
Depends on who’s looking - I can be a threat; I can be intense
Familial and safe on the other side
I am a force - power escapes my every essence
Oozing from my skin, a cause for joy, a cause for hate
Singing those old spiritual songs
Black is proud
Dreams do come true
Kinship and responsibility
My skin motivates me!
It radiates
I think about the leaves, the flowers
The Sun feeding their beauty and mine
And you can miss that.
It’s easy to ignore, to trample the flowers, tear down the trees
I experience the best and the worst of the world
Through my skin, I see it all - I am left uncomfortable
As you seek the comfort to ignore
Acknowledge me, love me unconditionally - black is valuable
You daughters shall prophesy - Inspired by Donna Hull (@theibw) and in tandem with the "Yellow Iron Ore" polish in the Dust to Dust collection.
“Nature doesn’t judge my skin”
100 acres of land - a generation to wealth
The opposite of your assumptions about my personality
There is judgment before I am known
I have to give more love to me
Perseverance has come alongside me
To help me find my identity
An amazing future stands ahead
Though I see the world for what it is
“Black is a truth teller”
The requirement is of this skin
Seeing may cause you to see something about yourself
“You are not ready to encounter”