“If we don’t really, in our time, have an awareness of what we lost then, what is it we’ve lost? - Anthony Metivier in conversation with Rick Rubin
Yesterday we received The Ink’s first one-star review.
“I enjoy writing with this ink using a dip pen. Unfortunately, when I went to use it today, I discovered the top is covered in mold. Disappointing. The ink has been opened for about six months. I wonder…”
I texted Thomas.
Though we’d been through this before, he called me straight away, and we began another meandering conversation that lasted for hours, spanning ink and magic, morals, capitalism and the gift economy, cheese balls (Thomas!), alchemy, encouraging curiosity and exploiting it, things that are finished, things that are perfect, things that endure, loose ends, Tove Jansson. Mold.
“Shit! I forgot my journal!” I announced, rummaging for any scrap of paper through the car. (I’d run out to the bookshop whilst chattering.) “I want to take notes!”
“Let it flow...” Thomas said.
I can’t contain it. Our conversations are so full of threads and tangles.
What is it to make something?
To make something good? Is it the process? The usefulness? The endurance of the thing? Is it originality or tried-and-trueness? Discipline or whimsy? Efficiency? Resourcefulness? Presentation? Sustainability? Is it how it makes someone feel upon opening, or using, or repairing, or tending to it? Is it something one reaches for every day? Something needed? Something unnecessary? Is it slow and deliberate? Quick and easy? Is it making something that, eventually, eats itself?
Even writing this overwhelms me.
I first encountered A Rural Pen Ink Works through my phone screen whilst Søren and I wandered through a flea market looking for old maps, something he loved gathering to inspire his work.
I reached out, and so began my friendship with Thomas — ink maker and more — beginning with a transaction, through a screen, whilst out with my kid.
How many wrongs does it take to make a right?
In this case, three.
After we hung up, I wrote back to the reviewer and shared a little of the conversation and how to tend to the mold.
His reply surprised me. He wrote not about the mold, but about his morning ritual—our Sendak, the ink, and a journal he'd made from one of our tutorials.
I sent the conversation to Thomas.
“Well, how human and mannered!”
So does a good thing require conversation?
Perhaps this is the thing I keep returning to: nature is always trying to eat our art supplies.
The paper. The wood. The leather. The paint. The ink.
We have become very good at preventing this. We coat, preserve, seal, and stabilize to keep time from touching our stuff. To keep us separate from nature. We trade the promise of permanence for the practice of tending.
Thomas chose to make an ink that remains in conversation with the natural world. He chose a recipe that remembers another time — a time when things were tended rather than discarded, when longevity came through care rather than resistance.
An object that asks nothing of us is convenient. An object that asks us to notice, to learn, to repair, to participate — becomes something else.
Perhaps every object carries more than its function. It carries a way of seeing the world, and a way of being seen. The medium is not separate from the message; it is its first expression. Before the first word is written, this ink has already said something about patience, care, and our place in the natural world.
I ordered the last of the yellow-labeled ink. The last of the waxed-coated, corked bottles with turmeric-stained hand-cut labels, a process my family and our neighbors watched in the early days of our friendship, in the back of Thomas’s van, at the Five Acre Wood.
On the Moldering of Ink
While this ink has been adapted for modern times, it is based on formulations that date back centuries, predating the use of modern chemical biocides. The choice to remain faithful to these older recipes is guided both by a fondness for antiquity and by a desire to limit the use of harsher chemicals whenever possible.
As a result, this ink may occasionally develop mold. We take a few precautions using historical methods, including the addition of an ethanol extract of logwood and a drop of eucalyptus oil. Over time, however, these natural safeguards gradually lose their effectiveness.
All is not lost. The ink remains perfectly usable. Simply skim away the mold, pour the ink through a tea strainer, rinse the bottle thoroughly, then return the filtered ink to the bottle and add a single aspirin tablet. I have done this many times and found it entirely sufficient.
Like many things made from natural materials, this ink benefits from a little care—and, of course, regular exercise.
–Thomas Little, Ink Maker
Learn more about Thomas and support is next venture on Patreon!
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I’m currently reading, “Breading Sweetgrass”, by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
She speaks of the same kind of relationship and experience between made and maker and nature.
I’m enjoying learning of all these processes and possibilities.
We were built to create and share, to solve. Get messy.
I shake it well every time I experiment with it - I work often with dip pens and ink, I have good nibs, I am able to write long letters with 2 dips with my Dr Ph Martin's inks. I've tried all kinds of paper. I can barely scratch out a few words with this ink. I've thought of leaving it open and letting some of the water evaporate to maybe thicken up the ink. I know the color is gray and not black. That said, I'm so glad I bought it, I love the idea, the bottle, the label, I love looking at it, I'll keep playing with it, if you have any ideas please send them my way - absolutely love all your products and your company.