“When I first work with a plant, I call that prospecting,” Patterson Clark tells VOA. “I’ll sit with the plant, study its nature, cut it, bring it back into the studio, and then start running tests on it.”
Clark has found that the white mulberry weed produces a number of useful materials. “It offers paper, the strongest, whitest paper, pretty good lumber, fuel, [and] ash from that fuel is used to create a chemical used to break down the inner bark to make paper,” he says. Invasive vines and bushes can be used to produce inks, which he uses in his paintings. Ivy can be used to produce green ink, while the multiflora rose and bush honeysuckle can be used to produce red and aqua, respectively. Finally, the leatherleaf mahonia yields a fluorescent yellow color, he adds.