Latest / The Book & Beyond: Books, Authors, Film & Culture / Grounding History: Mixing Paints from Ancient Roman Tiles | The Book & Beyond
Transcript
- What if the color of your morning coffee cup held the exact same shade as a wall in Pompeii, crushed into dust and waiting for you to wake it up? I found myself staring at a pile of grey powder today, realizing that creativity isn’t just about looking forward—it’s about digging backward. I want you to picture this with me. It’s quiet in my studio, the kind of quiet that only exists when the house is asleep and the city outside has finally stopped humming. I’m sitting at my worktable, but instead of my usual stack of screenplays or dog-eared paperbacks, there’s a small glass jar in front of me. Inside is not ink. Not acrylic. Not oil. It’s dust. Fine, powdery, ancient dust. And it comes from an actual Roman tile. I know how that sounds. I know you’re probably thinking, 'Caoimhe, did you go to Italy last weekend?' No. But I did spend three hours grinding a shard of terracotta with a mortar and pestle, listening to the friction, feeling the heat rise. There is something profoundly intimate about holding history in your hands and turning it into pigment. We talk so much about 'finding our voice' in art, as if it’s some new invention we have to invent out of thin air. But what if our voice was always there, buried under layers of time, waiting for us to grind it down until it flows? Let’s unpack that scene, because it feels almost cinematic in its slowness. When I first started reading about historical pigments, I was fascinated by the logistics. How did they do it? How did artists in antiquity get these colors without synthetic dyes? The answer is patience. Radical, stubborn patience. They didn’t buy tubes from a store. They went to the earth. They broke stones. They ground shells. They mixed egg yolks with ochre and lapis lazuli that cost more than gold. And here is where the subtext is screaming, if you listen closely. Modern life has trained us to believe that creation should be instant. Open the cap, squeeze the tube, paint the canvas. If it doesn’t happen fast, we think we’re failing. But mixing paints from ancient materials forces you to slow down. You can’t rush chemistry. You can’t hurry geology. When I mix my pigment today, I have to add water drop by drop. I have to stir until my arm aches. I have to wait for it to sit, to settle, to reveal its true depth. It’s a ritual. It’s a conversation with time itself. And in that slowness, I find a clarity I haven’t felt in months. There’s a specific hue that comes from those Roman tiles. It’s not just red. It’s not just brown. It’s a warm, earthy terracotta that smells faintly of rain on hot stone, even though there’s no smell in dry powder. It’s the color of memory. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we use color to anchor our emotions. In film, we talk about color grading—shifting the tones to make a scene feel nostalgic or urgent. But this? This is original footage. This is the raw data of history. When I apply this pigment to my sketchbook, I’m not just drawing a line. I’m tracing a lineage. I’m using the same material palette as someone who lived two thousand years ago. Tell me what you saw in the margins of your own life recently. Did you notice how often we reach for the nearest blue marker when we’re sad, or the brightest yellow when we’re hopeful? We categorize our feelings in primary colors. But ancient pigments don’t care about our categories. They care about endurance. They care about surviving the fire, the earthquake, the collapse. To hold that in your hand is to remember that we are part of a long, unbroken chain of makers. One thing I love about grinding your own pigments is the imperfection. Commercial paints are uniform. They are consistent. They are safe. But earth pigments are messy. They have grit. They have variations in tone from batch to batch. One day, the red might be deeper; the next, it might be lighter, depending on the humidity, the source, the way the light hits the room. At first, I fought this. I wanted control. I wanted the perfect swatch. But then I realized that the variation is the beauty. It’s alive. It reacts to the binder, to the surface, to the artist’s hand. It reminds me that perfection is sterile. Life is textured. As a former editor, I used to cut out every jump cut, every breath, every hesitation, trying to make the final product seamless. But now, I’m learning to leave the breath in. I’m learning to let the grit show. When I paint with this ancient dust, I see the tiny specks of stone that didn’t quite grind down. I see the uneven flow. And I love it. It proves that a human hand was here. It proves that I was here, right now, making this choice. It’s a signature in the most literal sense. I mentioned earlier that I used to edit indie films. People assumed that meant I was obsessed with the future, with technology, with the next big trend. But editing taught me about rhythm, about pacing, about how a single frame can change the meaning of a whole sequence. Now, as a writer and book club moderator, I’m obsessed with the past. With stories that have survived. Mixing these pigments feels like the physical manifestation of that bridge. I’m taking the debris of the past and using it to build something new. It’s not about replication. It’s not about cosplay. It’s about resonance. When I write now, I find myself reaching for older words, heavier metaphors. I’m less interested in the shiny, new twist and more interested in the foundational truth. This process has slowed my mind down. It has given me a new vocabulary of texture. I’m not just describing a scene; I’m feeling its weight. I’m hearing its echo. And I think that’s what we all need sometimes. A reminder that we don’t have to invent everything from scratch. We can stand on the shoulders of giants, yes, but we can also stand on their dust. We can pick up their tools, sharpen them, and make our own mark. So, here is my challenge to you. I don’t expect you to go dig up a Roman tile. That would be illegal, and frankly, dangerous. But I invite you to find your own ancient pigment. Find your own slow ritual. Maybe it’s grinding spices for a recipe that takes hours. Maybe it’s hand-writing a letter on paper that feels rough against your fingertips. Maybe it’s walking barefoot on grass after being indoors all week. Whatever it is, look for the thing that requires time. The thing that cannot be rushed. The thing that connects you to something larger than your daily to-do list. Creativity isn’t just about output. It’s about input. It’s about soaking in the world, feeling its texture, respecting its age. Let yourself be grounded. Let yourself be heavy. Let yourself be real. Because when you come back to your work, whether it’s writing, painting, or just living your life, you’ll carry that depth with you. You’ll have something to say that isn’t just noise. It’ll be color. It’ll be substance. It’ll be yours. And that is a rare and beautiful thing. Thank you for letting me share this dusty, beautiful secret with you. I hope you find your own ground today. Until next time, keep digging. Bye for now.