" We have never looked upon our country as possessing vast mineral wealth; nevertheless, this is true, in her rich deposits of clay."
a public artwork by Amanda Williams
Amanda has long been intrigued by the connections between how color is used to signify what we value. But what happens when color, in its pigmented form, becomes the value proposition itself? While green is often the color most associated with contemporary notions of wealth, it was an early 20th century patent for making the color blue that looked like it might be golden. In 1927, George Washington Carver received patent number 1,632,365 for a process for producing paints and stains; including Prussian Blue.
While he is renowned for all sorts of scientific and agricultural innovations, his only patents were for producing color. Carver’s receipt of the patents is significant because from 1870 - 1940, of the two million patents submitted to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, only 726 or .04% were products or processes designed by Black Americans*. In an era not long after Emancipation, blacks believed that their full participation in American society and its ideals was an eventuality. Black innovation, in the form of patents, was seen as a viable path to financial prosperity. This promise of inclusion is yet to be realized.
* "Patent Racism", Planet Money. June 12, 2020.
Williams has spent nearly two years developing an updated recipe of Carver’s 1927 patent for a method for producing Prussian Blue pigment. Amanda was fascinated with why Carver, world renowned for his work with peanuts and sweet potatoes, would decide to create a novel version of blue. Williams initially partnered with a team of University of Chicago and Xavier University of Louisiana students and scientists to recreate the recipe. Their results evolved into a custom pigment that Amanda used to create case in house paint she has dubbed “Carver Innovation Blue”.
For Prospect.6, buildings at the New Orleans African American Museum (NOAAM) and Xavier University of Louisiana’s (XULA) Art Village were painted using very different approaches that unearth distinct nuances about the often obscured and erased histories of black ingenuity, innovation and imagination. Painting as a communal activation represented aspects of Carver’s dual mission for sharing knowledge and beauty in the forms of both art and science.
In Her Rich Deposits of (Blue) is a public artwork presented by Amanda Williams on the occasion of her participation in the Prospect 6. Triennial: The Future is Present, The Harbinger is Home (November 1, 2024 - February 3, 2025). The project continues Amanda’s ongoing intrigue with color’s ability to signify value in the spaces and places black people occupy.