Uploaded October 2024 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
"Harvesting Color: Ancestral Recipes for Today’s World" follows a group of artists from the village of Xalitla, Guerrero as they revitalize the manufacture and use of natural pigments in their painting practice. Through a series of LACMA-sponsored workshops, the artists reconnect with ancestral recipes, their cultural inheritance.
The film was made as part of the exhibition "We Live in Painting: The Nature of Color in Mesoamerican Art" and was written and directed by Alexa Oona Schulz.
Mesoamerican artists held a cosmic responsibility: as they adorned the surfaces of buildings, clay vessels, textiles, bark-paper pages, and sculptures with color, they (quite literally) made the world. The power of color emerged from the materiality of its pigments, the skilled hands that crafted it, and the communities whose knowledge imbued it with meaning. Color mapped the very order of the cosmos, of time and space. By engineering and deploying color, artists wielded the power of cosmic creation in their hands. "We Live in Painting: The Nature of Color in Mesoamerican Art" explores the science, art, and cosmology of color in Mesoamerica. Histories of colonialism and industrialization in the “color-averse” West have minimized the deep significance of color in the Indigenous Americas. This exhibition follows two interconnected lines of inquiry—technical and material analyses, and Indigenous conceptions of art and image—to reach the full richness of color at the core of Mesoamerican worldviews.
To learn more about the exhibition visit: lacma.org/art/exhibition/we-live-painting-nature-color-mesoamerican-art
About LACMA
Located on the Pacific Rim, LACMA is the largest art museum in the western United States, with a collection of nearly 140,000 objects that illuminate 6,000 years of artistic expression across the globe. Committed to showcasing a multitude of art histories, LACMA exhibits and interprets works of art from new and unexpected points of view that are informed by the region’s rich cultural heritage and diverse population. LACMA’s spirit of experimentation is reflected in its work with artists, technologists, and thought leaders as well as in its regional, national, and global partnerships to share collections and programs, create pioneering initiatives, and engage new audiences.
Connect with LACMA
Subscribe for our latest videos: lacma.org/videos
Explore our collection online: collections.lacma.org
Plan your visit to LACMA: lacma.org/visit
Support the museum and become a member: lacma.org/support
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"Harvesting Color: Ancestral Recipes for Today’s World" follows a group of artists from the village of Xalitla, Guerrero as they revitalize the manufacture and use of natural pigments in their painting practice. Through a series of LACMA-sponsored workshops, the artists reconnect with ancestral recipes, their cultural inheritance.
The film was made as part of the exhibition "We Live in Painting: The Nature of Color in Mesoamerican Art" and was written and directed by Alexa Oona Schulz.
Mesoamerican artists held a cosmic responsibility: as they adorned the surfaces of buildings, clay vessels, textiles, bark-paper pages, and sculptures with color, they (quite literally) made the world. The power of color emerged from the materiality of its pigments, the skilled hands that crafted it, and the communities whose knowledge imbued it with meaning. Color mapped the very order of the cosmos, of time and space. By engineering and deploying color, artists wielded the power of cosmic creation in their hands. "We Live in Painting: The Nature of Color in Mesoamerican Art" explores the science, art, and cosmology of color in Mesoamerica. Histories of colonialism and industrialization in the “color-averse” West have minimized the deep significance of color in the Indigenous Americas. This exhibition follows two interconnected lines of inquiry—technical and material analyses, and Indigenous conceptions of art and image—to reach the full richness of color at the core of Mesoamerican worldviews.
To learn more about the exhibition visit: lacma.org/art/exhibition/we-live-painting-nature-color-mesoamerican-art
About LACMA
Located on the Pacific Rim, LACMA is the largest art museum in the western United States, with a collection of nearly 140,000 objects that illuminate 6,000 years of artistic expression across the globe. Committed to showcasing a multitude of art histories, LACMA exhibits and interprets works of art from new and unexpected points of view that are informed by the region’s rich cultural heritage and diverse population. LACMA’s spirit of experimentation is reflected in its work with artists, technologists, and thought leaders as well as in its regional, national, and global partnerships to share collections and programs, create pioneering initiatives, and engage new audiences.
Connect with LACMA
Subscribe for our latest videos: lacma.org/videos
Explore our collection online: collections.lacma.org
Plan your visit to LACMA: lacma.org/visit
Support the museum and become a member: lacma.org/support
Follow us on social
Facebook: facebook.com/LACMA
Twitter: twitter.com/lacma
Tumblr: lacma.tumblr.com
Pinterest: pinterest.com/lacma
Instagram: instagram.com/lacma
