Sapphire magazine Mo Bayliss

er palette is a slab of red granite cut from a rock face in Northern Ontario. Her paint is is a hundred thousand years
old - maybe older.
For Tottenham artist, Mo Bayliss, the purity of her work stems from an ancient source - the ground itself gives up the pigment in the form of rocks that were created from different minerals and calcites over milleniums.
Emerging as an artist in 2006, Mo is is one of the few, maybe the only, artist in the world who uses a primitive method of painting that entails creating pigment from directly from rocks - the same type of rocks that were used by ancient people to create cave paintings.
``I started this work with two stones that were given to me from a cave shelter in West Texas,`` she explains.
She started with a contact in the area with a similar interest in aboriginal history who sent her more rocks from the area.
When people hear of her `rock painting,` quite often they think she paints on the rocks, but are suprised to learn that she actually paints on paper or canvas, but the pigment is ground from the stones.

A book keeper by profession, her artistic work is a total departure from the numbers game.
She became interested in the art form when she was doing proof reading and helping out with the Pecos Rio Grande Museum of Early Man in Texas.
``I started to investigate more,`` she explains, `` and depending on the area where the cave shelters are, determines which stones they used.``
Mo holds up a blue stone from her collection. ``This is Arizona azurite, so when you get into Arizona the cave shelters and rock paintings have a lot of blue in them.``
Through her work she has become quite an expert - both in aboriginal art and
her knowledge of different rocks, where they are from and how they were used.
The process itself is simple - Mo grinds one of her pigment stones against the hard granite palette then mixes the fine dust with water to to paint
and make new colours. It is similar to using traditional watercolour
cakes.
Through her discussions of her artwork with several museum
curators and college professors, she found that they were
very suprised and also interested in her technique. Something no
one else seemed to have thought of.
``They deemed it Hand Ground Paint from Stone Mixed With Water,``
she says.
She thinks there may be one other person in Europe who uses the
technique but so far has no real documentation of that.

``It`s still the same basic painting process,`` she says of her work, ``It`s just that the medium is very very simple.``
It is the historic value of the process, she says, that keeps her interested.
Once she starts the process and is ready to paint, Mo takes to canvas or paper.
Her work is varied but also influenced by native art. She creates many images based on the ancient pieces of pottery created by the same people who used the same technique to paint on cave shelter walls.
From the limited colours available in rock form, she mixes the pigment to create the hues needed for her work.
The pottery pieces have many deep colours, earth tones, and naturally occurring shades..
For her other works she blends the pigment to create brighter colours for outdoor scenes and landscapes.
Her work has travelled far with some of her pieces collected in far away locations.

She as also exhibited locally and her work is in a local gallery.
Her interest in Native American art and history has led to her involment in with several museums, art groups, and shows.
Mo has been an Arist in Residency at the Museum on the Boyne in Alliston and has participated in many community shows, events, children`s day camps, and outreach programs - often as a historical demonstator.

Oddly enough, many native groups have expressed an interest in learning more about the craft as it seems to have become a lost art - even among the groups whose ancestors drew the original rock pigment painting.
Though she continues to create her artwork, Mo is also branching out to doing workshops and outreach. That
includes putting together kits for beginners who are interested in grinding some rocks of their own.
Her work is definetely unique, and artistic value aside, it can be quite the conversation piece when a collector explains how the painting on their wall is totally different from every other painting in the world.