This course focuses on various ways in which artists have processed materials from the natural world to create colorants of the Americas. Each week students will be introduced to a different color by means of practical handling of mineral pigments and organic colorants that we will process, map, and learn about its history. Specific topics will include, but not limited to, the role of the artist in articulating cultural identity, the place of politics in art, and the intersections between art, poetry and science. Consequently, students confront the course themes through the various lenses motivated by a belief in the power of the arts, civic engagements and humanities to articulate human experience in relationship to the land we occupy.