In this video, I create a dye from the cochineal insect to paint art on three different materials. Cochineal is a parasitic scale insect that produces a crimson dye, significant to Aztec and Mayan ...

Tuna found in the desert? OK, fair enough: that’s tuna, as in the Spanish for prickly pear, the fruit of the nopal. Ken Factor and I have spotted an ancient cactus tree growing close to the veranda ...

Catalog of an exhibition held at the Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe from May 17, 2015-September 13, 2015. Three reds : cochineal, hematite, and cinnabar in the pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican ...

Samantha Nadel in front of a nopal cactus at the archaeological site of Cuicuilco in Mexico City. Each white spot on the nopal is a cochineal insect. PHOTO: Courtesy of Samantha Nadel. Long before ...

AS AN INSECT long cultivated for the brilliant red dye it produces, the cochineal has occupied a fraught position between Indigenous textile practices and modern globalization. Mexican cochineal has ...