More on (traditional) stone carving and lung hazards HazArt

This article comes via NationTalk, native newswire, employment and tender service

Study probes link between soapstone and cancer - Waterloo Record

Forty-six-year-old Jimmy Cookie feels dizzy and has trouble breathing every time he carves into a slab of soapstone.

Now, University of Manitoba researchers are looking at whether Cookie’s lung problems could be linked with the traditional soapstone carving that’s popular in his home community of Sanikiluaq, Nunavut.

• http://tinyurl.com/243po7

Soapstone (also known as steatite or soaprock) is a metamorphic rock, a talc-schist. It was used prior to the invention of pottery or ceramics for bowls in the Americas. It also conducts heat well and is mostly inert, thus its use for stove (cooking) utensils, sinks, and laboratory countertops. Alaska soapstone (now rare) can be transformed into gorgeous sculptures.

Although chemically inert for the most part, the stone is a soft material and scratches easily into fine, fibrous particles (talc, actually. In some rocks, a form of asbestos I believe The soapstone dust composition showed breathable asbestos fibers from the amphibole group (tremolite-actinolite). The results suggest talc asbestosis occurrence among soapstone handicraft workers.). The dust can penetrate lungs deeply and irritate the tissues leading to talcosis or talc pneumoconiosis (similarly to silicosis or asbestosis).

Wikipedia isn’t very helpful on the mineralogy and the physical structure. See the articles cited here–
http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?uids=17249489

MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2004 Jul 23;53(28):627-32.
Changing Patterns of Pneumoconiosis Mortality — United States, 1968–2000
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Pneumoconioses are caused by the inhalation and deposition of mineral dusts in the lungs, resulting in pulmonary fibrosis and other parenchymal changes. Many persons with early pneumoconiosis are asymptomatic, but advanced disease often is accompanied by disability and premature death. Known pneumoconioses include coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP), silicosis, asbestosis, mixed dust pneumoconiosis, graphitosis, and talcosis. No effective treatment for these diseases is available. This report describes the temporal patterns of pneumoconiosis mortality during 1968-2000, which indicates an overall decrease in pneumoconiosis mortality. However, asbestosis increased steadily and is now the most frequently recorded pneumoconiosis on death certificates. Increased awareness of this trend is needed among health-care providers, employers, workers, and public health agencies.

See Environment, Safety, and Health (ES&H) of Traditional Indian Artisans and Craftspeople Project (HazArt)

One of the classic cases of cancer from use of minerals in traditional arts is
Malignant mesothelioma. A cluster in a native American pueblo.
Driscoll RJ, Mulligan WJ, Schultz D, Candelaria A
N Engl J Med. 1988 Jun 2; 318(22): 1437-8

Unfortunately, there isn’t a publicly available copy on the Internet and no access to journals in Bethel. As I remember the article–
Mesothelioma is an asbestos caused lung cancer. In this case a cluster was found that had nothing to do with brake repair or mining. Instead, people discovered the fire resistant mat they used for soldering silver jewelery also whitened dance moccasins when used as a buffing surface. In addition, the mat had a tendency to flake after substantial use as a fireproof work surface. The mat was an old-fashioned fire resistant mat, made of asbestos.

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Antiques as HazArt (Mercury)

Mercury used to be part of the preservation technique in museums, as a bug killer. This makes analyzing museum specimens for environmental change difficult (pre- and post-industrial; regional ecological change in water, temperature, etc over time using stable nuclides; etc.) There was an interesting study on Berlin museum specimens (feathers) for mercury pollution in the urban environments some 20 years ago. [References in deep storage, I'm afraid. And NIH, DOE, and NSF have never been interested in funding chemical ecology modelling of long-term human environmental change made possible via stable nuclides.] I have another reference I will find about the hazards of handling museum specimens which have been curated in the outmoded manner for pest control and not for environmental heritage.

CDC: Antiques Can Pose Mercury Hazard from the Miami Herald (Registration Required)

ALBANY, N.Y. — Careful with that antique clock. It could pose a mercury hazard. The silvery, skittering, and toxic liquid can be found in some antiques. Mirrors can be backed with mercury and tin; Clock pendulums might be weighted with embedded vials of mercury; and barometers, thermometers and lamps may have mercury in their bases for ballast.

The problem is that mercury in old items can leak, particularly as seals age or when the items are moved, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ask Ann Smith, whose heirloom clock’s pendulum leaked mercury onto the carpet of her gift store in rural Delhi, N.Y., as a cleaner moved it. An attempt to vacuum the tiny silver balls off the carpet only made things worse, requiring a hazardous materials team to be dispatched to Parker House Gifts and Accessories last summer.

To read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/AP/story/144213.html Or: http://tinyurl.com/3aym8u

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Other examples for use in HazArt mitigation

I still don’t have access to my deep storage of projects (wouldn’t your community like its very own “overqualified” thinker?) but there are other sources of information to understand and protect one’s self and environment. I will point to these sources here.

Pottery (shaping and firing) has already been mentioned here
| Native Crafts Health Effects Project | and the comments.

There is an interesting series of photos and text about making traditional pottery in the Catawba style. The photos include one of firing and of the preparation of clay. Also included is one of scraping the dried pottery to shape it prior to firing.

• http://www.catawbaindianpottery.com/making_pottery.htm

• photo from “Santa Fe New Mexican”
  http://www.freenewmexican.com/slideshow.php?storyid=59012

Sculpting and stone dust. Note the use of a respirator and gloves. A shower and change of clothes would be needed before leaving the worksite. This would avoid one of the occupational health classics– families of asbestos miners and workers would themselves get lung cancer because the dust off the clothing would be brought home. [for example,

“Hazardous Substances Can Contaminate Workers’ Homes and Families:
* Contamination on work clothing transferred to washing machines and dryers. Dangerous levels of hazardous materials can poisoning the person handling them and contaminate other laundry.
* contamination on tools and equipment transferred to homes and vehicles
* scrap lumber taken home from work
* workers may pass dangerous materials to their family members through contact with their hands and body
* cottage industries where work was done on home property
* family members can be exposed to dangerous materials in dust or air through visits to the workplace”

• http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/hwtr/demodebris/pages2/ahealth.html

I can’t tell if eye protection is used (I hope so; but see how the Feds use PPE | Experts will test birds for signs of avian flu |) Safety glasses should be used even for scraping and sanding wet or dry clay.

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Native Crafts Health Effects Project

As part of the HazArt project | Environment, Safety, and Health (ES&H) of Traditional Indian Artisans and Craftspeople Project (HazArt) | we tested the ambient air quality during a firing of black-on-black (reduced) pottery. This field project was a collaboration of Eight Northern Indian Pueblos Council, Inc., Sandia National Laboratory, and Tewa Women United.

The project was recorded August 1993 by Catalina Reyes of KUNM for National Native News. Her story was broadcast that September.

Principals on the broadcast are

Kathy Sanchez (potter) and Evelyn Garcia (assisting the firing), Tewa Women United

Pat Herring, CIH, Sandia National Laboratory and

myself (M. Pamela Bumsted, Ph.D.), head of the ENIPC environmental office.

Mary Attu, doll maker and skin sewer, was also interviewed

Field location was the pot firing shed (stable) of the late Maria and Julian Martinez, San Ildefonso Pueblo, great-grandparents to Ms Sanchez and Garcia. Read earlier post,
| Maria Martinez’s open-source earthenware |

This digitized audio file does not represent the quality of the original audiotape. The audio is copyright. I’m sorry the quality is not good. I’ll get it improved eventually. There are photos of the project, in deep storage. These too will one day be available.

The following picture shows the traditional firing. Please read the story and view the pictures at

• http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/48059.html

click to play

| Native Crafts health effects audio file in mp3 format. 5 minutes, 19 seconds |

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There is an interesting history of the founding of National Native News by Gary Fife, currently with the Anchorage Municipal Light and Power. [I rather miss the old format (and Nellie Moore, Sharon McConnell, and Patty Talahongva).]

• Listening to Indian Country
  http://www.turtletrack.org/Issues02/Co01262002/ CO_01262002_Native_News.htm

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On-line exhibit Maria Martinez

Following up on

• http://13c4.wordpress.com/2006/10/07/ maria-martinez%e2%80%99s-open-source-earthenware/

there is an on-line exhibit, fairly superficial, but will give a taste of the quality and history.

• Touched by Fire: The Art, Life, and Legacy of Maria Martinez -
  http://www.miaclab.org/exhibits/maria/index.html

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Maria Martinez’s open-source earthenware

This newstory gives the background to the revitalization of Pueblo traditional pottery styles in the early to mid-20th century. Kathy Sanchez and her sister were colleagues in the HazArt study of potential occupational hazards. | Environment, Safety, and Health (ES&H) of Traditional Indian Artisans and Craftspeople Project (HazArt) |

Maria Martinez… drew no lines between art, community, and reverence for life…. According to Vernon G. Lujan, the director of the Poeh Museum in Pojoaque, N.M., which is devoted primarily to Pueblo art, Martinez spearheaded a revival of the Pueblo tradition of familial collaboration. Her art, he said, could not be separated from who she was as a woman, mother, wife, and lifelong community resident.
…
Martinez’s great-granddaughter Kathy Wan Woe Povi Sanchez recalls the ways in which her ancestor transmitted cultural values…. Sanchez is a potter who seeks to live her life in her great-grandmother’s footsteps. Defining herself as an activist (she is also co-director of Tewa Women United), she sees environmental protection as part and parcel of making pottery. “I etch or paint my pottery with stories of caring for Mother Earth,” she said. “When I’m at Indian Market, I tell people the stories. It’s an opportunity to speak the truth about the air, the water, and the earth.”

Lujan explained, “Without a doubt they revived a unique Tewa way of firing at zero oxidation that had gone out of existence. At a certain point in the firing they smothered the pot with cow dung and let it bake and smoke for several hours.”

by Soledad Santiago, The New Mexican, August 18, 2006

Read the rest

• http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/48059.html

science superstition religion 1992

December 2, 1992
Larry Calloway, Albuquerque Journal (http://www.larrycalloway.com/biography.html)

Dear Mr. Calloway:

As you pointed out in your column yesterday, there are federal (as well as state and tribal) environmental laws against pothunting **. These secular sanctions need to be publicized better.

It is incorrect, however, to state as you did, that the supernatural sanctions which seem to apply to those who behave without respect toward those who came before, ancestral Pueblo people, are “superstitions.” It is further incorrect to suggest, though many do, that the spiritual or supernatural realm is anti-Science.

Religion and Science are two ways of knowing the world. Science is appropriate for knowing natural phenomenon while religion is appropriate for knowing supernatural phenomenon. The world, the environment —within which people act and of which people are an essential part since the time of knowing —cannot itself be holistically learned of without the complementary epistemologies of Science and Sprituality.

Science cannot be good Science (done well) without relying in part on the knowledge of experts, especially Science of complex, non-linear dynamic systems (i.e., people and their cultural, physical, biological environment) nor by ignoring an entire realm of acting phenomena. The way to that realm is Spritiual.

Thus, Science done well cannot know the world by itself, in the absence of the Spritiual. Science and Spiritual can’t be antagonists or opposites. They are complements. And knowledge is never ignorance (superstition).

Sincerely,
mpb

2007-06-05
from Calloway’s column

MORE WEIRDNESS: The lead story in the current issue of High Country News begins with a similar letter. After picking up some pottery pieces at Chaco Canyon, a young man wrote, he pulled his shoulder while wind surfing, had his Southwest books drenched by a malfunctioning washing machine and started having fights at work.

Another, last June, returned Chaco pot shards with this confession: “The guilt has been a great punishment and it feels good to return the artifacts. Incidentally, I would have returned the items to the park the day we left, but we had two flat tires about 20 miles south of the park.”

Without an exact location where they were taken, the fragments are of little archaeological value. But the letters have been posted, too, at Chaco Culture National Historical Park as warnings.

The implicit message from our government here is superstitious.

Steal a shard and the Gods will get you. The government message goes against Science (unless guilt psychology is a science).

Still, government is always supporting Science. It’s a major activity of government to support Science and its industrial, agricultural, medical and military applications.

Superstition is largely ignored. It is a victim of discrimination. It is homeless. Superstition needs a program. Superstition needs a federal grant.

** pothunting
http://www.cr.nps.gov/seac/protecting/html/appendix.htm

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Tips for easing knitter’s aches, pains

Some of these tips are similar to any other repetitive task, but they do come from a knitter’s perspective.

Tips for easing knitter’s aches, pains
By CATHERINE HOLLINGSWORTH
Anchorage Daily News, Published: April 25, 2006

Is knitting damaging your health? If you are a knitting addict like I am, you probably have a few aches and pains associated with your addiction….

Catherine Hollingsworth, interior designer, artist and professional knitter, has lived in Alaska for 17 years. A past president of Knitters of the North, she currently designs knitwear patterns for publication.

http://www.adn.com/life/knitting/story/7662150p-7573744c.html

Pamphlet—Pueblo Crafts & Healthy Lungs

The pamphlet can be downloaded in Microsft Word format (click or right click to download) It is 6 pages with embedded graphics and available under a Creative Commons license.

When I figure out how to make a smaller (and updated) format of the original document, I will post that instead.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Pueblo Crafts & Healthy Lungs, 1994
pamphlet about lung protection for Environment, Safety, and Health of traditional Indian arts and crafts (HazArt), a collaborative, community-based project of the northern Indian Pueblos in New Mexico grassroots science.
M. Pamela Bumsted

Inhalation Anthrax Associated with Dried Animal Hides

“Inhalation Anthrax Associated with Dried Animal Hides — Pennsylvania and New York City, 2006″
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/

Interviews were conducted with the patient, his family, and his colleagues. The patient made traditional African drums by using hard-dried animal hides (e.g., air-dried until brittle enough to crack) obtained in NYC from importers who primarily sold African goat and cow hides. Making the drums involved soaking hides for 1 hour in water and then scraping hair from the hides with a razor, which reportedly generated a large amount of aerosolized dust in the patient’s workspace as the hides dried. The man did not wear any personal protective equipment (e.g., mask or gloves) while working. After working on the hides, he usually returned home to his apartment and immediately removed his clothing and showered.

AUTHENTIC ALASKAN ARTS AND CRAFTS

AUTHENTIC ALASKAN ARTS AND CRAFTS

http://www.dced.state.ak.us/ oed/student_info/learn/nativearts.htm

The stores and gift shops of Alaska are filled with delightful items – fine art pieces worked in walrus ivory, soapstone, jade and other natural materials prints, paintings and pottery; clothing and jewelry; and fun souvenirs to bring home to family and friends. But not all of these items are made in Alaska. Some are manufactured in other states and countries and imported to Alaska for sale.

If you are looking for authentic Alaskan arts and crafts, look for these two symbols.

The “Silver Hand” emblem guarantees you that the article on which it appears was hand crafted by an Alaska Eskimo, Aleut, or Indian craftsperson or artist. The “Made in Alaska” emblem indicates that the article was made in Alaska by a resident artist, craftsperson or manufacturer. Wherever possible, art or craft items bearing these emblems have been made with Alaskan materials.

How to Buy Genuine American Indian Arts and Crafts

Because I have been concerned with the

• Environment, Safety, and Health (ES&H) of Traditional Indian Artisans and Craftspeople Project (HazArt) -
  safety and environmental aspects

[and here, http://13C4.wordpress.com/2006/01/11/pueblo-envtl-concerns-solutions/] of Native crafts and art, and in

• Small Business in Western Alaska -
  http://13c4.wordpress.com/2006/01/11/small-business-in-western-alaska/

selling such crafts to the public for artisans, I have also had to learn the legal aspects of adding such a value to those crafts. Here are the latest regulations.

How to Buy Genuine American Indian Arts and Crafts By U.S. Federal Trade Commission ( FTC) Mar 5, 2006, 11:24 Facts for Consumers posted here, http://communitydispatch.com/artman/publish/article_4050.shtml PDF Version is here http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/products/indianart.pdf

How to Buy Genuine American Indian Arts and Crafts
For an Indian art or craft object to be an “Indian product” all work on the product must have been by an Indian or Indians. More information about the Indian Arts and Crafts Act and related regulations can be obtained by visiting the Web site of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, www.iacb.doi.gov, or by calling the Board’s toll-free number, 1–888–ART–FAKE.

…. Whether you’re drawn to the beauty of turquoise and silver jewelry or the earth tone colors of Indian pottery, having some knowledge about American Indian arts and crafts can help you get the most for your money. Be aware also that because Indian arts and crafts are prized and often command higher prices, a few unscrupulous sellers misrepresent imitation arts and crafts as genuine. Getting What You Pay For The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 helps ensure that buyers of Indian arts and crafts products get what they pay for by making it illegal to misrepresent that a product is made by an Indian….

In advertising or marketing a product, it is a violation of the Act to state or imply falsely that the product is made by an Indian or is the product of a particular tribe. For example, advertising or marketing a product as “Navajo Jewelry” that is not produced by members of the Navajo Nation is a violation of the law. Terms such as “Indian,” “Native American” or the name of a particular Indian tribe, accompanied by qualifiers such as “ancestry,” “descent” and “heritage” — for instance, “Native American heritage” or “Cherokee descent” — do not mean that the person is a member of an Indian tribe. These terms do mean that the person is of descent, heritage or ancestry of the tribe, and the terms should be used only if truthful.