Plumbago

Is there any lead in lead pencils? Not a bit of it. So why are they called “lead pencils”? Wikipedia reveals all:
“In 1564, a very large deposit of graphite was found at the site of Seathwaite Fell near Borrowdale, Cumbria, England. The locals found that it was very useful for marking sheep. This particular deposit of graphite was extremely pure and solid and it could easily be sawed into sticks. This was and remains the only deposit of graphite ever found in this solid form. Chemistry was in its infancy and the substance was thought to be a form of lead. Because of this, it was called plumbago (Latin for 'acts like lead'). The black core of pencils is still called 'lead', even though it does not contain the element lead. Soon, people realized that plumbago was worth a lot, mainly because it could be used to line the moulds for cannon balls, and the mines were taken over by the Crown and guarded. Graphite had to be smuggled out for use in pencils. Because the plumbago was soft, it required some form of case. Plumbago sticks were at first wrapped in string or in sheepskin. The news of the usefulness of these early pencils spread far and wide, attracting the attentions of artists all over the known world.”
Graphite thieves became legendary. William Hetherington carved out a tunnel into the plumbago from his nearby copper mine, and according to myth, the graphite robbing exploits of "Black Sal" only came to an end when she was hunted to death by wolfhounds. In 1752, "Parliament passed an act decreeing that anyone caught in possession of illegal graphite could face a year's hard labor, or be transported into slavery in the colonies." This last bit of history comes to us courtesy of the extraordinary book "Color: A Natural History of the Palette". The author, Victoria Finlay, also explains why pencils are painted yellow: A Frenchman named Jean-Pierre Alibert was prospecting for gold in Siberia, "just a graphite pebble's throw from the Chinese border". He found no gold, but he did find a graphite deposit. Soon, everyone wanted "Chinese" pencils. As a marketing ploy, American companies painted their mass produced pencils yellow, suggesting the color of Manchu imperial robes.
Most American pencils are still yellow, and the misnomer “lead” has stuck with us for almost 250 years now.
Plumbago, once carefully guarded by the King’s army, is now commonplace, ordinary, dismissible:
A “pencil pusher” is defined by the Urban Dictionary as: “Someone who works in an incredibly boring job. Most likely the person themselves also exudes extreme boringness.”
The words “# 2 pencil” still conjure up for me unpleasant memories of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (the density of the # 2 lead being perfect for scanning the multiple choice answers of my bubble-test taking childhood). "Your time is up. Put down your # 2 pencils, close your test booklets, and fold your hands on your desks."
But there are places where the pencil is still considered worth smuggling past the king’s soldiers. At Hawthorne elementary school, painter Megan Williamson, working with teacher Wendy Schavocky through the auspices of the Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education, is teaching kindergartners how to sketch. For real. They are looking at line, they are looking at shape and composition, they are using professional ebony lead pencils with no erasers. In real sketchbooks. Real materials. Real art problems.
The work is astonishing. Sophisticated, expressive, original. The sort of thoughtful and challenging work that makes Megan proud to be an artist. “After this,” she reports, “there are only two places that are intellectually stimulating enough for me to want to teach as an artist- graduate school and kindergarten.”
Why are these children producing such astonishing work? Because Wendy and Megan truly believe in their kids’ intellectual and aesthetic powers, and understand that these powers are inextricably inter-connected. They know that these children are extremely pure and solid. And that the last thing they want to do to them is to saw them into sticks.

Arnold Aprill
Founding and Creative Director
Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education
www.capeweb.org