Lead and other toxic hazards

With the water crisis in Flint, MI, unfolding due to the lead contamination, I find myself hoping that the residents of that city are as aware of the dangers of getting lead on their skin from contact with their contaminated water as I am being a full time professional artist; I come into contact with a lot of potentially dangerous chemicals, like lead, and VOCs (volatile organic compounds, or poisonous fumes in the air) when I work, so I know how much of a health risk having lead on our skin is.

Since I use some very toxic chemicals for my everyday work, I have to constantly remind myself how important it is for me to practice good safety measures, like keeping paint off my skin, especially when it contains lead. I know many of you are thinking, "but they took lead out of paint years ago!". Yes, and no. Lead was removed from latex paint sold for residential applications, like painting your living room walls, but it can still be found in a lot of art supplies, like ceramic glazes, and even some types of artist's paints. I have been gifted old cans of paint with lead in them still, which I love using on murals since the paint is so incredibly wonderful in the way it goes on with a lot less work, and I purchased a tube of Lead White oil paint not that long ago for it's opaque (can't see through it) qualities. Even when there is no lead in paints, like titanium white, there are still a lot of other chemicals in those paints that are poisonous if ingested, and we do absorb things through our skin, which is the largest organ "on" our body. Many pigments, like cadmium, are poisonous, just like lead is poisonous.

Then there are the "liquid" carriers of the solid pigments (pigments are what give paint its color), so the paint flows. In most tubes of oil paint the carrier is linseed oil, which isn't toxic, unlike oil paint's well known companion, turpentine. While I tend to shy away from using turpentine as a thinner or cleaner, I still find it essential when I want to make a glaze for my oil paintings (so I get that wonderful depth of color that only oil paint can give). The lettering enamel many pinstripers (myself included) prefer to use is thinned with some pretty toxic chemicals like benzene and xylene, well known dangers to our health! Painting indoors isn't a great way to have adequate ventilation for those smelly thinners that are poisonous when inhaled, so I have to make sure to put a fan in the window, or open the door even in winter to get fresh air to avoid nerve damage from the thinners like turpentine, or the ones I use when I pinstripe. I've even been known to wear a certified respirator (as dust masks don't filter out the thinners with their tiny molecules that are VOC's, dust masks only filter out the big pieces of dust, the VOCs still get through and cause serious long term damage, which is why a lot of older painters shake, or die from lung cancer).

Again, it's important to keep it out of my lungs off my hands, because our skin readily absorbs these things. If I know clean up is going to be messy (and a lot of times it is), I wear special gloves as a barrier between the poison and my skin.

Remember, safety precautions are pretty easy to implement, and they really pay off in the long run! Our health is priceless, make sure you take care of yours.

Be warm and well.