Wash Your Hands
From the Graphic Artists Guild newsletter comes a warning that Yarka Pastels could be hazardous to your health. The warning note is as follows.
Pastels are supposed to have information regarding any hazardous material contained in it displayed on each individual wrapper. Yarka does not label the individual colors, nor does the box have any information as to which colors actually contain hazardous materials.
National has written letters to the importers of this Russian product which is recently on the market and being advertised in several mail-order art supply houses. The letters are asking the distributors to label them properly, and questioning whether they are complying with the labeling requirements of the Art and Crafts Materials Institute (ACMI) and U.S. Labeling of Hazardous Art Materials Act (LHAMA), which was established to protect the general buying public. We are waiting for a response.
In the meantime, know that these pastels contain soluble cadmium and cobalt pigments, both considered to be hazardous, possibly carcinogenic, materials. If you choose to use them, take precautions touching them and breathing the dust.
Art Hazard News, Volume 19, No. 2, 1996
This article was originally printed for Art Hazard News, © copyright Center for Safety in the Arts 1996. It appears on CAR courtesy of the Health in the Arts Program, University of Illinois at Chicago, who have curated a collection of these articles from their archive which are still relevant to artists today.