squirrels and other distractions

"i often imagine

that your mind wanders

through the same

forest as mine."

-raine cooper

a dear friend of mine opened a wondrous resource for creating new artistic tools.  it is amazing what a plasma cutter is capable of making from a flat sheet of raw steel!  these lovelies are still shiny and as distracting as chattering squirrels, but will soon be coated in lovely rust and ready to go to work!  i have some very specific ideas in mind to try out with them this weekend...

she also had this delightful rust dye tank created for me.  created from raw steel, it will soon be rusty and ready to go to work.  my idea when discussing the possibilities of such a thing with her was to create a rust dye tank that i could use to get an all-over dye bath brewing in.  my hope with this experiment is to be able to create softer rust dye results than direct to metal rust dyeing.  i'm also hoping to see if it will lend itself to more of a shibori dying technique with rust.  i don't know of anyone who has tried this as yet so don't know if it will work, but the theory seems viable.

to this end, i have already dumped a starter rust dye mush into the tank, created from the rusty bits and rust dust collected from the floor pans of my 1960 International Harvester B112 truck that were removed in the process of fabricating shiny new floor pans.  this rust dye mush has been cooking in a bucket with rainwater for a few months already.  now i'll add more rainwater and some vinegar and really get the tank cooking!

as a happy serendipitous surprise, she also found this lovely small rust dye tank for me.  we are not sure what it was intended to become before it was abandoned in the scrap pile, but it is water tight and made of raw steel, so it is now my new experimental rust dye tank.  the perfect smaller size for one offs and mad experimentation!

so many new squirrels to chase after!

namaste'