sable wave : december ‘20
Thomas Little, this month’s Ground Bright contributor, describes the origins of Sable Wave this way: “You first assemble a cast of nefarious characters. Cold iron from a weapon is mixed with hydrochloric acid, a volatile fuming corrosive, to make an equally corrosive and poisonous ferric chloride. To this you add lye, the king of the caustic. The solution gets too hot to touch. You wait. Slowly a black precipitate forms under clear water. The products formed are non-toxic black iron oxide and salt water.” This ferrimagnetic oxide of iron or “magnetite” is the the most magnetic material on earth. It guides eels to their breeding grounds in the Bermuda triangle, and monarch butterflies to Mexico. It’s in the beaks of homing pigeons & in the frontal cortex of the human brain. It is, says Thomas, “quite literally, the compass of the animus.”
The guns used to make this pigment were provided by Lead to Life (see below for more info). The pigment can be mixed with a binder to make “Mars Black” and used as ink or paint. Experimenting with responses to magnets in either wet or dry form will yield an array of fascinating results. Sable Wave is not toxic but a mask should always be worn when handling any kind of dry pigment.
contributor : thomas little
Thomas Little is an amateur ink historian who explores mystic and scientific concepts through the lens of ink and our relationship to mark making. He gathers threads from alchemical imagery, chemical phenomena, and mystic observations to incorporate them into a holistic synthesis theory of art-science-magic. The natural world informs his work with ink, not only the materials used, but the relationships expressed between plant, animal, and elements.
See more of his work on instagram at @a.rural.pen
Photo by Thomas Little
Photo from the Lead to Life website www.leadtolife.org
22% donation recipient : Lead to Life
Lead to Life transforms weapons into shovels for tree planting ceremonies at sites that have been impacted by violence or carry spiritual significance across Atlanta (occupied lands of the Cherokee and Creek people) and Oakland (occupied lands of the Ohlone people.) Inspired by Mexican artist Pedro Reyes and an ancient lineage of Swords to Plowshares creators, they choose to locate their alchemy and cultural healing work in the US (occupied Turtle Island). Their disarmament process collects both weapons donated from the public and weapons housed in police departments that have been rendered dormant and disposable post-investigation. In partnership with local artists and metal-smiths, the weapons are transformed into shovels and tools.The shovels are then used in ceremonial plantings of culturally significant sacred tree species. These ceremonies offer a physically regenerative space for communities to memorialize loved ones, and lands, lost to violence.
Lead To Life is led by black and queer artists, including bronte velez, Jazmín Calderón Torres, Stormy Saint-Val, and Liz Kennedy. The collective uses participatory ceremony, prayer, dream work and other processes to ‘decompose’ white supremacy and the nightmares of colonization. To donate directly to Lead to Life, please go to www.leadtolife.org.