Piece by piece
we erase them.
A coat of paint,
a patched wall.
New life swallowing
thirty plus years
in easily chewed
chunks. Sometimes
a treasure is save.
Roses swallowed
by weeds, old
hardwood under carpet.
Other times, not so.
Wiring inexplicably wound
through gutters, hours
changing mismatched trim,
headaches and muscle strain,
but slowly it gives way,
old dreams molding
to a new visions
of home.
Cut this out intending to work on it during the Salt City Steamfest. I managed to bevel the edges, but that was it. Last night I managed to get back at it and punched holes for stitching and dyed it. As well as starting to paint in the symbol that will be on the front of the hat.
So I recently had a request from a friend for a hunter’s kit pulling from the tv show Supernatural. She wanted a silver spike and a blessed iron spike (similar in style to throwing spikes), a container for holy water, a container for salt and a simple rosary. All of it contained in a neat box.
I jumped in immediately because I loved the idea. I pitched a leather box, as I have done several smaller projects in leather, such as this leather dice case:
So I started tracking down components. The first piece I jumped on was a cheap metal flask for holy water. It is something that was used in the show, you can find them on Amazon for very little money, and they can be decorated in various ways later.
Next I went hunting for a salt container. I was originally looking for something in the realm of a tea tin, but was not finding anything I liked that was also inexpensive. Eventually I settled on a great metal salt shaker from the local Asian Store/Restaurant Supply place that I could plug the shaker piece easily enough using some leather and glue.
Meanwhile, I started in on the spikes. I initially thought I would shape out some wood pieces and then paint them up. I cut down a dowel that I had sitting around the house and did some roughing with a set of carving knives I have around, then finished them out with my dremel. One of them I added some crosses near the point, thinking it would be an interesting visual touch.
Which I liked well enough at this stage. On the other hand, I hated them once I started painting. Too much wood texture coming through the paint and the dowel didn’t seem to take the metallic silver paint well at all. I fought with it for a bit, but eventually scrapped the idea and moved back toward finding something I actually liked the look of.
The easy solution seemed to be just buying some throwing spikes that were already metal and then modifying them for my purposes. Another trip out to a local place, this time the import store at the mall, full of cheap prop weapons and bamboo.
I also pestered the friend I was building this for at this point to debate the rounded spikes, versus the more knife like spikes. They liked the knife option, which I also enjoyed.
The top silver just involved grinding off the black coating and then cleaning it back up. I left some of the texture from the grinding because it is interesting visually. The middle involved painting over with a “wrought iron” color crafting paint. This was another place where I used a lot of texture in the paint application to make it look rougher as a piece. For a third and bonus piece I painted the edges of a knife gold, going for the idea that coating the edges of something would be effective enough and far more reasonable then actually casting a full blade from gold.
This gave me enough pieces to start assembling the box. I sized out the space I would need and then started cutting simple rectangles, beveling the edges, dying, punching holes and then finally stitching it together. The rosary was a quick side piece as I was working on other things. The beads are cannibalized from some old costume jewelery I was given and the cross was in with the rest of my jewelery stash. I did have to drill a hole in the top of the cross to attach it to the strand more cleanly, which was just some filing and my little manual jewelery drill.
With that in place I started building the lining and the seat for the knives. The lining I cut to fit, leaving an extra lip for the top to fit around. I decided on glue rather then more stitching, since the cross-stitch on the outside was already pretty heavy. The hinges are a lighter weight leather same as the lining, cut to thin strips and then riveted to the top and bottom pieces. I went with three hinges for extra stability. The front latch is a simple piece, again riveted. the seat is a leather top and bottom, with leather pieces stitched at either end and in the middle for stability. I exacto-knifed myself slots for the knives and then riveted it to the bottom liner before I installed it.
The handle is turned in and stitched to itself and then a thinner section is riveted to the top of the box. With that in place I found a drawing of the devil’s trap from the show. I sketched it onto some tracing paper and then wet the leather so I could stylus the sketch into the leather before painting it in with a fine-tipped brush. I continue to be a fan of the eco-flo leather dye for these sorts of projects. With the paints for fine work like the symbol, versus dauber and normal dye for the main body.
Homesick for a place
in a story, a moment
that has never quite
come together, a life
that is always months
or years away, but feels
more real than yesterdays
that unfurl behind me
with a sterile sameness
that threatens to swallow
those moments of joy
and beauty I try so hard
to find somewhere besides
your smile.
Noise crawls
from group to group,
ebbing and flowing
through topics,
friends, moments
quickly lost
to laughter
across the way
more distractions
making the crowd
segment itself
again and again.
The pendants on these are carved mammoth ivory. The left is a Thor’s hammer. The right is a Goddess. I wanted to get a sort of minimalist look, which is why for the beads I also went for bone and wood and horn.
I don’t know when it was
you got so far under my skin,
running through my veins
’til I bleed your favorite color,
and see you reflected
back behind my eyes.
I’ve tried running and hiding,
but I just can’t pull away
with the smell of your skin
burned into my mind.
So here I am again,
singing that sad refrain
of what might have been,
because time may dull,
but healing hasn’t come.
And still I’d do it all again,
even knowing how it ends,
because I just can’t imagine
myself any other way.
Your smile… just.
You’re everything… but,
words run away.
So scared I might break
this fragile life
I have made.
It feels like spun glass
delicate web of trust,
so much left unsaid
too many days away.
Where was the moment
we missed the easy road?
Twining instead
through each other’s paths,
too scared to just say
will you stay?
Drowning
in pieces
of a life
to often broken,
scraped raw
by failed dreams,
flawed plans.
But as I fade,
resigned
to the demons
sharpening their knives,
I see you.
And somehow,
that’s enough.
No promises
or fairy tail
endings. Just
a smile.
Something
worth seeing
again, worth
being knocked
back down.
Locked away
between open skies
and parched, cracked ground,
desert home a comforting lie,
a crumbling refuge from her.
But day follows day
and it gets harder to rise,
to fight back the sound
of breaking ties,
loosing what we were
even in memory.
Of Stars and Muses 
