Vegas: Clouds and rainbows

Rain isn't exactly a common occurrence here in the dry and arid desert, where dust and cactuses rain supreme. Cacti are the primary foliage specifically because they've used centuries of hard-fought experience and evolved to capture and hold onto any and all precipitation they can find, kind of like a clingy mother-in-law who won't let her little birds off into the world or the arms of a loving partner for fear of losing them entirely. These things. Nature seems to have a way with patterns, an affinity for them, when applicable- whether it be behavioral archetypes or weather patterns. Despite having roughly 363.5 solid days of sunshine and dry weather unsullied by unexpected wetness falling from the sky (egads!), there are still those few and far between showers that break up the routine. As much as these sporadic and often brief rain showers and storms can literally rain on people's parades, they're a much-needed burst of literal life-blood to the dehydrated lands and people that reside here. Water is an absolutely precious resource here in the desert and is also sorely lacking, with this drought lingering for decades now. As the city continues to grow and expand, the demand for water will also rise and things may end up rather tricky in the future. 

So when it rains, the locals cheer. We pray it pours, that the sky cracks violently open and decades of pent-up sadness come sobbing out of god's giant blue eye to flood the valley and refill our long-dwindling lakes and reservoirs. Sometimes, the typhoons bring us dashed hope and flash-flood filled roads, but more oft than not the tempests blow themselves out before they can do much damage and we're left doing our paroxysmal rain dances again, waiting. But at least these brief showers bring rainbows with them, a reminder that beauty inevitably blooms in the space left behind when the storms clear away. Another metaphor from nature, perhaps? Indubitably. Just like how the sun will always shine again, no matter how deep and dark the night or storm may rage, things in life will improve for you with time and space if you let them. And that's kind of cool. Thanks, nature! 

Photos in this post were, as usual lately, provided by Antho. Thanks babe!

Art: Early March tie-dye rinsing

Every rinse reveals something new, as excess dyes wash away in vibrant shades of pink or blue, green or red, gradually revealing the design laying within. Every shirt is different and even though we use the same dyes time and again while they last we often find new tones or dimensions unveiled in different processing times or techniques. Sometimes juxtaposing a shade against another will unveil a whole new aspect and applications to consider.... typically this occurs when we run out of that particular colour, too! Even folding the shirts in the exact same ways isn't necessarily a guarantee that the end result will match the one that inspired it, as the temperature fluctuations of the seasons cause the ice to melt at different speeds and can cause the dye intensity to change a bit as well. Some dyes take better at higher temperatures, or perhaps the higher temperatures will cause more liquid to pool at the bottom of the vessel containing the ice (and shirt) leading to a darker or muddied area. I haven't had any particularly negative results with build up of excess dyes occurring, but it will really depend on the colours being used- if you use certain colour combinations you might end up with an unpleasantly murky shade reminiscent of pond scum. I try to use colours I think will play together well even if over-saturated and so far I've been pretty happy with the results! These ones are a bit more bright and fun, as the warmer weather these days has been making me feel a bit more upbeat and colourful I suppose. Even Antho has been getting a bit more summery with his style as the CD-wrapped shibori shirt he made definitely has some watermelon vibes going on. Of course, for every new shirt we make there's also the requisite time spent rinsing away to get rid of all the excess dyes so that the buyers needn't worry about any bleed out when they go to wear or wash their new tops. We do a preliminary rinse at home to remove any excess dye powder and stop the dye process, then use an industrial detergent to remove any lingering dye before finally rinsing with regular consumer laundry detergent and fabric softener. It might seem like a lot of hassle for a small operation but I'm passionate about ensuring the quality of our shirts and making the process of buying and enjoying as simple and streamlined for the consumers as possible. The photos below are going to focus on the rinsing stage, though, so enjoy!

Until next time!

💜

XOXO,

NAU

Art: February 2018 Round up and ice dye round four

With February coming to a close, we'll wrap with another batch of tie-dye rinsing photos to try to take us out on an upbeat colourful note. It's been a busy month despite being a brief 28 days! We set up our first pop-up retail tie-dye spot at the Bubblegum Gallery here in Las Vegas's own Art's District, we've processed several photoshoots and posted lots of new items on the Etsy shop, so very much tie-dye was made, had a commitment ceremony performed by Batman, lost our little buddy Zinni to natural causes, discovered our new favourite neighbourhood pizza joint (they have anchovies! Not every place has anchovies, and one of our first big relationship realisations was when Antho and I both confessed to liking anchovies on our pizza), my hours at my day-job were cut tremendously, threatening our financial stability some and causing me to have to refocus my energies elsewhere after being dedicated to the job for the nearly a year... Overall, it's been a bit of a rollercoaster of a month! In a lot of ways I have to say I'm not terribly worried about having the hours of my day-job cut, as I was able to spend a lot of time with Zinni while he was struggling in his final days and that means a lot to me. We've had most of our pet rats for their entire lives, from their very first squeak to their very last, and while it still hurts so badly to lose any of them I have to say that I'm grateful to have been able to be there for them from start to finish like that. Having a pet is a large responsibility, and whenever I take in an animal I truly hope to be there for them throughout our lives together. Humans typically outlive our animal friends, after all, and I don't think it's fair to shuffle them around from home to home where they might not lead such happy lives...and with rats, there's always that chance someone's going to use them as food for a predatory animal, a fate I'd hate to consider being possible for any of the docile little goofs we've raised. And to think, it all started when we spontaneously agreed to adopt an old rat boy named Pendleton. Anyhow, this post isn't about rats or day-jobs or any of that nonsense, we're here for the PRETTIES!

For the colour!

FOR THE TIE-DYE!

Hoo-RAH!

💖

Until next time, catch you next month!

💕

XOXO,

NAU

Art: February 2018 ice dye round three

Splish splash, ever more tie-dye shirts taking their baths!  It's always fun to try to capture the ephemeral process of dye runoff because the colours bleed away and grow ever fainter as the water rushes off down the drain. It's a colourful process no matter what shades we use, though some colours do have a noticeably longer rinse time. Maybe the dyes are more pigmented and all that pigment just takes ages to dissolve? Or perhaps we just went a little overboard when applying that particular dye powder and it ended up being a larger pile of powder than we anticipated. Whatever the case, there's ample opportunities for me to experiment with my camera and see what fun new angles or moments I can capture of our creation process and sometimes Antho will even jump in and play photographer, which is always great! Each and every one of our shirts is hand dyed by Antho and I, with occasional help from our friends when they want to jump in, and we put a lot of time and effort into the process. 

Beyond the dye process and rinsing, which tend to be rather photogenic and feature heavily here, there's a lot of time spent tying and untying, then sitting around the laundromat waiting for endless rinse cycles to work their magic before waiting around for another hour or two for the dryers... it's a labor of love, though, so even though it can be quite a time consuming endeavour we keep doing it time and time again! We've found that we can space out our tie-dye rinsing trips to the laundromats and do one large batch at a time to save some trips and time, but we rinse our newest ice-dyed (or regular tie-dye sometimes) shirts throughout the week so that they don't soak too long in the spent dye. Having Vanticore added to our family has made the time go by a little more pleasantly, too, as we can retreat to the solitude of our vehicle and relax or run errands between loads of laundry.

 We're happy you're here to share in the whole experiment with us and we hope you enjoy the behind the scenes peek! It's always so colourful, and it's fascinating to see how the different colours play together in the dye process. We've been experimenting with some different methods of applying the dye powder recently, and been fairly pleased with the results. It's not a super radical change, but it's enough of one for us to feel a rejuvenated curiosity and push to explore all the various results available. That's one of the most gratifying things in any creative hobby, though, in my opinion- there's perpetual room to evolve, learn and grow as you practice! The more you practice, the better you get, and the more excited you get to try new things that might have intimidated you before and on and on it goes.  

More photos below...

Art: February 2018 Ice dye round one

We're always creating, churning out new designs and experimenting with new techniques and color combinations. Tie-dye has been illuminating for us, and it's become something we do whenever the opportunity avails itself to us. We've really been cranking out an outstanding amount of product these last few months compared to some of the earlier days. This may have something to do with the fact that I've been trying to push towards buying in bulk more so that we have ample back stock ready to experiment with instead of ordering piecemeal one item at a time. Having such an abundance of blank canvases at our disposal stoked something in our creative fires and the results have been great fun! Unfortunately, I'd say our current store inventory is a bit uneven, to say the least, and we're working at expanding our options in all the sizes available so that none of you lovely rainbow-loving folks out there will be left out.  We've made shirts for infants up to 6XL and want to continue branching out! We recently made several 2XL/3XL tee dresses that have been doing really well, so we'll definitely be making more of those for the coming summer months! Plus size girls and boys deserve to feel like the gorgeous beings they are, right? No matter what your clothing size, everyone deserves to feel beautiful and to have options available to them. While searching for plus-size items to add to our shop I've been surprised at the lack of diversity! Trying to find a v-neck shirt alone has been challenging after a certain size, and that's not fair. I'll keep looking because it's our job as creators of clothes to try to ensure we have a little something for everyone, in my humble opinion. 

With some of these shirts, we tried something a little different. Normally we apply the dyes over the ice, letting the melting ice saturate the dye and drip it down onto the top. This creates a more abstract, space-like, water-colour sort of effect that we've enjoyed greatly. For this batch we went dye straight on the fabric, as this can allow a bit more control over the colour distribution. The photos here are just of the process, to see the results of how the dye-direct batch turns out you'll have to check back tomorrow! But for now, enjoy the photos of our tie-dye behind the scenes. 

Art: Early Ice dye for 2018

Rainbows here, rainbows there, rainbows everywhere! We love making tie-dye and do it as often as we possibly can. It's always fascinating seeing what kind of mad science color combinations we can create! We typically work with ice-dyes, sprinkling dye over the ice so that it hydrates through and deposits pigment as the ice melts, which creates a more space-like watercolour effect. Even using only one or two colors we've been really surprised by the depth of the results! We do experiment, though, and no matter how many times we dye no two shirts (or skirts, shorts, dresses, hoodies, crop tops, etc...) are ever the same.  It's been a lot of fun throughout the journey, and we've been doing tie-dye for fun now since some time in 2015 or maybe even 2014. I can't even pinpoint the exact date, it just happened that we were driving along and Antho suggested doing tie-dye on a whim and we found that we actually, really, thoroughly, deeply, passionately enjoyed doing tie-dye. Of all the things.  It makes sense, I suppose- I've always enjoyed painting, digital and traditional illustration, and most things artsy-fartsy... there was an awkward phase around 4th grade where I found out there were these brightly coloured three-dimensional paints you could use on clothes and went about drawing all sorts of goofy lizards and things onto every clothes item I could...Colour and aesthetics have appealed to me for awhile, and Antho has always been fashion/image conscious, crafty and hands-on so tie-dye has just been kind of a natural fit for us both. We're always learning and growing as we go, though, it's just part of the process. Nothing is perfect in the beginning, and there's an adage that it takes roughly 10,000 hours to become truly skilled at any given craft, whether it's playing a guitar, tie-dye, or aeronautical navigation, so we relentlessly we strive forward in our efforts to create cloth and colour alchemy. The more we try, the more we practice, the better we get after all. This also means more shirts (or skirts, shorts, hoodies, crop tops, tank-tops, etc) we can share with everyone!  We hope to be as inclusive as possible with our size options and though our funds are limited we try to invest in items that will work for all of our fans regardless what size they wear.  We want everyone to be able to taste, or wear, the rainbow in their favourite spectrum. Everyone deserves to feel fabulous!

More photos below!

Art: Winter ice-dye round two

More ice-dye! What can I say, I love almost everything about this process and it's so much fun! We tend to have a variety of blank t-shirts floating around at any given time so all we really ever need to pick up is the ice so we're prone to spontaneous dye sessions when the mood strikes. This is ideal for us as inspiration can occur at the most random of times and I like to strike while the iron is hot- or, in this case, while the ice is still cold.  This being the desert the ice tends to change states pretty quick during the warmer months, though currently we have a little more wiggle room which is nice. In the process we've been accumulating quite a back catalogue of freshly made shirts that have yet to get properly photographed and listed on our Etsy shop, so for now they're in a bit of a limbo. This has been a little frustrating for me as I'm definitely the hardline type-A in this relationship and feel a need to stay perpetually productive. I always carry two different agendas and a plentitude of pens in various inks and viscosities to work in tangent with the complex color-coded system of tabs I use for my agendas denoting tasks accomplished or goals and events I'm looking forward to or striving towards... I make spreadsheets for fun. One of my biggest goals for 2018 is to dramatically increase our shop inventory and I've felt pressured to get cracking on it before this month slips away into the next. On top of that we've been cycling through various illnesses in various parts of our bodies (chest, stomach, sinus, blah) for most of this year so far... so, really, I suppose there's a very good reason we've been in a bit of a stagnant pause on listing items. I'm grateful that we're still being productive and at least creating, but I've got high-in-the-sky dreams for what I want to accomplish this year and I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself... perhaps 2018 is the year I should breathe deep and try to be a little gentler on myself. These things will get done, and soon, but they'll get accomplished even more gladly when I'm not stressing myself or Antho out about having not already done it. We've still been scouting locations and making new inventory, after all, so it's not like we've simply sat idly by... though, in a sense, that's a lot of what ice dye is- waiting... but I digress.  

Here's some pretty pictures of the process!