Art & Faith met recently for black powder night. Okay, we didn’t actually use real black powder. That stuff is even more dangerous than what we used, which was synthetic black powder from the local sporting goods store. Even so, it’s incredibly difficult to find. Gun stores don’t carry it. I called 16 gun stores in the southern Dallas cities looking for any kind of synthetic black powder. Only one thought she might have some in a warehouse if I could wait a week. I couldn’t, since it was already Friday, and we had Art & Faith that Saturday evening.
So, we finally located the synthetic black powder – thanks to Veronica. She’s one of our artists and she loves to use black powder in her artwork. It’s always handy to be friends with women who know exactly where to get black powder!
It is very therapeutic to use fire. This technique uses fire to draw. It felt primal, and earthy, and good. Plus, there are some real meditative moments when you carefully shape and shift the powder on the board before lighting it up. There are lots of videos online of folks making amazing drawings with black powder. Watch them for inspiration. But, it is definitely a whole lot more fun to do it yourself. Whatever you do, don’t use the actual black powder if you happen to find any. My friend Jason, who has done a lot of black powder shooting, tells me that it is very, very dangerous. What we used was not so much. But, it’s still fire. And it’s still cool. Some day I’ll go back and finish the self-portrait. But, we had a great time and made some great memories.
As always, be safe. Don’t ever do this indoors. Always wear protective eye-wear and gloves!!!
Art & Faith. We eat, we pray, we make art.