more back story
I will begin this interaction in very late 2019 and progress into early 2020. This incarnation of Matt Houston started with an invitation to attend Burning Man as part of an established village. My son Matthew's partner Heidi Mader is a Burner she was aware of my interest in attending a Burn and invitation was extended for Burning Man 2020 planning started immediately.
I had decided to create latter bracelets using reclaimed stone and glass beads that my wife Vickie and I had gathered with the sole purpose of repurposing the beads. My initial thoughts were to help defray the entry fees to Burning Man I would produce and sell these bracelets and would gift any left over at the event. Below is some of these Leather latter bracelets.
The next step in my progression involved the use of 1.5 mm nylon cord. My lovely wife Mrs. Vickie was creating beaded woven bracelets using very fine cord with beads. I went with her to the getting place and found this nifty 1.5 mm Nylon cord. This cord is incredibly strong, color fast and durable as well as colorful. On this path I learned a lot about 1.5 mm nylon cord which did not come easy even after extensive searches online. The issue at hand was that the getting place had a very limited color selection and did not have 2 very important colors, yellow and orange. I eventually found a source in Los Angeles with a huge color selection that for what I can tell is the manufacture in Mexico.
Progressing on from the nylon my next choice of materials was cotton cord both 1.5 mm and 3 mm in what I call old school cotton string/cord colors. This cord is also referred to as bakers cord in the 1.5 mm size. These cords are easy to procure and have wide availability. This cotton cord is soft and very pliable wears well as I can tell from having them on my wrist for 14 months. As with the Nylon I pursued all combinations and variances I could create. Peace
The introduction of Tie Dye T shirts to my pile o fun started about March or April of 2020. This led to the use of my dye's to color natural cotton cord and cotton cloth. I use Jacard Proxom MX reactive dyes. These acid Dye's require the cotton that is to be dyed to soak in a solution of soda ash for 20-30 minutes minimum which allows the dye into the cotton fibers making these dyes very bright and very color fast after the first wash. Peace
Late April and into May of 2020 was an interesting blur of creativity and creation. I started producing Glass Spiders, spiders made out of wire and beads. I started to make bracelets out of a 3 mm nylon cord commercially sold as "prayer" cord roseries. These bracelets were macramé with metal claspes I produced the first Moon and Stars piece which incorporated all the materials I had on hand for making bracelets. I dyed all the macramé, cotton tassel and cotton beard pieces. From the very 1st piece in the series I had already developed design ques that I would continue to refine and use on almost every piece.