Art Welding My Inner Starship

I have become a junk collector.

It all started with an art welding class at Ghost Ranch this summer. For those who have never heard of it, it’s an awesome retreat/summer camp artsy wonderland in Abiquiu, New Mexico, where families spend a week (or more) hiking, eating in community, and participating in an immersive art class or service project. I took Art Welding from two mystical-magical teachers, Connie and David, and freaking LOVED it!

I was hooked when I witnessed two pieces of metal glow, spark, and wobble into a single unity of being—two becoming one flesh.

There is something so satisfying about taking the shit people throw away and turning it into an offering to God—from trash to hallelujah—it just resonates hard with my aesthetic.

I want to share a few sculptures I have finished and am working on, and I also want to ask for your junk as long as it has a good amount of steel in it. Just message me rigel@rigelthurston.com. I’m in full vulture mode.

Above: Inner Starship on our land in New Mexico. Notice the knife and the spoon—opposite yet interdependent energies in a perichoretic dance.

Above: Letters B, e, and A, which are part of a "Beauty will save the world" fence project. The 'e' is an old broken snare drum that will now be drumming in the liminal space between now and eternity. The "A" is my grandpa's old Saw welded to a real estate sign stake.

Above: This was going to be an "e," but it told me it wanted to be an S—an old gear chopped in half connected with old rebar I found in a pile on the access road of IH 35.

Above: This is a T.

Above: "U" in the word "Beauty," because YOU are where flowers and lightning kiss.