Resin Pins with Slogans and Blanks
Resin Neon Ornaments/Bookmarks
I’ve been channeling some of my time away from the keyboard into other ways to creatively walk the walk. Yoga includes defending the oppressed and speaking for those who can’t. In the greater Yoga sphere, people agree that Yoga has always been political. Yet, unless you are teaching in a studio you own personally, it’s often something to avoid talking about lest anyone coming for what they’ll call “stretching” get offended. This annoys me. I will use generalizations in my dharma talks at the gym. In a different location, the group there is of like-mind and sometimes they need to vent.
I decided to use my ko-fi account to post resin art for sale. They’re mostly political.
New Jersey has also had to contend with the Trump family for this entire generation. Since DT started buying up properties in Atlantic City and making his golf course in a wealthy north Jersey suburb. And, this state is full of voters loyal to him. It’s sickening. There are huge flags with his name on them all over the place.
I bought a well-made silicone mold of New Jersey from Etsy seller Red Foot. I began casting mini New Jerseys without a plan. I wasn’t even thinking of make political pins when I started. After seeing a few seconds of the news coverage about ICE, that’s when I realized I could make blue New Jersey pins. New Jersey has made national (maybe international) news for the wrong reasons. The Delaney Hall (no relation) ICE compound has been a site for protests. There are court cases about the inhumane conditions. Not long after, I decided to add text to some.
Knowing that not everyone would appreciate FUCK being emblazoned on a pin, I made some to read ICE OUT. After I got a new set of (barely sample sized) resin pigment pastes, I saw one was the right color of dark yellow that would go well with the NO KINGS logo. I made a couple of those too.
It was coincidentally around the time I was hand-painting the text on the New Jersey pins that Trump’s embarrassments continued for his birthday. This included the “renovation” to the once revered and enjoyable Reflecting Pool near the Lincoln and Washington monuments. It was drained. Painted blue. Refilled. Then immediately began to fill with algae as the blue paint lifted off in chunks.
I spent a day looking for Lincoln Memorial and Washington D.C. silicone molds that I could make in swampy green. I found a cookie cutter, but that wouldn’t have worked. Then it dawned on me. The bookmark molds I purchased and tested were in their storage baggie. I had made a set and felt they were too thick for bookmarks. I had no ideas what else to use them for until my searches for the Lincoln Memorial and Washington D.C. molds turned up nothing. The Reflecting Pool is a long rectangle. The bookmark mold is perfect for this except it has the hole in one end for a tassel. I did attach tassels, but the holes could also be used for a tree hooks or strings if anyone wanted to hang them as decorations/ornaments.
I made them by dusting the mold with Let’s Resin neon green powder which is UV/blacklight reactive to glow. I used one of the new pigment pastes to make a translucent dark green. Pouring that into the dusted mold gave it a perfectly swampy color normally reserved for Halloween decorations. I sanded the sharp edges and embraced all the defects to go along with the renovated pool’s new state. I hand-painted “2026” (instead of “Trump’s”) in red and “Reflecting Pool” in dark green.
I attached the tassels (didn’t have four of one color). Then at the last minute, added blue dots of paint to represent the peeling liner.
The painting on the resin took many layers and there were no shortcuts I knew about. I bought a white Sharpie acrylic paint pen, but that wasn’t good for this at all. I thought it would be like a Sharpie marker. Instead, the nib itself was the paint. I tested it and the nib immediately wore down and got even wider. I can’t imagine this paint pen working for any project without needing several of them. Instead, I used a thin paintbrush and acrylic paints that come in small tubes.
How They Were Made
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.