Holdfast is OPEN
Analog pixelation. 1,152 steel cells, 230 colonies, and five of them could be yours.
The next Ruins open call has finally arrived.
It all started with three women noticing things. Read last week’s essay to get a clearer understanding of what Holdfast looks like, how it will work, and what your part can be.
If you are reading this, it’s likely that you understand what it means to be a Ruins artist and you know that these large group projects each have their own temperaments.
The Quilts were Americana craft. The Beehive was modern hierarchy. The Moss Project was tiny experimentation.
Holdfast is analog pixelation.
The inspiration was Rachel Davies’ photo, which she pixelated right there in front of the soon-to-be-famous rusty grate and we watched a project be born. The analog part is how we will take our time, use our hands, communicate about interpreting the colors and hopefully, bond over a common cause the way only a human can do.
The Facts
The project you’re joining
Holdfast is 1,152 steel cells in a 24 by 48 grid, set into a repurposed furnace grate. Your five cells are five of eleven hundred and fifty-two.
230 colony bouquets in total. This project is finite in its math, and there will not be more. Its kind of like a quilt that way.
It installs permanently in the Map Room at The Ruins on a dry wall, near Australia, out of the sun. A special light will be installed above it for illumination during tours.
What you get
One colony is five Holdfast steel frames, one custom-designed postcard map of the full composition, access to both LIVE Lichen meetings, your return coordinates card, a directions card, and for the first 100 customers, a black Apoxie Sculpt sample donated by our sponsor Aves Studio. One sample per customer no matter how many colonies you order.
$40 per colony plus shipping
The frames
The frames are truly tiny, cut from 7/8” square carbon steel tubing in a deliberate mix of 1/2”, 3/4” and 1” depths so the finished composition reads organic rather than perfectly uniform. They will challenge you to work small in the best kind of ways.
Apoxie Sculpt is required. No thinset on metal. Sand the inside bonding surface, press the Apoxie in as an even bed sitting 1/8” to 1/4” below the top lip, then set your mosaic. Nothing rises more than 1/4” above the lip.
This one is all filati and smalti, inspired by a very particular lichen. Start looking for these colors in your libraries. Or go to the mosaic smalti websites to hunt for how you interpret these colors.
The frames ship untreated. Steel has a long history at The Ruins and I will tell you exactly how they get sealed. That happens here, during install week.
Color
No, you cannot choose your color families. The entire composition has been set through a careful generator and broken up so every artist gets a chance at a fun mix of colors. (hint: they can all be fun.)
14 colors in four families: British Soldier Reds, Reindeer Lichen, Understory, and Earth + Shadow.
Yes, you can purchase more than one colony, and more colonies means a wider color assortment. If you want to make it a party and share with creative friends, just be sure to include their names on the return card for future documentation.
Colonies are built as bouquets. Colors are spread evenly across all 230 so no one ends up with five shades of the same green. The composition is green-heavy. You can use your postcard map to see where your cells sit in the big picture.
The meetings
Two LIVE Lichen meetings are included in your purchase. Yes, they will be recorded if you can’t make the dates. Invaluable learning and bonding happens in the meetings.
The Lichen Briefing, Friday August 7 at 11:30AM Eastern, with special guests Rachel Davies and Erika Johnson.
The Micro-Mosaic Check-In, Saturday September 5 at 10AM Eastern, with special guest Erin Gerlach of Aves Studio
Erika, Rachel, and Rachel, taken the day Holdfast was born.
Getting them home to The Ruins
Finished Holdfasts are mailed back to Sager Mosaics. All return directions are included in your colony shipment.
Postmark by November 1, 2026.
Return the frames inside the original labeled bag, along with the colony card. The labels are how your cells find their final coordinates in the grid.
Who it’s for
Open to all. Beginners to pros. The Lichen meetings will help us all be successful together. The Ruins loves the energy of the first timer.
International
UK and EU artists, order through Rachel Davies. Her box has already shipped and she is distributing on that side. Everywhere else, this one is U.S. only. I could not make international shipping work for this project.
Will Holdfast look like the pixelated image above? We don’t know because we are a mystery. All of us, working to interpret color in our far apart studios are spores in the wild. It will come together as only a Ruins project can…with possibility, optimism, and holding fast, together.
Read more about Holdfast HERE.
ps... if you are curious about joining this project but don’t understand how The Ruins works, read this essay about the creative process.
Thank you for being here as I keep digging for optimism.
Some days with a hammer, some days with a shovel. And some days with tweezers.
I’m stoked to be part of Holdfast at The Ruins, after following The Ruins for years, so many cool things happening here!
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!