this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2025
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The Grind & Bind Art Alchemist's Guild

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Good day and welcome to The Grind and Bind Art Alchemist's Guild.

An artist's community for the kind of people who don't just paint, they scavenge pigment from rotten leftovers. It's for potters who dig their clay from riverbeds, for weavers who spin their own wool (and probably know the name of the sheep,) and it's for digital artists who hack away at their creative endeavors.

All flavors are welcome to:

How it goes:

Be kind

Do onto others with kindness, curiosity and civility.

Please include images

Remember to attribute other's work, tag NSFW and Content Warnings if necessary, and describe with alt text for our differently sighted pals.

No AI*

This isn't a community for AI *unless you've built it yourself and trained it on your own work.

Tags are Optional

[Advice Wanted] — "How do you...?" and "Help, something exploded."

[Article] — Selt explanatory. Please include a webarchive link if a site asks for personal details or has a paywall.

[Discussion] — In the huddle of stained alchemists, debates and compliments are equally encouraged.

[Challenge] — Try something new or show off your niche skills. (Mods only)

On Self-Promotion

We all need to put food in the ferret bowl, but let's not talk money here. If someone asks to buy something, please take it to DMs.

!artmarket@lemmy.world and !artshare@lemmy.world are geared toward self promotion if you want to cross-post.

This is a dark place.

Most art will leave you feeling inspired, maybe even joyful — if not a little thoughtful. Not this art.

This is a place of paint drinking gremlins with caustic burns on our hands and ink stains on our feet. A dark, damp basement smelling of bleach and burning and bioplastics, of empty wallets and ephemeral passions, of education, of science.

Most art makes people better, but this place can only make you worse, poorer, stained, and consumed by the craft.

Icon drawn by Wren

Banner image taken by Cottonbro on Pexels

This is a new community, the structure and rules may change without notice. All things are ephemeral. Shoot Wren a DM if you have any ideas or want to help out.

founded 1 month ago
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'Tis the season for gifts. Whether you celebrate Saturnalia, Kwanzaa, God Birth, Krampus Attacks or Chanukah — the pressure is on to practice giving and gratitude and strained smiles.

How are you sticking it to the Corporate Them by making your own crap? Nevermind how much those fabric scissors cost or why you need Bosch brand tools you only use twice a year, hand-made is heart-made.

What'd you make? Who was it for?

Alternatively, what was the best gift you've made?

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[–] Wren@lemmy.today 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I'll go first: Paper angels I made from a kit with my grandma. They look like 50's Halloween abominations with corrugated bodies, wirey plastic hair, snowman faces, and the wings were doilies straight stapled to the back (I had no patience for glue.) Every year they grow more decrepit, pick up spots of black mold, lose hair, wings, the faces fade — And every year my mother puts them on top of the Christmas tree.