It started with rust.
Old nails. Barbed wire. Forgotten tools. I was always drawn to the beauty in decay. The texture of time left behind. The colors only oxidation can conjure. Years ago, I picked up a digital camera and began chasing that feeling. What started as a quiet obsession became thousands of images. I launched the first Rustfetish site in 2003 to share them. Then life shifted. Kids, work, the kind of chaos that pulls you in a hundred directions. But the rust stayed with me.
Somewhere along the way, another fascination surfaced.
As a kid, I collected coins. I liked the shimmer. I liked their weight. As I got older, I started to feel something else in them. A kind of mystery. Then I discovered hobo nickels. Carved coins. Tiny portraits of rebellion and imagination. I started carving with a Dremel. Later I moved to CNC. I cut 500 snakes and gave them all away. It became a ritual. A way to test what could happen when corrosion met creativity.
With my background in design, I kept pushing. I started creating digital skulls. One turned into two. Two turned into ten. I began writing stories for the characters I was carving. Small, strange tales to match their faces. That turned into a book. Then a series. The more I created, the more I wanted to share.
Now this corner of the internet holds it all. The rust. The bone. The folklore. The design.
You’ll find the experiments lingering on Instagram. The books belong in your hands. And if a coin, a print, or something stranger calls to you — reach out.
Welcome to Rustfetish.
- Vince
Who We Are Beneath the Rust
The rust lives in the grain, the grime, the ghosts we etched to stay.
Rust taught me that nothing is ever truly gone. Beneath every layer of decay is a story waiting to be scraped out, drawn, or carved.
I collect what time forgot, and I give it shape again — one coin, one skull, one strange little story at a time.
For the love
of rust and all
that rusts.
