A Choir of Angels

June 22, 2017

Exploring technique and design doesn’t ever end, or at least I don’t think it should. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been working with a material, there is always more to learn. Barbara McGuire is a true and long standing polymer pioneer who may often return to signature techniques but she keeps expanding on what she has done, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes in big leaps.

This collection of beads is one of her subtler explorations. Barbara has been making face canes for ages but she keeps changing up what she does with them. The angelic looking collection here gets its ethereal feel from the use of translucent wings and background cane slices. Past variations were commonly surrounded by opaque slices and balanced or radial backgrounds. The more freeform application here adds to the otherworldly feel of these little angels.

Barbara posts most of her recent work on her Facebook page while her products and news can usually be found on her website.

 

_________________________________________

Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.

        The Great Create Sept 15 blog

businesscard-3.5inx2in-h-front   Shades of Clay Sept 15 Blog

_________________________________________

Prolific Polymer in Print

April 23, 2014

In our little community, we have just a few people who consistently write and publish about our medium. One of our earliest teachers through print and one of the most prolific is Barbara McGuire. She has authored or co-authored half a dozen polymer specific books and has written numerous articles along with her many other contributions to product development, teaching and archiving. Most recently she has been expanding into wonderfully detailed videos which you can get for free on her YouTube channel.

Barbara lives outside Asheville, South Carolina in a rural area where, until recently, she kept a bee colony. Unfortunately, her bees were wiped out and she is in the process of putting money together to build the colony again. That is the inspiration behind her series of bee beads, a collaboration between Barbara and with Thomas Michael Poole who made the bee wings and Klimt patterns seen in the series. Created from layers of canes, the bees on these beads look they just landed there and yet still meld into the complex flow of the colorful backgrounds.

il_570xN.584923636_7k9l

If you want to help Barbara get back to her beekeeping as well as own a piece by one of our great pioneers, you can purchase her bee beads and necklaces in her Etsy shop. Barbara is even offering our blog readers a 30% discount off items in her Etsy store–just use the code SAVETHEBEES. You can also take a look at more of these wonderful beads and other work by Barabara on her Flicker pages.  And do take a look at her many wonderful products and books she has for sale on her website as well as checking out her class schedule for upcoming opportunities to learn from this master artist.

 

If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.

Blog2 -2014-02Feb-5   Millefiori eggs   14P1 cover Fnl

Set-Up Day at Synergy

March 14, 2013

Being the first day, it was primarily dedicated to getting set up (and getting tons of hugs, and meeting people I e-know but haven’t yet meet in person.) It was a wonderful, crazy, whirlwind of a day. I didn’t get shots of eye candy yet– that will be done over the next few days for sure–but to give you a taste of who is here and what is going on, here are a few shots of the vendors and guests.

leann

LeAnn Armstrong, creator of the Simple Slicer (which we reviewed last issue) was the first person to ‘hug attack’ me. She’s a little thing with a HUGE personality and a big heart. What a great person to greet me those first few minutes after I arrived!

mcguire

Barbara McGuire, my hotel roommate and my saving grace (she came to my airport hotel to pick up me and my 100+ pounds of magazines and ‘stuff’ to got me to the conference!) is standing next to her very unique table of mixed media items that attendees were oh-ing & ah-ing over!

Iris Weiss of Polyform (Premo, Sculpey, etc.) teased us with new, not just yet available, products that will be rolling out next month. Teasing she was but I did get a promise that we'll get the new items to review. Yay!

Iris Weiss of Polyform (Premo, Sculpey, etc.) teased us with new, not-yet-available products that will be rolling out next month. She was teasing, but I did get promised that we’ll get the new items to review. Yay!

Okay … more tomorrow but I’m going after the pretty pieces being worn and shown today.

 

The Serendipity of Kathleen’s Inspiration

January 5, 2013

Do you ever wonder what the first efforts of some of our polymer greats looked like? If you ever make it to Buford, GA, you can get a look at some of the earlier work in our community. It will make you feel better to see that Barbara McGuire’s first face canes look like, well, someone’s first efforts at making face canes. Unfortunately, looking at some of Kathleen Dustin’s firsts is not quite as affirming. I think she was born an artistic master.

These beads are her first experiments in layering translucent with her now well-recognized style, experiments that led her career off in another direction and into the realm of mastery we know and admire her for. She confesses that she was just about ready to abandon polymer and return to ceramics until circumstances got her to into the exploration of this technique. (Can you imagine a world without those purses of hers!)

dustin95-first-translucant-beads

We can’t all be Kathleen. We will make some horrible pieces before we make our master pieces. Just keep that in mind as you work. Your art will evolve and improve. Just don’t give up on it.

You can read more about Kathleen’s journey with layered translucents on the Polymer Art Archive post here.

 

 

A Choir of Angels

June 22, 2017
Posted in

Exploring technique and design doesn’t ever end, or at least I don’t think it should. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been working with a material, there is always more to learn. Barbara McGuire is a true and long standing polymer pioneer who may often return to signature techniques but she keeps expanding on what she has done, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes in big leaps.

This collection of beads is one of her subtler explorations. Barbara has been making face canes for ages but she keeps changing up what she does with them. The angelic looking collection here gets its ethereal feel from the use of translucent wings and background cane slices. Past variations were commonly surrounded by opaque slices and balanced or radial backgrounds. The more freeform application here adds to the otherworldly feel of these little angels.

Barbara posts most of her recent work on her Facebook page while her products and news can usually be found on her website.

 

_________________________________________

Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.

        The Great Create Sept 15 blog

businesscard-3.5inx2in-h-front   Shades of Clay Sept 15 Blog

_________________________________________

Read More

Prolific Polymer in Print

April 23, 2014
Posted in

In our little community, we have just a few people who consistently write and publish about our medium. One of our earliest teachers through print and one of the most prolific is Barbara McGuire. She has authored or co-authored half a dozen polymer specific books and has written numerous articles along with her many other contributions to product development, teaching and archiving. Most recently she has been expanding into wonderfully detailed videos which you can get for free on her YouTube channel.

Barbara lives outside Asheville, South Carolina in a rural area where, until recently, she kept a bee colony. Unfortunately, her bees were wiped out and she is in the process of putting money together to build the colony again. That is the inspiration behind her series of bee beads, a collaboration between Barbara and with Thomas Michael Poole who made the bee wings and Klimt patterns seen in the series. Created from layers of canes, the bees on these beads look they just landed there and yet still meld into the complex flow of the colorful backgrounds.

il_570xN.584923636_7k9l

If you want to help Barbara get back to her beekeeping as well as own a piece by one of our great pioneers, you can purchase her bee beads and necklaces in her Etsy shop. Barbara is even offering our blog readers a 30% discount off items in her Etsy store–just use the code SAVETHEBEES. You can also take a look at more of these wonderful beads and other work by Barabara on her Flicker pages.  And do take a look at her many wonderful products and books she has for sale on her website as well as checking out her class schedule for upcoming opportunities to learn from this master artist.

 

If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.

Blog2 -2014-02Feb-5   Millefiori eggs   14P1 cover Fnl

Read More

Set-Up Day at Synergy

March 14, 2013
Posted in

Being the first day, it was primarily dedicated to getting set up (and getting tons of hugs, and meeting people I e-know but haven’t yet meet in person.) It was a wonderful, crazy, whirlwind of a day. I didn’t get shots of eye candy yet– that will be done over the next few days for sure–but to give you a taste of who is here and what is going on, here are a few shots of the vendors and guests.

leann

LeAnn Armstrong, creator of the Simple Slicer (which we reviewed last issue) was the first person to ‘hug attack’ me. She’s a little thing with a HUGE personality and a big heart. What a great person to greet me those first few minutes after I arrived!

mcguire

Barbara McGuire, my hotel roommate and my saving grace (she came to my airport hotel to pick up me and my 100+ pounds of magazines and ‘stuff’ to got me to the conference!) is standing next to her very unique table of mixed media items that attendees were oh-ing & ah-ing over!

Iris Weiss of Polyform (Premo, Sculpey, etc.) teased us with new, not just yet available, products that will be rolling out next month. Teasing she was but I did get a promise that we'll get the new items to review. Yay!

Iris Weiss of Polyform (Premo, Sculpey, etc.) teased us with new, not-yet-available products that will be rolling out next month. She was teasing, but I did get promised that we’ll get the new items to review. Yay!

Okay … more tomorrow but I’m going after the pretty pieces being worn and shown today.

 

Read More

The Serendipity of Kathleen’s Inspiration

January 5, 2013
Posted in

Do you ever wonder what the first efforts of some of our polymer greats looked like? If you ever make it to Buford, GA, you can get a look at some of the earlier work in our community. It will make you feel better to see that Barbara McGuire’s first face canes look like, well, someone’s first efforts at making face canes. Unfortunately, looking at some of Kathleen Dustin’s firsts is not quite as affirming. I think she was born an artistic master.

These beads are her first experiments in layering translucent with her now well-recognized style, experiments that led her career off in another direction and into the realm of mastery we know and admire her for. She confesses that she was just about ready to abandon polymer and return to ceramics until circumstances got her to into the exploration of this technique. (Can you imagine a world without those purses of hers!)

dustin95-first-translucant-beads

We can’t all be Kathleen. We will make some horrible pieces before we make our master pieces. Just keep that in mind as you work. Your art will evolve and improve. Just don’t give up on it.

You can read more about Kathleen’s journey with layered translucents on the Polymer Art Archive post here.

 

 

Read More
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