Influencing a Master
January 8, 2014
Inspirational Art
This tribal neck piece is made from textured colored polymer, oxidized sterling silver, horse hair, and antique coral. This collection of tribal work is based on Kathleen Dustin’s familiarity with ethnic jewelry from her nine years of living overseas and her extensive travels around the world. Hand-worked texture is the overriding technique in this piece. Take a look at Kathleen’s Pinterest board to see her abstract series that uses translucent layering techniques that resemble enamel on metal. She is creating pieces that reflect how all the fragments of our lives – prosperity, pain, crises, good times – come together to make something beautiful as a whole. Her work is influenced by the work of many abstract artists as well.
Again “there’s nothing new under the sun;” this style of jewelry dates back thousands of years. The commonality in motifs of primitive indigenous cultures is apparent. Compare Vicki Grant’s work on this Pinterest board with the African Protective Amulet Man’s Necklace made with leather, silk, and pigments. If you are in need of some serious style inspiration, take a look at these tribal designs for a fresh new look at graphic influences that have stood the test of time.
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A Recognizable Voice
May 2, 2013
Inspirational Art
Today I would like to ask for your input. I want to talk about creating an unique artistic voice and I think the best way to define it is to have you, the readers, break it down together. Are you up for it?
The primary question is, what does it mean to have an artistic voice? I think the answer is in understanding what sets the well defined and easily recognized style of one artist apart from all others? Sometimes it’s the choice of form or imagery, maybe even a standard set of colors. But what if that artist does a wide range of things. Is their particular voice going to stand out if they jump from one thing to another. I think, if they are following their true selves, that voice inside that directs the inquiry and steers the fascination that motivates the artist to create can be apparent in a wide variety of work from the same person.
Take a look at the piece below. Even if you have never seen this type of work from this artist, you may be able to guess who this is. I did pick a fairly easy person to recognize.
Did you guess? You can click on the image to take you to the artist’s website if you like. But we’re going to chat a bit more about this before answering. So … this piece is not one of the more popular, widely seen pieces from this artist and is not one of her more well-known styles (perhaps … it’s hard to say that any of the phases or styles of this artist aren’t fairly well-known) but how quickly did you come to recognize the artist? I’m guessing for most of you it took almost no time. And why is that? Why, when this artist is known primarily for her translucent techniques, her imagery, her purses, do we still recognize a vegetable sculpture by her so readily?
Some of the reasons are pretty simple but they do matter … like the fact that she’s widely shown. But what else? What is is about her work, no matter what form, technique or imagery she uses, that allows us to recognize her? Are there other artists that come to mind that you know you’ll recognize right away? Why?
I would love to have as many of you chime in as possible. If you are getting this via the email delivery, you can click on the title of the post in the email to go to the blog and comment at the bottom of the post. If you need, you can reply with an email and I can post it for you. But do get in on the conversation if you have anything to add. I can have my say about why I think Kathleen Dustin here is so readily recognizable but its just my view. We are a large community with many, many different views. Let’s hear what you think.
Polymer Pioneers
March 20, 2013
Polymer community news
One of the truly exciting things about going to an event like Synergy is getting the chance to meet the people who you admire and aspire to be. Although you may have the opportunity to meet a great polymer artist by taking a class, there is nothing like a lengthy event like this, a retreat, or a workshop to give you the opportunity to chat and hear their stories.
At Synergy, we had the opportunity to not only talk to a large number of highly talented and innovative artists, but we were also treated to their presentations and panels. One of my personal highlights was the closing banquet’s presentation with three of the most influential polymer pioneers – Nan Roche, Kathleen Dustin and Lindly Haunani. They told stories of the good old days, how they started in polymer, and how they started organizing polymer artists and the hurdles they encountered in the early days. A lot of funny personal notes and anecdotes were included as well. It was just great fun to hear of our polymer beginnings from these very important artists who were there.
I have my own personal anecdote about Nan Roche from this past week. For those of you who might not know, Nan wrote the first book on polymer clay, The New Clay, published back in 1992. That book precipitated the advent of polymer being considered a true art medium, and really pushed the public awareness of it. And today, it is still considered one of the best books on polymer for beginners. So this genius of woman comes up to me the first day of Synergy, all bubbly and kind of bouncing and says, “Oh, I just love your magazine!” I was floored and started babbling back about how much I admire her and what she has done for the polymer communtiy. I knew she subscribed (she gets both the print and digital versions of The Polymer Arts) but I thought it was just a matter of keeping track of the industry. As it turns out, Nan had to back away from doing polymer for a number of years, so she actually considers herself far less talented than many of the folks she is often grouped with, and finds The Polymer Arts inspiring. Whoa. I get some really touching compliments but a comment from someone like her … its hard to explain how much that meant to me.
As you take a closer look at the picture here, note all the pretties down in front of the presenter’s table. Those are the pieces that were auctioned off at the banquet–they include vintage pieces by Marie Segal, Jeffery Lloyd Dever and Lindly Haunani. Most of the larger events run by guilds have such auctions, giving the attendees a chance to buy some really wonderful work while supporting the organization – just another reason to make it to a retreat or other big polymer event. Check your local guild to see what they have going on and keep track of others through the IPCA newsletter, or by checking The Polymer Arts Resource list.
Coming into One’s Own
January 14, 2013
Inspirational Art, Ponderings
There comes a point in some artist’s lives when their work veers a comfortable and well traveled path and into something wholly unexpected. Last week, I posted images of Kathleen Dustin’s first translucent beads, which marked the beginning of the direction we all know her so for now. So it makes one wonder, when you see a very different and amazing piece from an artist, something you hadn’t seen from them before, something you wouldn’t have even recognized before, if this is the start of a new and amazing journey for them.
Dorothy Siemens has been working in polymer for several years making nicely finished jewelry and decor using a fairly wide range of, but common set of, techniques and forms. However, just last month she posted some stunning, and quite unique sculptural objects. The images below are of the same piece, top and side view. I would not have at all guessed they were from the same person represented in her collaborative jewelry website.
What happened here? I don’t have that story exactly, but Dorothy did admit that she just let her imagination go, which was probably a key approach that allowed her to develop something that looks nothing like any work being done by other polymer artists. But what was it that gave her that sense of freedom or need to just let her imagination go?
We each have a truly personal aesthetic which can remain quite buried when we ‘borrow’ continuously from what we see around us. There is not anything wrong in drawing inspiration from other art but our own true voice should also be allowed to come out. The number one bit of advice I got in writing school was to wake up every morning and, before even getting out of bed, stop and write … not anything specific but just freeform thought. The idea was that if you write just after waking, you are writing with your own true voice, not influenced by any tv show, conversation, news article, email or any other written or verbalized language. If you would like to work on developing your own personal visual voice, try sketching or getting into the studio first thing in the morning before you’ve looked at any other art form–this means no media of any kind. See what you come up with if you do this for a week or so.
If you don’t have the luxury of getting up and sketching or jumping into the studio right away, try napping then upon wakening, get to work. (The napping trick also works when you find yourself stuck on a piece. It’s amazing what you’ll be able to see after letting your brain rest and reset.)
The Serendipity of Kathleen’s Inspiration
January 5, 2013
Inspirational Art
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!)
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.
Working on the Edge
May 29, 2012
Inspirational Art
Centering or working inside the edge or frame of a piece is a common approach for applying imagery and pattern. This will help to convey a feeling of calm and/or restraint. But what if you want something more dynamic?
Try working on or off the edge. It adds excitement and movement by bringing into question the boundary of the piece. In these lockets by the Philippines’ Jennifer Cruz, the artist situates her antique looking flower canes so they sit just at the edge or break off the surface’s boundaries. It gives you the feeling of something that continues on beyond the confines of the form, that the images you see are only part of a larger picture. This translate into a feeling that there is much more to the piece than what you are seeing. Touching or running off the edge creates tension (the good, exciting kind) and draws you to examine the teetering or incomplete imagery further.
You don’t actually have to stop at the edge though. Playing with the boundary of a form by continuing into the outside space can also make the work more dynamic. This Layered Fragment brooch by Kathleen Dustin is a wonderful example. The internal imagery itself doesn’t run off the edge but the line does as it is visually continued with the use of wire.
How often do you work with or beyond the boundary of your pieces?
Jennifer Cruz was also featured on the lead page of the “Polymer to the Rescue” article in the present Summer 2012 issue of The Polymer Arts magazine. Go here to get your copy: www.thepolymerarts.com/Subscribe.html
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Have you been able to spend any productive time in the studio this week? I’m finding that, for the most part, either people are busier than ever (myself included) or are having a hard time drumming up the motivation to create. It’s really no wonder, being this is such a strange time, with our routines thrown not to mention being unable to make plans or feel certain about the future.
Being a home-based business owner, I’m always busy and I’m always home so the transition to the stay-at-home orders is not difficult but since everyone else’s life has been thrown, mine has as well. I’ve been hearing the same story from many of you as most artists work from home and, even if sales are waning, we have a lot to figure out to keep our businesses afloat or at least on a sustainable hiatus. Then there’s all these additional things we do now such as trying to keep in touch with friends and family and all the inventorying and planning of our situation at home to secure our necessities and well-being that really eats away at the day.
If that’s your situation, I’m with you! This drastic change in our lives really gets you thinking about what is necessary and what is not because we all are time strained, financially strained, or both. No wonder it’s hard to get the mojo going to create.
I think feeding our creative selves is still very important though. You create out of some internal necessity and although you may be distracted now, you are going to want to access that creative well of yours in the not too distant future, maybe to be distracted in a different way or as a means for processing what is happening or to add beauty and joy to your world when it is feeling in short supply. Just don’t feel bad or guilty if you aren’t creating finished work in the studio, even if you have the time. You can keep that creative well full in other ways such as reading blogs (you know, like this one maybe) or magazines or books, watch inspiring videos, shows, or movies on creativity, art ,or artists, visit museums virtually, or do more mindless but expressive creative work like doodling, dancing, or stream of consciousness writing.
Of course, I want to help you wherever I can while also attending to my creativity and my family’s needs. So, again this week, and possibly for the rest of our shut-in time, I am going to be sharing a pared down version of the Virtual Art Box’s Weekly Nudge content so I can still bring you creative food for thought while keeping my work load in check. I am also going to start working on the Artist’s Salon discussion idea (more on that at the end of this post) and I’ve added a section to the newsletter just called Grins and Giggles with fun and interesting tidbits I find during my weekly research sessions in the world of art. (You can sign up for the newsletter here if you don’t get it already.)
So, hang out with me when you have the time and we’ll keep our creative wells filled and take care of what we need to take care of. Now, onto ideas about this month’s theme – Line!
All in on Line
Have you been noticing line as a design element more readily this past week or two? It’s such a strong and expressive element of design that it’s bound to be a part of any thing that uses design at all. You can even make entire pieces were line is the overriding if not only prominent design element. Let’s me show you what I mean.
Take canes for instance. Lines, either in boundary form where clay is wrapped around components to better define them, or the edge where two colors meet, are immensely important in cane designs. Without dimensionality of any sort, line is the one thing that allows a cane to present pattern and imagery. An entire cane design, including the level of energy, can be solely dependent on the lines created.
Meg Newberg is a master at using line to create energetic patterns. Take a look at this cane she calls a flower doodle (doodles are becoming quite the thing this month!). It has tremendous energy as well as dimensionality. The optical illusion is accomplished through a combination of variation in color value and the use of lines to define and energize the layers that seem to be popping out of the design. But she only uses one color plus white and black, so line really carries this design.
A more dimensional example of a line dependent design would be quilling. Although more commonly done in paper, the formation of pattern and imagery with strips set on their sides after being curled and folded has also been mastered by a number of people working in polymer. Beth Petricon was the first person I was aware of that worked out a technique to do quilling with polymer. She even wrote a very detailed tutorial article on how to create your own quilling masterpiece in the Spring 2015 issue of The Polymer Arts. You can see how she uses the technique for both a necklace, below, and the book cover that opens this post, showing it’s (literal) flexibility in different applications.
There is no reason why, with all the ways that you can create line, that you shouldn’t mix up the many variations of line as well. In this brooch by Kathleen Dustin she has at least a half-dozen types of line creating the texture, movement, and focus of the brooch. The shapes and judicial use of color are integral to the design as well, but the lines dominate and create the energy and atmosphere.
Now that you have a few more ideas about how you might use line in your work, how about exploring some line only designs? In fact, if you have kids at home and you’re looking for ways to entertain them, why not teach them about line? I can tell you from my many years of experience teaching and training that the instructor can learn just as much as the student through the process of teaching.
Using the article from the Virtual Art Box, you can demonstrate to your kids – be they preschoolers or teenagers or just big kids at heart –the different types of lines and then ask them what they think each type of line feels like. Then ask them to draw lines (in clay or on paper) based on specific words and/or have them create patterns or drawings with just lines. I actually did this in an introduction to art class in the high school where did my student teaching eons ago and was surprised at how intensely they got into it. This type of project is really just a kind of advanced doodle in that it has concepts and parameters to jumpstart it but is otherwise free form. It can just be a lot more fun to do it in a group.
And if you don’t have kids at home to do this with, dial up your friends and just do this, or other projects, online together. The camaraderie might just be what you need to get your creative juices flowing if motivation has been in short supply, along with everything else.
The Results Are in
Thanks to all of you who took part in the survey for the Artist’s Virtual Salon idea. The overwhelming response was that people were up for listening to such a discussion but participating in a live event is not necessarily on the top of everyone’s list. Perhaps we are all a little worn out from our packed Zoom schedules—there has been an initial zealousness to stay connected with friends and family plus so many of us are virtually conferencing for work but after a month full of online chats, perhaps we need a break from the scheduled screen time.
However, readers sent fantastic such questions, so I do really want to get together with some of the artists that reached out to me about participating and answer some of those questions. Just recording it should also keep it simple on the technical end. Assuming I can wrangle up the artist for the discussion, I hope to get back going by the beginning of May and then I’ll get them posted, most likely on the blog, so be sure to check in and I will keep you apprised of the project.
Sharing the Love … and some deep Savings!
If you need further inspiration, get in on the 30% off Sale going on at the website to scoop up great magazine back issues, project books, and retrospective books. Just hope over to Tenth Muse Arts and browse. Discount is good on anything in the shop that isn’t already discounted (basically no discounted packages or VAB subscriptions) and the sale is on until April 30th.
Use the promo code: SHARE30
Now off to get some spring gardening done. My vegetable seedlings are anxious to get into the ground and the battle with the spring weeds is in full swing. It’s also a salve for the soul, to be outside in the sun with my hands in the dirt, creating a satisfying arrangement of newly planted seedlings in the raised beds we set up down near our little creek followed by a triumphal foray plucking weeds, root and all, from the rain soaked soil. Maybe that’s not everybody’s idea of a good time but I have to say, I’m looking forward to it.
I hope you have something wonderful to look forward to this weekend and in the coming week. I wish you a safe, healthy, and creative week.
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Shing Yin Khor Title: Curiosity Cabinet #2
First of all, I have to shout out a thank you to all of you who have been reaching out to me while I am relatively out of commission this month. I received so many well wishes by email and messenger that I’ve not been able to answer you all yet and for that I do apologize! I’ve also received cards from as far away as New Zealand and even a book! I can’t tell you how touched I am! You all are so amazing and so supportive!
I feel almost guilty because while I deal with silly little stuff I could have prevented if I wasn’t such a workaholic, there are others of you out there are dealing with the really hard stuff like fibromyalgia or cancer. I just want you all to know that I’m thinking about those of you who are struggling with your own pain, debilitation, or illness as well. It is easier to get through the rough patches when you know so many people care! In fact, might I encourage you to reach out to someone you know who is having a hard time and just say you are thinking of them and wishing them well? Just those little words can do wonders for one’s spirit. It has for me!
Now let’s talk about pretty bits!
Do you have a bin or box of pieces and parts of your handiwork yet unfinished but which you are too in love with toss? If you regularly create, I can’t imagine that you don’t. But what exactly are we going to do with these pieces?
This is a question we all end up pondering at some point. Do we hold onto them, hoping that they will be just the thing needed someday or do we toss them? It can be quite the dilemma, one that even Marie Kondo can’t easily help with because, hey, these do spark joy for us! And we do see value in them, in that they represent our creativity and what we can accomplish. But do such little jewels of our work belong in a bin where we don’t get to admire them?
I’ve been thinking about this question for a while and came up with a few solutions of my own, but I am hardly alone in searching for and finding ways to display pieces that might not otherwise see the light too often. Let’s look at options for what you can do with your pretty little bits as well as how to extrapolate possibilities from what other people are doing for jewelry display in general.
Out into the Light
If you read and perused through your entire copy of Polymer Journeys 2019, you would have seen, at the very last entry, my contribution which is a display case of small exploratory items for which I had no particular use in mind when created. In other words, I created them without thinking “This is going to be a pendant,” or “This is going to be a set of earrings,” or “This is going to decorate a vessel.” I just made them to see what the material would do, most of which I liked, and which represented a little exploratory learning experience. I had already been tying bits onto ribbons and hanging them off the edge of my studio corkboard as little festive decorations but that didn’t work for the pieces that really only had one viewing angle as they would twist around on the ribbons.
Then I was out talking to the butterflies in my backyard (Yeah, I talk to the creatures in my yard. It’s a hazard of working alone from home all day. You’ll talk to anything!) and remembering how I used to catch and collect them in shadow boxes as a kid and it just randomly struck me that my little creative bits were like butterflies in a way. They are lovelies that I caught in a moment of exploratory creativity and in that small frame of time, they became a kind of an unexpected friend, going through that creative time with me. I didn’t want to toss my little friends even though I had no end-use for them. You don’t do that to friends! You hold onto them around and support each other, right?
Does that sound silly? Maybe it is, but it was revealing to me to realize that I kept certain pieces not because they were so beautiful or well done but more often because I felt connected to them. So, why not collect them and put them out like a collection of butterflies or a collage of photos of one’s friends? And this is what I started making. We find shadow boxes at garage sales and thrift stores for cheap and because they have character. I’ve made half a dozen of these so far.
By the way, I use a hot melt glue gun to tack the pieces onto a bit of mat board cut to fit the box. The nice thing about the hot melt glue is that if you do every want to take a piece out of the collection, you just pop it off the board and heat it up with a hairdryer to remove the glue from the back of the piece. So, your “friends” can come out and play in another piece or a new collection as you like!
If you don’t want to display pieces quick and easy, you could tack them up on a corkboard, as I bet many of you do already, but you can also make a nicer, more intentional display like this reed shade like Lauren Valenzuela does with this earring collection. Now, she is using this to photograph her collection, but you can pop up your bits by looping wire that ends in a hook around it. You could change out your collection on a whim that way. This is also a great idea for hanging up earrings, brooches, and necklaces so you can admire them even when not wearing them.
You can use collection displays or anything with dividers that can be hung on a wall. This would work especially well if you make little sculptures are pieces that would sit upright and are better seated then hung or glued but it can work with both as seen in the piece by Shing Yin Khor at the top of this post. Gerard Collas used an old printer’s letter set tray to display collections of his little wood sculptures.
You can also use wall art to display your artistic bits. This canvas covered with brooches is an ingenious display put together by Kathleen Dustin. She used this display in her show booth in 2016. I’m guessing she’s still using something of the sort because it’s just such a fabulous idea. But you could do the same basic thing with your bits. Get a canvas and have at it with paint or whatever you’d like, and attach your pretty bits, maybe with the hot melt glue gun or even hang it with the wire hook method. You could, alternately, find a finished piece of art, maybe at a thrift store or home goods store, and attach your pieces to that as it hangs on your wall.
Earlier this year, when I was in San Francisco, I saw this great wall of jewelry displayed on life-size artistic portraits. Again, this is showing completed work, but you could print out a large portrait image or, sketch or paint your own, and adorn and the image with your little lovelies or even with finished jewelry.
Now, if you simply have a lot of beads and bits that may not be your special “friends” but you have held on to them because you are sure someday they will come in handy (but maybe you are starting to lose faith in that idea), you can use them to create decorative wall pieces when used collectively. I didn’t know that this was a thing but there is a ton of this type of thing on Pinterest and general home craft blogs. People are doing everything from simply arranging spare bits into heart shapes to creating elaborate scenes in a kind of mosaic manner. Here is a fairly straightforward example fashioning tree imagery out of spare bits and bobs. It looks to have been created by Berdean Mante.
By the way, I found this jeweled topiary wall piece in an article about what to do with old vintage jewelry. It is all about creating wall art or decorating home decor objects with lots of pretty bits. If that interests you, pop over to that here.
So… Do I have your little wheels turning in your head? These should give you ideas not just for what to do with your extra bits but many of these could be a jumping-off point for creating your own unique show displays and photo setups.
Do you have a cool and unique way to display your extra bits or jewelry? Send me links to images if you do. Put it in the comments below, or if you’re reading this by email, click the header for this post to get to it on mine to leave a comment.
Light at the End of the Tunnel
In other very exciting news, we have our house back! The construction crew did last small tasks on Friday and for the first time in four months, I’m off to sleep in a full-size bed in an actual bedroom! I love my studio but I have spent nearly every hour of every day the last four months sleeping, eating, and working from here. I’ve been getting a little more than stir crazy! But now, we basically have to move back into her house. I hadn’t thought about how the post-construction time was going to be like moving into a new place but, of course, it is because it is basically a new place. So, I have tons to do and did not have time to take pictures for you yet, but I will take some pictures for next week when it’s kind of back altogether.
Hopefully, I didn’t make too many mistakes in this post. I am dead tired and sneezey from all the cleaning and raising of dust. And yes, I am being good and cleaning away with my left hand to spare the bad right one. Well, mostly. I do forget sometimes, mostly because the pain has diminished a ton from not being on the computer all day. So, the break is working thus far, at least for my arm! The pre-diabetes has been tougher to crack but I am determined! Having a full kitchen back and a real bed to sleep in should contribute greatly to all that. Yay!
So, until next week, I hope you have fun with the display ideas!
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“Fabiclay” brooch by Klio Tsaliki
Are you one of those people who finds an interesting path and goes down its until you find the end or do you like to wander about? I know that’s kind of a vague question, but you could apply it as a metaphor to goals in your life, the path of your career, or the way you create your artwork. I recently read some excerpts by Thomas Edison on the importance of keeping focused. He said, “The one prudence in life is concentration, the one evil is dissipation.” I don’t know if I wholly agree with that or, at least, I think it’s not so readily summed up in one tidy sentence.
I bet you can come up with at least a couple of artists off the top of your head who have come up with a treatment in polymer clay that they create with almost exclusively and have become quite masterful at it. But I think you come up with quite a few artists who consistently try different things, exploring, growing, and changing their style and focus on the artwork. Would you say that the person who focuses is probably doing better work than the person who is constantly exploring?
Perhaps it’s because we are talking about art that I can so readily dismiss Edison’s comment. I have always thought that, for most artists, art is about the exploration. I think if you find one technique and worked very hard to perfect it, you might get overly comfortable because you will more likely succeed with each successive piece as you hone your skill. And yes, I am presenting that as a possible problem. I am a strong believer in the value of messing up and creating pieces that “fail” on some level. It’s those experiences that really teach us and allow us to grow as artists. However, I do think that masterful artists who stick with one approach do, especially in their mind, make a lot of mistakes and have numerous pieces that failed or fell short of the artist’s expectations for every piece of work we would deem a masterpiece.
The bottom line is, I think whatever journey your imagination and curiosity leads you on is the right path to follow with your creative work. Don’t fight it if you like to stick with one technique and refine it over and over or if you get easily bored once you feel you’ve mastered something enough to understand it and want to move on to the next challenge. The journey of our creative process is as individual and unique as our own artwork.
Let’s look at a few examples of people on both sides of this coin – those dedicated to a primary technique and those that constantly change their focus. Then you can decide for yourself if Edison had a point or not.
Single Minded Tangents
There are so many artists that come to mind that focus on a single technique or process and have mastered it to a mind-blowing extent. Elise Winters is one of the first that comes to mind when it comes to technique. This surface treatment was her signature and her legacy and no one, that I’ve seen, has yet matched her skill with it.
When it comes to form, I don’t think anyone else in the polymer community has made more of the same form than Ron Lehocky with his hearts. But here’s an example of staying focused on one thing while exploring just about everything else you can. He’s made tens of thousands of hearts and no two are the same. Here are examples of the variations he came up with from a single Skinner blend.
One of the most masterful and single-minded people of process would have to be Jon Stuart Anderson with his cane covered animals and functional objects. Although caning is his focus as far as technique, he is constantly exploring pattern and how it affects the form. It’s a subtle exploration but if you look back through his work you’ll see how the application of pattern has changed over the years and how he is constantly exploring new forms to apply them to, working on how the new forms will show off the canes or how the canes will accentuate the forms.
I love this bowl below. It shows more “quiet space” with those swaths of black to red canes, than I think I’ve ever seen in his work before. The relatively unpatterned area so dramatically contrasts the complex canes designs but you can take in the individual cane and pattern placement more readily because the eye has a place to rest, giving you a moment to rest and to process more of what you’re seeing
This whole subject matter recalls to me a conversation Rosanna Faillace and I had with Melanie Muir in Rome last year. We were talking about people who stick with one technique and don’t branch out and Melanie, seeming to think it might be a negative thing, said “That’s me. I’m a one trick pony.” But of course, she’s not. She loves her inlaid mokume gane veneers, but she is constantly exploring construction and different forms on which to present these, resulting in pieces like this beautiful bracelet.
Frenetically Fabulous
I myself am of the exploratory variety of artists. I do wish I had a little more focus and could spend more time on any single technique, form, or process, but the thing is, my curiosity about what else I could do is a stronger driving force, so I go with that. There are a LOT of us artistic explorers in polymer art as polymer just cries out to be explored.
When it comes to an exploratory approach in polymer, Debbie Crothers is the first person who comes to mind. You can see her gorgeous acrylic on polymer beads on the front of the upcoming issue of The Polymer Studio. Her penchant for exploration is why she is writing the “Mix it Up” articles in the magazine. She always has something she’s playing around with and she does love to share. She does occasionally show the results of both her good and not so successful explorations, which I love because it demonstrates her willingness to try, to make mistakes, and to do the work over and over again until she has mastered it. It is highly unlikely that Debbie would have gotten the results she got in these beads below if she didn’t go through a lot of trial and error first. The final results are well worth the exploration!
Another person I’ve been following for years is Klio Tsaliki. She’ll try almost anything and, in the process, comes up with some great techniques and approaches. Some attempts come out better than others, but I love that she shares it all, or at least enough for us to see that she is not afraid to try anything that interests her. I find that very inspiring. A couple of years ago she was playing with metallic silkscreen and the possible fabric-like quality of polymer, as you can see in the opening photo of this post. More recently, she’s played with translucent clay and LED lights, as seen below.
Klio’s newest work has been in the up and coming new clay from Fimo, “Leather Effect”. Once cured, this clay is supposed to be very much like leather. You can see here on the Fimo website that it is very pliable and can be cut and even stitched. I don’t know about you, but I have never been so excited about a new line of polymer clay! It’s not available in the US yet, and I don’t know how widely distributed it is in Europe, but there is supposed to be news about that soon and, trust me, when it is available, I’m going to be playing with it quite a bit as leather was one of my first materials I made jewelry from. You can go to Klio’s Flickr photostream to see what she’s been doing with it.
Another name for exploration is pioneering. Pioneers need to explore their subject extensively to find those new and intriguing aspects that lead the rest of us to their fresh finds. In general, you’ll find that most of the folks we identify as polymer pioneers were and are highly exploratory. Just look at what Kathleen Dustin has done throughout her career. From ornate purses to translucent layered brooches to reinterpretations of textile patterns such as with these new brooches below, you never really know what Kathleen will be working on next and yet, all her work is masterfully constructed and impeccably finished. I think her exploration keeps her work fresh for us and, most especially, for her and her passion for her work.
Focus on Yourself
So, as you see, there are many approaches to the creative process, all of which have value and result in beautiful, emotive, and inspiring work. So, no, I don’t think focus and concentration on one technique, form, or even material, is necessary but I do think keeping a sharp focus on the overriding creative goal – to make fulfilling artwork, financially supportive artwork, satiating your curiosity, or whatever the important creative motivation is for you – is something to keep a watchful eye on.
Speaking of focus … The construction on my house is in the finishing stages now. That hasn’t helped me with my focus on getting the next issue out, neither has my tendinitis and back issue which was such a huge problem last year. The thing is, in the last year, I have not really had enough time off to completely heal and am having issues again. I’m pretty sure I can get this issue to the printer in time to have it out by the end of the month but I’m probably going to have a heart-to-heart with my doctor on what I really need to do to get this healed and am working out a bit of time off later this month. This is one area where keeping focus would be very helpful!
I will keep you apprised of any shakeups in production if you are a subscriber to The Polymer Studio so just stay tuned here. And next week maybe I can get you pictures of the house for those of you who are curious. Everything’s under plastic wrap right now as they finish plastering and painting. But it’s horribly exciting seeing it come together!
So, I will leave you with these thoughts on focus and exploration. I hope it brings you some interesting insights for your own process and work. Have a fabulous week!
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At the end of this week, I will be heading off to Pittsburgh to see the opening of the Into the Forest project. I am intensely excited about that (go here if you are in the area and want to join for the opening on Friday and the talks on Saturday.) But even more exciting is that, at long last, my beau and I get to go on our honeymoon! So this week and next, I may be a bit quieter than usual but I’ve lined up some eye candy for you that my faithful little helpers will ensure you get while I am off gallivanting about.
Putting together a wardrobe for this trip got me thinking about new accessories. Although I don’t have time to make anything new for this excursion, there are the holidays to get dressed up for. So I was thinking, what kind of new polymer accessory would really wow at the next holiday soiree? Then it hit me … a polymer purse! An unusual handbag is always noted and often gets conversations started where no particular subject has yet made itself known. A polymer handbag is certain to be quite the icebreaker.
So let’s look at polymer purses this week and see if I can’t inspire a few of you to make your own. Of course, at the mention of polymer purses, many of us will raise the image of our favorite Kathleen Dustin purse in our minds but she is not, by far, the only one to create purses. She is one of the few that makes them almost exclusively out of polymer but any other variation–covered, embellished, or accented with polymer–can still be a most wonderful example of our art.
Ronnie Kirsch was making quite the fashion splash with her clay clutches in the early 2010s. Full of color and pattern, they were sold at high-end stores for a very pretty penny. She used a lot of canes but would also apply stripes of colors. This red one here would be visible from across the room. And I think that was the thing about these–they were for women who don’t mind a lot of attention.
Although I could not find news of Ronnie’s recent work, I did find her website with a gallery available if covering a nice metal clutch is sounding like a great holiday project. Just take a look here.
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Live auctions are mad. There is such a scramble for the items up for bid because you know it’s your only chance to get that rare piece that caught your eye and you can feel that same energy from others in the room. Online auctions won’t have that same live energy but there is a scramble nonetheless! The IPCA, in an effort to include members that were not able to attend Eurosynergy this year, saved about half the donated items this year and created an online auction that you can participate in.
Have you ever dreamed of owning an original Jeffrey Lloyd Dever, a Melanie Muir, or a Bettina Welker piece? Those big names and others have donated their gorgeous work to help raise money for the IPCA projects. So it’s not only a chance to own a beautiful piece, like this unusual Kathleen Dustin necklace, but its money that goes to a cause dedicated to polymer artists. The IPCA has a lot of ambitious ideas on the drawing board but they need money to get them of the ground. So take a look at the items up for bid on the IPCA auction page.
Our contribution was a copy of Polymer Journeys signed by 25 of the contributing artists. If you haven’t gotten your copy yet, this is the copy to have. Or if you have one but want one signed by so many of the artists you love, you can bid on this rare copy here. If you just can’t wait, get your copy from our website at 10% off the cover!
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I’m going to be a bit brief the next few days as I will be on the road with not a lot of opportunity to research online, but I’ve found some new pretties to share and ponder while I zip about the western states.
This popped up on Kathleen Dustin‘s Facebook page the other day. Although her signature translucent layers and that integrated wire work she’s done a bit of the last few years is present, this feels very different. The conglomeration of elements looks like it could be pure stream-of-consciousness, something a bit more difficult to do with polymer than with, say, writing, but it has that spontaneous feel. It’s very different for Kathleen. I love discovering the first of a new series for an artist. Really makes you wonder where they are going to go with it.
And speaking of going … back to the last of the packing with me. I’m actually looking forward to the long hours on the road where I can’t do much of anything but think. The only problem with that is these are the times I usually come up with the best design ideas. And I can’t even sketch! Still, quiet time is really good for the creative brain. Hope you get some down time, as well!
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: See if you can get yourself some down time today. It could be while commuting to or from work, while in a doctor’s waiting room, in a long bank line, or just sitting quietly at home. Try to let your mind go and let forms and colors float through your mind. What shapes or color palettes have intrigued you lately? Don’t think too hard about them and see what comes to mind. Go to your studio or get out a sketch book and work up a design based solely on what you saw in your mind.
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We set aside our usual art discussions today to announce the first big book project for TPA and the associated book publishing arm, Tenth Muse Publications–Polymer Journeys 2016 is just about ready for you! The release is set for April 14th.
This retrospective and peek-behind-the-scenes book is in its last phase of preparation for printing! Now that we have a publication date, we are offering you very anxious and enthusiastic folks a steep discount and a bonus to thank you for your patience and to give you the opportunity to get your copy straight off the press and into the mail!
We have an exclusive pre-sale price for just this one week. If you purchase the book on our website by March 30th, you get 30% off the cover price of $22.95! That’s all of $15.95 plus shipping.
It is also available in a digital format, which will be $12.95, but this week you can reserve your copy for just $9.95.
But wait … there’s more! (I’ve always wanted to say that!) I also worked out a way to reward our most enthusiastic supporters … be one of the first 250 people to pre-order a print copy and get a companion digital copy for FREE! Just put both a print and digital copy into your cart, then use this code to discount the digital copy: 1st250. (You’ll know others beat you to it if you get a note saying the discount is no longer valid.)
Want more info on what this book is? Go to the website here. In the meantime, enjoy the gorgeous cover art by Kathleen Dustin (top) and Jon Stuart Anderson (bottom).
We’ll be here if you have any questions for us. Otherwise, have a beautiful Spring and Easter weekend!
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We’re going to move from container pendants to another type of container accessory, the purse. Purses are not the easiest creations to make in polymer, but with all that open space, there is so much that could be done. And, this is one of the huge advantages of artistic container accessories–you have a lot of real estate and several sides to work with. For those of you that sell, also consider that handbags have a high price point, so all the hard work that you put into your masterpiece is more likely to be well paid for.
It would be impossible to bring this form up without mentioning the queen of polymer handbags, Kathleen Dustin. Over the last year or so she has been working in a beautiful series she calls The World Traveler, highly influenced by the amazing ceramicist Vicki Grant who I’ve featured on here a couple of times before. Kathleen’s work has a wide breadth of texture, motifs, forms and color palettes, but the approach and craftsmanship is still quite readily recognizable. She has created some very complex purses in the past, but I found this one particularly appealing because it is a bit more straightforward, and its relatively simple structure allows the treatment of the clay to really shine. I also figured, if you ever wanted to try your hand at polymer purses, you can readily see here that it can be typically purse-like but highly artistic with so much room for play.
It seems like only a handful of purses and necklaces from her recent collections have been making the rounds on the Internet, so do stop and treat yourself to a more extensive view on her website. And a happy birthday to Kathleen who, yesterday, celebrated another year on this earth and another year regaling us with her beautiful work. Keep it up for many, many more years if you would please!
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Stopping to write a blog in the midst of all the fantastic conversations I’ve been having this first day in Malta has been a challenge so this will be a little short–we’ll let the photos speak for the most part.
I was lucky enough to have time to drop in on workshops being given by Kathleen Dustin and Melanie West. The energy in the rooms was amazing and the dazed look as the students left the day long workshops attested to some exhausting but exciting creativity going on. Melanie West’s class was “Make It Big And Organic!” and focused on the idea of process more than on the creation of any one thing. Kathleen was divulging her signature “Translucent Layering Techniques” in her packed classroom. Here are some shots of these masters at work demonstrating and sharing their pearls of wisdom. Then you get a close up view of Melanie’s ingenious necklace–a reversible pendant that is engineered with a magnet and a removable center piece.
Kathleen Dustin explaining technique during her workshop.
Cara Jane Hayman’s project in the middle of the process in Kathleen’s class.
Melanie West talking color choices with her workshop attendees.
Melanie West’s fabulous reversible necklace.
The other side of Melanie’s necklace showing the magnet design (isn’t that wonderful!?)
I am going to leave you to enjoy these images for now. I’ll be touring Malta in the morning and posting those images on Facebook so if you don’t already follow The Polymer Arts on Facebook, you can get more EuroSynergy peeks there as well!
Wow … day one and I’m already filled to the brim with ideas to ponder and write about and create from! What will I be like come Sunday?
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.
