Dolls As Wall Art
September 12, 2012
Inspirational Art
At Riverdog Studios creations are often a mix not only of materials but of forms as well–art dolls as wall art.
Deborah Banyas and T.P. Speer create mixed media wall pieces made from polymer clay, carved wood, stuffed cotton fabric, tooled metal and acrylic. In this collaborative work, Deborah works primarily on the sewn/stuffed aspects while T.P. creates the pieces in clay, wood and metal. The aesthetics are the result of well over 30 year of building a life together both as artists and as husband and wife.
They have a beautiful gallery with many more fantastical pieces to delight you on their studio’s website.
Encouraging Words
September 11, 2012
Inspirational Art
A kind word can go a long way on a difficult day. If you had on one of these pendants by Jana Lehmann of Germany you could get that sort of encouragement by just looking in the mirror.
All of Jana’s work is skillfully constructed and meticulously finished. She works in a wide range of forms dominated by a colorful and fun style. Take some time to wander through her Flickr photostream for more eye candy.
Art Jewelry Grant Call for Entries
September 10, 2012
Inspirational Art, Polymer community news
I thought a few of you would be interested in this grant. With so much talent out there, polymer clay could certainly bring in some serious competition. Here are the guidelines:
http://www.artjewelryforum.org/emerging-artist-guidelines
There is a definite lean towards non-traditional materials or non-traditional applications of common materials such as this mix of felt, plastic and enamel by the 2006 recipeint Natalya Pinchuk.
The grant applications need to be in by September 30th!
Get Out There and Live It
September 9, 2012
Ponderings
I have been on the road now for a week and a half. I have had the opportunity to visit many friends and artists at the show in Atlanta, spend time at Creative Journey studios, visit William Holland Lapidary School in northern Georgia, John Campbell Folk School in North Carolina (both schools are now offering classes on polymer clay) as well as visit friends in Tennessee and Iowa. After spending such long days and weeks in the home office this summer, getting out and actually seeing, experiencing and being part of life outside my work space is invigorating. And necessary. We can’t forget that as artists we get our inspiration from life, from new experiences, and from intriguing people. And the only way to do that is to get out and be part of the world outside our own.
What’s In a Name
September 8, 2012
Inspirational Art, Ponderings
Primative and tribal influences are quite popular and certainly catch my eye. But what actually drew me in to further investigate Christine Damm‘s Flickr page and then blog was her business name: Stories they Tell.
A simple but very compelling name. Who are “they”? What stories are there to be told? And then you look at her work and think, yes these pieces, even though they are new and recently constructed look as if they have been or could be part of a story, reflecting upon something old or well-used; work influenced by the idea of objects as reflecting an individual’s history. Yep, that is a great business name.
What does your business name reflect? If you have been considering changing or starting a business, an Etsy page, a blog or something else that requires a name, consider how others will react to it. Will it draw them in or at least well describe what you sell or do?
You can peruse Christine’s Flickr page here or her blog here. And yes, most of that metal look is polymer clay.
Outside Influence: Ideas from Lampwork
September 7, 2012
Inspirational Art, Tips and Tricks
I have meet numerous polymer artist who also work, or have worked, in glass. There are similar approaches to designing beads in lampwork so it’s no surprise that there are ways that this bead below could inspire polymer bead makers.
This is a bead from Jennifer Cameron’s Nightmare Insomnia series. I suspect from the name that these are the result of those late night forays into the studio when new ideas grab you and don’t let you sleep. I think many of us have been there! But beside the commiserating, the inspiration of the components here are something to ponder.
First of all, the bead caps are wonderfully fun. Rather than just cover the end of the bead, Jennifer extends the bead caps into the body of the bead making it an integral part of the design. This would be a simple addition to a polymer bead design with all kinds of variations to explore. Then there is the wire mesh inclusion. It’s a large inclusion but who says inclusions need to be small and scattered? We have liquid polymer and translucents that could show off all kinds of larger non-polymer additions below the surface.
And a side note … I visited Creative Journey Studios in Buford, Georgia this week and had a wonderful lunch and visit with Ellen Prophater and Sue Sutherland. I wish I could have stayed long enough to take Christi Friesen’s workshops there this weekend. If you are close enough, do consider attending. The studio space you get to work in is an inspriation in and of itself with a huge retrospective gallery of polymer from nearly all the masters and innovators of our community. That is worth the drive down alone! Check it out here.
Sculptured Floral
September 6, 2012
Inspirational Art, Technique tutorials
Floral motifs are so popular in polymer but not quite so much as a realistic sculptural subject. I think that is why this grabbed me.
These flowers are by Catherine Zverzhanskaya of Moscow. They are all polymer delicately formed with great little details. I don’t think these are even her most impressive flowers. She works these into jewelry as well as decor. Take a look at her website. Really incredible variety of flowers, all very realistic. If you want to learn how she does more of this, she has a nice FAQ section as well that covers her use of cold porcelain as well.
Frosted Polymer
September 5, 2012
Inspirational Art, Technique tutorials
Being from Denver where there is, literally, no humidity much of the time, I’m having my all-too-warm moments down here in the humid south of the States. So this frosted piece just looked so very cool and soothing to me!
Through the use of nothing more than a thin layer of translucent clay, Celine Charuau mutes the saturation of the color for a rather ‘hushed’ feeling while giving the surface a subtle depth. The holes drilled in for texture and the variation of color add that touch of interest to a simple design to pull the necklace all together. This page here has a full tutorial for making these beads.
There are actually embedded English directions in this tutorial so you don’t even need translate.google.com for this French language site.
Cheery on Dark
September 4, 2012
Inspirational Art
I will be on the road for the next week plus still so the blogs might be a more brief than usual but I certainly can’t stop delving in and finding great inspiration for you daily. It’s one of the great ‘perks’ of this job!
Today, for your viewing pleasure, a pendant from Munich’s Eva Winckler also known as Chili Crab on Flickr and Etsy.
She details this pendant with cheery, colorful flowers but on a matte dark blue, nearly black, background. Dark colors may not be the intuitive background for a floral piece like this but the contrast really makes the flowers pop and adds a bit of unexpected drama.
If you periodically question your choices for color combinations and try some different backgrounds … light bases with dark detailing, muted tones on bright backgrounds, a spot of red in a sea of calm blues and greens … you may surprise yourself. It won’t always work but push yourself as that is where the best discoveries will come from.
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This may not seem much related to polymer or art, but I did find this on the site of an artist who works with polymer among many other things. Æ(Alexis) Pierre-Louis lives in Seattle and creates jewelry, paintings, sculpture, installations, video poetry, and writings. I discovered Alexis through a post on Daily Art Muse (which you should check out for great artistic inspiration) and although I do like the rings shown in this post, it was the story on her blog page (no longer being updated) that really got to me:
When Alexis was a little girl, she was afraid of a lot of things, especially the dark. After a bedtime story, her father would kiss her on the forehead and turn off the light. Within minutes she’d be howling and would dive into her parents’ bed for comfort. Naturally this situation could not last long. One day, instead of her usual bedtime story, Alexis’s father told her this,
Imagine how small and dull our lives would be if we allowed ourselves to be ruled by fear. Very small indeed. It’s a big, scary world out there, sometimes people can be cruel, and circumstances can seem larger than our imagination so that our dreams become nightmares filled with big, scary monsters. It’s natural to be afraid sometimes; the trick is not to become stuck in fear, and there is only one cure for that: love. Fear is like a big, scary monster. Love kills all the monsters. So the next time you see a monster, give him some milk and cookies, tuck him into bed, tell him a bedtime story, give him a kiss on the forehead, and say ‘I love you’, and watch your monster turn into your friend.
Fear is part of our lives. Maybe more so as artists because we face an unknown every time we sit down to our studio table. What will we make? How will it turn out? Will I succeed in creating what I envision? Will it be good enough? These fears can cause us to freeze up. But what or who are we really afraid of?
We are afraid of ourselves … afraid of our abilities and inabilities, of how we will deal with being judged be it by others or by our own person. So, I think Alexis’ father’s idea is great. When you are afraid, give your monster — yourself — some milk and cookies and say “I love you.” And then go and play with your clay.
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On the Clay-Polymer Yahoo group last week, we got some sad news from member Pat Jones, who was recently told she has cancer which has crossed over into her brain. She came to the group with a very simple request of the clay artists. Make art, specifically a Bottle of Hope.
Pat has made over 250 bottles during the last 7 years. She has a sister who is a cancer survivor, so the program is something close to her already. It was started in 1999 by a Rhode Island cancer survivor and has spread internationally.
This image is a collection of bottles Pat made for her sister to pass out at The James @ OSU Medical Center. These bottles are only given away, never sold.
If you would like to make one, see these pages for more information about the best bottles to use and how to get them into the hands of cancer patients.
Read MoreIn quilting, it is more often than not about line and repetition – those elements that instill order to a variety of color and pattern. But that doesn’t mean the lines need to be straight, the repetition be squares or the print of the fabric being used.
In this small piece titled Celtic Spiral by Larkin Jean Van Horn, color and pattern on the fabric aren’t primary elements at all. There are no straight lines and no squares. Just a closely-aligned repetition of eye-like forms created by swirling lines with dense, rich rivers of beads flowing along with them. The potential translation to polymer seems obvious enough. A repeated stamping with flowing spaces of either beads or other richly textured surface treatments would make an amazing piece as well.
If you are interested in the concept of repetition and rhythm and haven’t seen the latest issue of The Polymer Arts, it’s a an issue packed with ideas for using these concepts to enliven your artwork. You can get your copy or a subscription here.
Read MoreToday’s pretty is brought to you by Nihal Erpeden of Istanbul, Turkey. I love the freeform folding and ruffling of the clay but creating it like a pod that is opening to reveal a botanical treasure is what I find really appealing.
Nihal’s professed inspiration comes from Jana Roberts Benzon who spent a lot of time ruffling, crumpling and folding her clay in the early half of this last decade.
Nihal has also posted a tutorial showing how she creates her ruffled form here (English translation … pretty funny actually). See more of her artwork in her Etsy shop as well.
Read MoreI was intrigued by this simple tutorial on make polymer frames for jewelry. This example is pretty straight-forward but what I find interesting are the possibilities if you expand upon the basic concept.
For instance, a frame doesn’t have to be a circle. If you have graduated cutters of any shape, you can cut a frame, a smaller frame for the ‘molding’ around the focal space and then punch the focal space in squares, triangles, marquises, stars, fish, flowers … anything you have graduated cutters for. Another possibility is making a good moderately-thick large base shape then adding very thin ‘moulding’ in not just one layer but several using different size cutters.
Read MoreCreating a repeatable section to develop complex looking canes is a standard approach in polymer caning. However, with most such canes, the section repeated has a centered image or pattern which, of course, makes it easy to halve and repeat or at least allows the artist to butt the pieces up next to each other without worrying about how the edges will match. So I do always admire the canes that depart from this and build from sections where the imagery is not always fully centered such as these Frilly Flower canes by Cathy Harm.
It’s a subtle difference but if you look at the bottom left and bottom center cane, there is a dynamic sway to the imagery that you dont’ see in a cane built from balanced and centered components such as the top left piece. Nothing wrong with centered work, as I’ve said before, but if you want to have more movement in the patterning of a cane, learning to to build such components will give you that option.
So what kind of considerations must be taken into account to create canes like these? Well, I personally don’t know … yet. Luckily, Cathy is sharing her approach in a CraftArtEdu class which happens to be discounted right now so it’s a great opportunity to learn from this caning master. According to the class description this is not just a limited number of canes you’ll learn but rather an “open-ended technique that will enable you to design so many unique canes depending on the amounts of blends and the colors that you choose.” How cool does that sound?
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So, if you haven’t heard about (or seen) the latest community craze, you may want to check out Bettina Welker‘s pixelated retro blend cane and all the creative work that has come out of it. It really took off after Cynthia posted Bettina’s work and the link to her free tutorial on Polymer Clay Daily.
Here is just one take-off on the use of this as a base and accent for these beads by Polymeramoi.
To see a wide variety of applications for this technique, check out the busy Pixelated Retro Blend Flickr group formed just to share this very thing.
Whether it is a mistake you’ve made while creating art, in your business or your personal life, don’t let the realization that you are just human and imperfect get you down, frustrate you, or make you want to quit.
I have had more than my share of mistakes to face this past week. There was a moment (or two or three) when I just wanted to go bury myself in my bed, pulls the shades, shut the door and disappear into the darkness of my room. But a very wise friend told me to get up, go outside, sit in the sun, look out across my horizons and think on all the wonderful things in my life. There is nothing like having a good view of one’s horizons.
Read MoreMaybe it was the birthday gathering I am going to tonight and the mention of birthday cake but I’ve had pastries and sweets on mind. Better on my mind than on my hips but I think that is what drove me to seek out some calorie free versions online.
What did I find? Some very teeny, tiny and very tasty looking minatures by Amber Dawn. This yummy looking berry tart is sitting on the tip of her pinkie finger!
She has pages of these delicious looking pastries, cookies that are literally the size of snowflakes, and all kinds of tiny food stuffs that just make me wonder at her patience (and if her neck doesn’t hurt from all that tiny close-up work!) Take a look at her Flickr photostream for more calorie free goodies. I’m going to go get ready for the birthday celebration and aim to eat a portion of cake only this small! Yeah, right …
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