Questioning Focus

July 7, 2019

“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!

 

Embellished Hearts

December 28, 2018

Now that I am safely ensconced at my sister’s house in Colorado I’ve been catching up on some social media, seeing what other people have been up to this week. I ran across Ron Lehocky’s Facebook page and although I was quite taken by his fabulous “ribbon wrapped” Christmas hearts but I found I most wanted to share these beaded bezel versions of Ron’s hearts created by expert beader Marcia Antle from Atlanta, Georgia, that Ron posted last month.

This is such an excellent pairing of mediums—not that polymer cabochons and beaded bezels are a new thing—but Ron’s hearts are already a collaborative endeavor as he takes scrap canes and surface-treated clay sent to him by other artists to create the majority of his hearts. Then to have a skilled bead artist continue the collaboration with this type of bezel work gives these pendants an unusual richness in their story and creative cooperation.  They have a feel-good quality that just fits the season

As you consider your goals and projects for the coming year, perhaps this type of thing will get you thinking about collaboration or mixing mediums. I have a feeling 2019 will be the year of leaps and bounds in mixing or crossing mediums with polymer clay. I know so many people with plans of that sort. It makes you very excited to see what 2019 has to bring.

Don’t forget to jump over to Ron Lehocky’s Facebook page to see the posts of these hearts and his other holiday centric pieces, if you’re not too tired of Christmas motifs and scroll down to November 28th to see more of Marcia’s beaded hearts.

 

Put a Little Heart Into It

April 13, 2017

Here is what caught my eye today.Anna Kokareva uneven heart earrings I decided to peruse Flickr this time and came upon the pages of Anna Kokareva (aka Annie Bimur) and although there were a lot of pieces to grab my attention, it was this pair of not quite matching earrings with the heart just hanging out among all the crackle that really grabbed me.

I was a little thrown by that initially since I’m not much of a heart girl but the contrast of the simple sweet heart in all that texture really spoke to me. The uncomplicated things in life, like pure love and joy, set against a back drop of chaos … this is often what life is like, isn’t it? We just have to stop and appreciate the beauty within the bedlam. And in this case, we can appreciate the differences between the two earrings and probably find a smile on our faces when the little heart catches us by surprise.

The one thing I would improve is actually the background of the image. It is usually better to use a contrasting background, especially where texture (and color) is concerned or your work can blend too much with it, as it tends to here.

More little surprises as well as a riot of color and texture can be found on Anna’s Flickr photostream.

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A Different Kind of Happily Ever After

February 9, 2015

16260765847_497fb9958b_zSo this is the week I thought I’d try putting up some love stories and some art to go with those stories as a little homage to the upcoming Valentine’s holiday. I’m not a huge Valentine’s day person, more because of the commercialism and pressure it puts on couples but the general sentiment of the holiday … well, I think we should celebrate the love in our lives every day if we can.

I was talking to a friend of mine this weekend about this week’s blog project and was trying to explain the interesting mix of responses I got. I only got a few classic happy tearjerkers but then I got several sad but very loving stories. Half of the people who sent me stories did not not even want them posted. They just wanted to share it with me. My friend offered a couple suggestions as to why this was. She thought a lot of people might not share their story because either they don’t think its that special or because the best love story they had didn’t end with them staying together. So then the question arose, is it a love story if the people involved were no longer in love. “Well,” she said,”we both know a really good story that didn’t end with the couple staying together but its still a great story?” So I’m going to tell that first this week. This is a story about two people we used to know. We changed the names and a few details to protect the innocent  that don’t know we are writing about them.

We chose this heart off Pinterest to go with this story. It is a wonderful little piece by Betty Jo Hndershott and matches another conversation I had this week about simplicity. Simple is actually really hard to do well but this is one such example of a great success with simple things. This very solid faux ceramic heart has inside of it a wrapped up little wire heart. It has a great contrast in color, texture, size and line. When I saw it, I thought, the wire heart is like that fragile little thing inside the big love we all have, the thing we try to protect even though we can’t always keep it from harm.

So here’s the story, as best we can remember.

A Different Kind of Happily Ever After

It was James’ birthday and he was sitting at home alone. He had just moved to town after years of basically being a hermit. He felt misunderstood and had a violent childhood that had left him angry and closed off. But he wanted to change. He got online and posted a simple message on a message board:

“Songwriter/musician, new to town, just would like to have a drink and maybe see a live band with an intelligent pretty girl today because it’s my birthday. I’m smart and funny but I’m not tall or rich. Just an ordinary guy turning 31. Would you come make my night?”

He got a lot of responses like, “Ok, where do you want to meet?” But only one stood out:

“Hey songwriter/musician, new-to-town guy. Just wanted to drop in and wish you a happy birthday in case no one else does. I’m not the one to take you out for a drink though. I’m not ordinary, I’m tall for a girl, 8 years older than you, not a live music fan and I’m not much of a drinker. But know that at least one person out there is thinking of you and wishing you the best!”

James couldn’t resist. He wrote her back. They went back and forth, he giving her a hard time about not wanting to go out with a poor, short, young, ordinary guy and she coming back with funny quips about how he’d hate to hear about her crazy busy life of running charity events and trying to be an artist again. But then she stopped responding. He felt bad. Maybe his jokes went too far. But somehow even just that brief exchange made him feel better.

Valentine’s Day was a few weeks later. He decided he’d try his luck at getting out again. He read through some posts and this caught his eye:

“Anti-valentines Date—I don’t want to go on a Valentine’s date but don’t want to stay at home either. Feeling the same? Propose some wacky night out and let’s spend the night on our own terms.”

He wasn’t against Valentine’s Day but he did hate how society made you feel like some kind of loser not having someone on that day. So he wrote back. A minute late he got this:

“Lol. I don’t think you want to go out with me. You already kicked me to the curb on your birthday.”

It was that same woman he thought had stopped writing him! Apparently their last messages on his birthday didn’t make it through and they both thought the other had decided to end the conversation. He decided he wasn’t going to wait for Valentine’s. He wrote her back and said “What are you doing right now?”

A few hours later, they meet for coffee. He thought she was beautiful and she found his humor irresistibly charming. They talked and laughed for hours. They decided to have dinner the next night but that didn’t go as well. She had asked what he wanted from life and he said he just wanted something ordinary–work 9 to 5, come home, hang out with his girl and do simple things. She looked at him intensely and said, “No, you don’t.” It made him angry although he wasn’t sure why.

When they parted that night he thought he would never see her again. He was too ordinary and she was too driven for him. But he stayed awake all night thinking about it. And when he woke the next day he called her and said “Do you want to hear the story of my life.” She said yes and he told her all about it. She cried at moments and eventually told her own story. They both had been through a lot of difficult times. He dealt with it by being angry at the world; she dealt with it by constantly helping others but could never ask for help herself. They both distrusted others but in their hearts they wanted to. Their first big step came in trusting each other enough to fall in love.

Over the next four years, James self- managed his anger until it wasn’t a part of him anymore and Lynn made a point of asking people to help her out, even when she didn’t really need it. Together they both went out and met new people and grew a great new circle of friends. James started helping out at the fundraisers Lynn worked for and found out that he really liked organizing events which made him brave enough to get into working on music and other events. He was happy with his work for the first time in his life. Somewhere during that time James realized why he’d been angry that first dinner. He really didn’t want to be ordinary but he hadn’t known how to change that.

What he wanted–what they both wanted–was someone who made them more than they were on their own. For four years they did that for each other and grew personally and in their professional lives. In the end, they did not stay together. Lynn ended up traveling more than James could be happy with and James was heavily involved in the music community which he knew wasn’t Lynn’s thing. It came down to wanting lives that didn’t work well together. But that didn’t change the fact that they loved each other or that they still believed in each other. As far as we know, they still remain friends and as Lynn once said, “It may not have worked out but what we gave each other will last the rest of our lives.”

It was that line my friend and I remembered so well. So in a way, there was a happily ever after, after all.

 

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Floral in Fall

August 28, 2013

Working up a Fall product line doesn’t mean leaving your floral tendencies behind; the fashion designers certainly aren’t this coming year. From all I’ve read about upcoming trends, pattern in general will be a big focus and flowers, especially wispy wildflowers, daisies, and even dandelions, look to be the “in”thing. So how would you change things up from your Spring or Summer collection of blossoms?

Color will be primary in changing up for a Fall look. Although the Pantone palette for Fall has some rather bright colors, they are not pure colors or pastel. The Samba red and the Koi orange are both deeper and a step or two off their color origin, and the lighter colors are neutral more than anything; the Linden Green comes awfully close to being a kahki, and the Deep Lichen Green is more a cool gray than a green. So, can your flowers still be beautifully ornamental if toned down from their summer brilliance or if created in neutral colors? Of course!

Eva Thissen does neutral floral with a very delicate and controlled application of lines, small shapes, and contrast in color. In this case, we have a rich red heavily contrasting a neutral green (pretty much that Samba red and Linden green in the Pantone palette) with subdued blue, cream, pink, and brown flowers accenting the scene. Feminine, fetching, and definitely floral, there is the reserve and the richness associated with Fall, although I would be putting this in my jewelry rotation year round.

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Part of Eva’s distinction as a polymer artist is in her color choices. Although she is far from the only one to work heavily in the polymer embroidery technique, I find I easily recognize her work due to her color choices, not to mention the precision of application with those tiny bits of polymer and her penchant for story-like scenes. Enjoy perusing her Flickr pages and her enchanting pieces for a bit today.

 

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Transfers: A Treasure Trove of Possibilities

July 1, 2013

I have a bit of a love-hate view of transfers as an artistic technique in polymer in particular. On one hand, it’s such a cool, almost magical technique that can turn any bit of clay from flat to fabulous with minimal effort. That’s the beauty of it. However, since most polymer artists aren’t making their own images, the source of their transfers are sometimes copyrighted, which makes sharing or selling some work sticky or even unlawful. I’ve seen some gorgeous work I would have loved to share but I knew the images on the pieces were copyrighted and there was no evidence that the artist had acquired permission.

Then there is work where I have no idea if the images are copyrighted or not, which would be most of the transfer work I find online. Because of that, I’ve been reticent to share work with transfers; but at the same time, I don’t want to ignore what a great technique it can be. So I decided this week to go ahead and fearlessly share some transfer work and talk about some of the different ways you can use it and the variations that allow you to create more unique and personal work with your own imagery or imagery from other talented artists and designers.

Today, I just want to share some work that I personally really enjoy but have been remiss in sharing. Tejae Floyde is a fellow Coloradan with a penchant for hearts. And better yet, many of her hearts have secrets and surprises! I love the metaphorical use of a hidden heart embellished with a butterfly, an icon of flight and freedom,  inside a ornately decorated heart case.

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I believe the image used here is in the public domain, so reproduction is allowed. But better yet, the transfer is not the primary focus of the piece but rather part of a collective design. I particularly like seeing transfers that are worked into a design, whether they are the artist’s original image or not, because it allows the polymer’s beauty and advantages to come through so that the polymer and the transfer image complements each other.  It seems an ideal use of the technique.

If you haven’t experimented much with transfers, this might be the week to play with them. There are many different ways to create transfers, but here are a few to get you started:

A how-to from Tejae: www.tejaesart.com/how-to-polymer-clay-transfers/

If you like videos and are curious about how to create transfers on round of curved surfaces, check out this video by our friends at Polymer Clay Productions: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvQm45uQSzQ

And as for the copyright question, we’ll be saving that discussion for the end of the week. In the meantime, if you have images you would like to use in transfer and intend to sell it, familiarize yourself with public domain which can offer a multitude of beautiful images for your work. This page has a summary of US copyright and public domain terms you might want to keep bookmarked for future reference: www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm

 

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Cheery on Dark

September 4, 2012

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.

 

Questioning Focus

July 7, 2019
Posted in

“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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Embellished Hearts

December 28, 2018
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Now that I am safely ensconced at my sister’s house in Colorado I’ve been catching up on some social media, seeing what other people have been up to this week. I ran across Ron Lehocky’s Facebook page and although I was quite taken by his fabulous “ribbon wrapped” Christmas hearts but I found I most wanted to share these beaded bezel versions of Ron’s hearts created by expert beader Marcia Antle from Atlanta, Georgia, that Ron posted last month.

This is such an excellent pairing of mediums—not that polymer cabochons and beaded bezels are a new thing—but Ron’s hearts are already a collaborative endeavor as he takes scrap canes and surface-treated clay sent to him by other artists to create the majority of his hearts. Then to have a skilled bead artist continue the collaboration with this type of bezel work gives these pendants an unusual richness in their story and creative cooperation.  They have a feel-good quality that just fits the season

As you consider your goals and projects for the coming year, perhaps this type of thing will get you thinking about collaboration or mixing mediums. I have a feeling 2019 will be the year of leaps and bounds in mixing or crossing mediums with polymer clay. I know so many people with plans of that sort. It makes you very excited to see what 2019 has to bring.

Don’t forget to jump over to Ron Lehocky’s Facebook page to see the posts of these hearts and his other holiday centric pieces, if you’re not too tired of Christmas motifs and scroll down to November 28th to see more of Marcia’s beaded hearts.

 

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Put a Little Heart Into It

April 13, 2017
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Here is what caught my eye today.Anna Kokareva uneven heart earrings I decided to peruse Flickr this time and came upon the pages of Anna Kokareva (aka Annie Bimur) and although there were a lot of pieces to grab my attention, it was this pair of not quite matching earrings with the heart just hanging out among all the crackle that really grabbed me.

I was a little thrown by that initially since I’m not much of a heart girl but the contrast of the simple sweet heart in all that texture really spoke to me. The uncomplicated things in life, like pure love and joy, set against a back drop of chaos … this is often what life is like, isn’t it? We just have to stop and appreciate the beauty within the bedlam. And in this case, we can appreciate the differences between the two earrings and probably find a smile on our faces when the little heart catches us by surprise.

The one thing I would improve is actually the background of the image. It is usually better to use a contrasting background, especially where texture (and color) is concerned or your work can blend too much with it, as it tends to here.

More little surprises as well as a riot of color and texture can be found on Anna’s Flickr photostream.

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A Different Kind of Happily Ever After

February 9, 2015
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16260765847_497fb9958b_zSo this is the week I thought I’d try putting up some love stories and some art to go with those stories as a little homage to the upcoming Valentine’s holiday. I’m not a huge Valentine’s day person, more because of the commercialism and pressure it puts on couples but the general sentiment of the holiday … well, I think we should celebrate the love in our lives every day if we can.

I was talking to a friend of mine this weekend about this week’s blog project and was trying to explain the interesting mix of responses I got. I only got a few classic happy tearjerkers but then I got several sad but very loving stories. Half of the people who sent me stories did not not even want them posted. They just wanted to share it with me. My friend offered a couple suggestions as to why this was. She thought a lot of people might not share their story because either they don’t think its that special or because the best love story they had didn’t end with them staying together. So then the question arose, is it a love story if the people involved were no longer in love. “Well,” she said,”we both know a really good story that didn’t end with the couple staying together but its still a great story?” So I’m going to tell that first this week. This is a story about two people we used to know. We changed the names and a few details to protect the innocent  that don’t know we are writing about them.

We chose this heart off Pinterest to go with this story. It is a wonderful little piece by Betty Jo Hndershott and matches another conversation I had this week about simplicity. Simple is actually really hard to do well but this is one such example of a great success with simple things. This very solid faux ceramic heart has inside of it a wrapped up little wire heart. It has a great contrast in color, texture, size and line. When I saw it, I thought, the wire heart is like that fragile little thing inside the big love we all have, the thing we try to protect even though we can’t always keep it from harm.

So here’s the story, as best we can remember.

A Different Kind of Happily Ever After

It was James’ birthday and he was sitting at home alone. He had just moved to town after years of basically being a hermit. He felt misunderstood and had a violent childhood that had left him angry and closed off. But he wanted to change. He got online and posted a simple message on a message board:

“Songwriter/musician, new to town, just would like to have a drink and maybe see a live band with an intelligent pretty girl today because it’s my birthday. I’m smart and funny but I’m not tall or rich. Just an ordinary guy turning 31. Would you come make my night?”

He got a lot of responses like, “Ok, where do you want to meet?” But only one stood out:

“Hey songwriter/musician, new-to-town guy. Just wanted to drop in and wish you a happy birthday in case no one else does. I’m not the one to take you out for a drink though. I’m not ordinary, I’m tall for a girl, 8 years older than you, not a live music fan and I’m not much of a drinker. But know that at least one person out there is thinking of you and wishing you the best!”

James couldn’t resist. He wrote her back. They went back and forth, he giving her a hard time about not wanting to go out with a poor, short, young, ordinary guy and she coming back with funny quips about how he’d hate to hear about her crazy busy life of running charity events and trying to be an artist again. But then she stopped responding. He felt bad. Maybe his jokes went too far. But somehow even just that brief exchange made him feel better.

Valentine’s Day was a few weeks later. He decided he’d try his luck at getting out again. He read through some posts and this caught his eye:

“Anti-valentines Date—I don’t want to go on a Valentine’s date but don’t want to stay at home either. Feeling the same? Propose some wacky night out and let’s spend the night on our own terms.”

He wasn’t against Valentine’s Day but he did hate how society made you feel like some kind of loser not having someone on that day. So he wrote back. A minute late he got this:

“Lol. I don’t think you want to go out with me. You already kicked me to the curb on your birthday.”

It was that same woman he thought had stopped writing him! Apparently their last messages on his birthday didn’t make it through and they both thought the other had decided to end the conversation. He decided he wasn’t going to wait for Valentine’s. He wrote her back and said “What are you doing right now?”

A few hours later, they meet for coffee. He thought she was beautiful and she found his humor irresistibly charming. They talked and laughed for hours. They decided to have dinner the next night but that didn’t go as well. She had asked what he wanted from life and he said he just wanted something ordinary–work 9 to 5, come home, hang out with his girl and do simple things. She looked at him intensely and said, “No, you don’t.” It made him angry although he wasn’t sure why.

When they parted that night he thought he would never see her again. He was too ordinary and she was too driven for him. But he stayed awake all night thinking about it. And when he woke the next day he called her and said “Do you want to hear the story of my life.” She said yes and he told her all about it. She cried at moments and eventually told her own story. They both had been through a lot of difficult times. He dealt with it by being angry at the world; she dealt with it by constantly helping others but could never ask for help herself. They both distrusted others but in their hearts they wanted to. Their first big step came in trusting each other enough to fall in love.

Over the next four years, James self- managed his anger until it wasn’t a part of him anymore and Lynn made a point of asking people to help her out, even when she didn’t really need it. Together they both went out and met new people and grew a great new circle of friends. James started helping out at the fundraisers Lynn worked for and found out that he really liked organizing events which made him brave enough to get into working on music and other events. He was happy with his work for the first time in his life. Somewhere during that time James realized why he’d been angry that first dinner. He really didn’t want to be ordinary but he hadn’t known how to change that.

What he wanted–what they both wanted–was someone who made them more than they were on their own. For four years they did that for each other and grew personally and in their professional lives. In the end, they did not stay together. Lynn ended up traveling more than James could be happy with and James was heavily involved in the music community which he knew wasn’t Lynn’s thing. It came down to wanting lives that didn’t work well together. But that didn’t change the fact that they loved each other or that they still believed in each other. As far as we know, they still remain friends and as Lynn once said, “It may not have worked out but what we gave each other will last the rest of our lives.”

It was that line my friend and I remembered so well. So in a way, there was a happily ever after, after all.

 

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Floral in Fall

August 28, 2013
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Working up a Fall product line doesn’t mean leaving your floral tendencies behind; the fashion designers certainly aren’t this coming year. From all I’ve read about upcoming trends, pattern in general will be a big focus and flowers, especially wispy wildflowers, daisies, and even dandelions, look to be the “in”thing. So how would you change things up from your Spring or Summer collection of blossoms?

Color will be primary in changing up for a Fall look. Although the Pantone palette for Fall has some rather bright colors, they are not pure colors or pastel. The Samba red and the Koi orange are both deeper and a step or two off their color origin, and the lighter colors are neutral more than anything; the Linden Green comes awfully close to being a kahki, and the Deep Lichen Green is more a cool gray than a green. So, can your flowers still be beautifully ornamental if toned down from their summer brilliance or if created in neutral colors? Of course!

Eva Thissen does neutral floral with a very delicate and controlled application of lines, small shapes, and contrast in color. In this case, we have a rich red heavily contrasting a neutral green (pretty much that Samba red and Linden green in the Pantone palette) with subdued blue, cream, pink, and brown flowers accenting the scene. Feminine, fetching, and definitely floral, there is the reserve and the richness associated with Fall, although I would be putting this in my jewelry rotation year round.

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Part of Eva’s distinction as a polymer artist is in her color choices. Although she is far from the only one to work heavily in the polymer embroidery technique, I find I easily recognize her work due to her color choices, not to mention the precision of application with those tiny bits of polymer and her penchant for story-like scenes. Enjoy perusing her Flickr pages and her enchanting pieces for a bit today.

 

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Transfers: A Treasure Trove of Possibilities

July 1, 2013
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I have a bit of a love-hate view of transfers as an artistic technique in polymer in particular. On one hand, it’s such a cool, almost magical technique that can turn any bit of clay from flat to fabulous with minimal effort. That’s the beauty of it. However, since most polymer artists aren’t making their own images, the source of their transfers are sometimes copyrighted, which makes sharing or selling some work sticky or even unlawful. I’ve seen some gorgeous work I would have loved to share but I knew the images on the pieces were copyrighted and there was no evidence that the artist had acquired permission.

Then there is work where I have no idea if the images are copyrighted or not, which would be most of the transfer work I find online. Because of that, I’ve been reticent to share work with transfers; but at the same time, I don’t want to ignore what a great technique it can be. So I decided this week to go ahead and fearlessly share some transfer work and talk about some of the different ways you can use it and the variations that allow you to create more unique and personal work with your own imagery or imagery from other talented artists and designers.

Today, I just want to share some work that I personally really enjoy but have been remiss in sharing. Tejae Floyde is a fellow Coloradan with a penchant for hearts. And better yet, many of her hearts have secrets and surprises! I love the metaphorical use of a hidden heart embellished with a butterfly, an icon of flight and freedom,  inside a ornately decorated heart case.

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I believe the image used here is in the public domain, so reproduction is allowed. But better yet, the transfer is not the primary focus of the piece but rather part of a collective design. I particularly like seeing transfers that are worked into a design, whether they are the artist’s original image or not, because it allows the polymer’s beauty and advantages to come through so that the polymer and the transfer image complements each other.  It seems an ideal use of the technique.

If you haven’t experimented much with transfers, this might be the week to play with them. There are many different ways to create transfers, but here are a few to get you started:

A how-to from Tejae: www.tejaesart.com/how-to-polymer-clay-transfers/

If you like videos and are curious about how to create transfers on round of curved surfaces, check out this video by our friends at Polymer Clay Productions: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvQm45uQSzQ

And as for the copyright question, we’ll be saving that discussion for the end of the week. In the meantime, if you have images you would like to use in transfer and intend to sell it, familiarize yourself with public domain which can offer a multitude of beautiful images for your work. This page has a summary of US copyright and public domain terms you might want to keep bookmarked for future reference: www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm

 

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Cheery on Dark

September 4, 2012
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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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