One Element at a Time
February 3, 2019 Inspirational Art
I don’t know if you have ever considered, or found important, the fact that most polymer art is a collection of elements constructed into a single piece. Yes, I know I am stating the obvious here but consider the fact that most polymer art is put together in such a way as to make the individual elements blend into a cohesiveness whole. Have you ever considered that maybe each element can be its own little piece of art, even if it’s to be a part of something bigger?
If you make the work about each individual elements and not the single composition they are part of, you should be able to give yourself more freedom in the creative process. The idea would be to just focus on the single component in front of you without regard for the other parts it may eventually be joined with. Since you don’t have to consider any other elements you should be able to just let your mind and hands go play. You could, in fact, just create tons of individual pieces and then pull together the ones that you find relate and from that create a finished piece. There would be no pressure to make things work together or fit. Does that sound intriguing?
Elemental Artists
There are a lot of artists that do this almost exclusively. When Debbie Crothers creates, a finished piece is usually the last thing on her mind. She is in love with seeing what the material will do and spends most of her time playing and exploring. Once her stock builds up, or just whenever the bug bites her, then she will create finished pieces of wearable art.
Recently she has also been incorporating her love of found objects as you can see in the image above. This is just a part of a very long necklace of Debbie’s. (The whole of which I’ve not seen her posted anywhere but will be featured in the upcoming Polymer Journeys 2019 book. Look for pre-sale announcements this coming week.) Each individual component definitely stands on its own here since each individual polymer and found object component is framed. But you can also see, if you look at her work on Facebook or on her website, that her pieces are almost always a variety show, one that features the results of her exploration and just having fun with the clay.
Another cool thing about this type of artwork is that the viewer will probably want to look at each and every individual component. Just the variety heightens the interest in these kinds of pieces which means the people viewing it will spend more time looking at it and more time appreciating your work. That can really help in terms of sales too because the more time someone spends looking at a piece the more likely they will be to want to buy it.
I think this kind of intrigue born of variety may be the primary draw when it comes to the jewelry of Olga Ledneva. This piece you see here is a bit more dense and has more potential movement than her newer work but I thought it was also a good example of how all these pieces, together, create a textural canvas since they are all kind of dangling on top of each other, and yet, as cohesive as it feels, you still want to look carefully at each piece in the assembly. Olga’s Facebook page and Flickr photostream are good places to look around for other assembled element ideas.
I know those two ladies make some pretty interesting and complex components but don’t think you have to go to that extent. The individual elements you create in this process can be as simple as punched out squares such as you might see in one of Laurie Mika’s mosaics. I am such a fan of this kind of free-form collage work, one that allows you to simply show off the characteristics you love about working with clay. You can assemble bits of your alcohol ink treated sheets, mokume gane, complex canes, impressed clay components, or hand sculpted forms. A mosaic or even a necklace of just simple shapes can let those treatments and colors shine, each on their own.
Of course, this approach isn’t just for polymer clay. This brilliant green assemblage necklace by an artist known only as Gebrufa is all fabric and fiber, although some components could as easily have been polymer. My guess would be that she gave herself just the restriction of a limited color palette but otherwise made all the individual pieces as whimsy led her. Should you want to know that you can have a cohesive finished piece when you are done freely creating components, this kind of approach would give you a path to that while still creating with relative freedom.
So, have I got you thinking about the individual elements of your pieces in a different way now?
Planning and meticulously designing pieces is essential in many circumstances but letting yourself just explore can also be an important part of your artistic growth as it helps to free up and expand your creativity. Letting yourself just play can be hard to do when you don’t have a lot of time and you want the time you do have to result in finished pieces. Knowing you can focus on making great little individual components which you can later put together into a fabulous necklace or wall piece might just be the thing that gives you the license to let go and doodle away with your clay.
THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO:
- Want to CLAY OUT EAST or CLAY OUT WEST? Registration for both of this multi-instructor, 4 day workshop events are open now. Clay out East is in Atlantic City, New Jersey, June 12-15th and Clay out West will be held Sept 30 – Oct 3 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Here is the link for the East event’s registration. I couldn’t scare up a link for the West event registration but you can email them at clayoutwest@aol.com to get the details.
- Did you catch the “Make Your Own Silkscreens” article in the Summer 2018 issue of The Polymer Arts? It was so much fun to make these and right now, the company that made it so fun and easy, EZScreenPrint if having a 15% off sale but it ends today! Go here, and use coupon code JAN15. No minimum purchase required.
- Did you know that Poly Clay Play has a Shopping Discount Club? If you go through a lot of supplies (or just tend to get overly excited around polymer clay and tools and want to buy everything you see) this discount club could help in big ways. PCP is one of my favorite shops, especially for pastes, powders, and alcohol ink. She gets them all! Go here to check out the club deal or just shop around.
Always glad to get your feedback!
Last week we did some history, this week was about how you approach your work. Did you like the subject and did it get you thinking? Or do you thoughts on other things you’d like for me to research and write about? Just let me know. Write me in the comments below this post (click here if you are reading this in an email).
Stories in Pieces
April 20, 2017 Inspirational Art
Thank you for the responses on Tuesday’s mosaic. I loved reading your different views and loved the level of enthusiasm in the comments. I apologize that they took a day to show up–the mysterious ways of the internet did not let us in to approve them until late in the day. Technology often reminds me of when the kids were around four. You just never knew if or when they would cooperate. Actually, that reminds me of 14 year olds, too. But, wait … that is not our subject today!
We are going to get back to mosaics and I hope a few of you will chime in with your thoughts again. Let’s look at a completely different type from Cynthia Toops, who is just mad about micro mosaics.
Cynthia’s images often invoke a story but how important is the story to the success of the work? Do you easily find a story here, even with the disparate types of critters wedged into it? Do you not care if a story is easily drawn from this but enjoy it any ways? If so, why? Does it feel crowded to you or is the abundance of detail part of its charm?
Cynthia has a website here but her collaborative silversmithing partner, Chuck Domitrovich, keeps the best collection of their work on this Pinterest board.
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Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
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The Many Faces of Micro Mosaics
September 11, 2015 Inspirational Art
When we do an article related to a technique that has been explored by several artists, we try and include art by these other explorers of the technique, but when it came to Karen Mitchell‘s article on polymer micro mosaics there was just too much wonderful stuff that Karen was sharing to expand on it. The article includes a history of micro mosaics, how the originals were created (including images from Karen’s hands-on experience recreating this old art form) and a tutorial on how to design and construct them successfully in polymer, as well as an endearing story of her discovery and exploration of the technique. That didn’t leave a lot of room for extras.
So, here is an example of micro mosaics not unlike what Karen does, created by DDee Wilder. DDee created these ‘vertical micro mosaics’ almost exclusively in rings and put together an album of them on her Flickr page. She used simple narrow canes and extruded polymer strings for her tiny mosaic elements and played with the design born from the pattern of color they created. If you enjoyed Karen’s article and are intrigued by the idea, you definitely need to take a look at DDee’s rings. And if you haven’t gotten a chance to check out the micro mosaic article and tutorial, you can admire these while you wait for your very-soon-to-arrive subscriber’s copy (issues are still making their way to many of you on the East Coast especially and overseas), or you can order your copy directly from us or from the retailers listed on this page.
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
Dots and Bits and Limiting Labels
July 13, 2015 Inspirational Art
Today, let’s ponder a broad combination of themes from French artist, Ouedd. Here, lines of white dots play the part of contrast to densely gathered leaf forms with rich, graduated colors applied in a polymer embroidery-type manner. I also thought this might be called a type of mosaic, but do dense patterns of parts alone define a mosaic?
Merriam-Webster says mosaics are “a surface decoration made by inlaying small pieces of variously colored material to form pictures or patterns.” This would be a mosaic then, right? But, Google’s dictionary says, “A picture or design made from small pieces of colored tile, glass, or other material set in mortar.” Oh, well, it is not really set in a mortar. So, maybe it’s not mosaic.
I just think it is best to say it is a richly colored pendant whose erratic primary texture has been thoughtfully broken up by orderly white lines.
Of course, it really doesn’t matter what the type of work here is called. When we label something it is, in our mind and in the mind of anyone that ascribes to that application of the label, limited by that label. Take “polymer artist” as an example. If you consider yourself a polymer artist, do you forever limit your creative endeavors to polymer work only?
I do very much appreciate that we need labels in order to help us organize, in our minds, all the information that comes to us and all the people we meet, but it just seems like we could move beyond them with individuals we know, especially ourselves and, as an extension, the work we do. For instance, do you realize that, usually, when someone we just met asks “What you do?”, we usually say “I am …” tacking on the label that our work or career gives us. That is not what we ‘do’; that is what we ‘are’, or more precisely, what we label ourselves as. You could say “I’m a polymer artist”, but is that all you are? Maybe you could say, “I create polymer art … among other things.” Then you are this vast, complex, person of endless possibilities and action. Doesn’t that sound like a truer way of presenting ourselves? And without the label you are free to create whatever you like with whatever you like without worrying that you are falling outside of some boundaries.
I bring this up because I’ve had two conversations recently with people apologizing for not fitting a label they think the rest of the world may have put them under. My thoughts … it doesn’t matter. Do what you need to do and throw the labels out.
To see an example of art that shows off the endless possibilities of polymer and of artists who play with the medium, take a peek at Oeudd’s Flickr pages and her interesting array of work. Then there is Ouedd’s blog that is fun and a bit silly, especially if you don’t speak French and use the Google translator.
Parallel Lives
February 14, 2015 Inspirational Art
This last story was actually requested. By several readers. Why this handful of people knew there was this story to be told, I’m not sure. It is a lot like yesterday’s story, but with some significant differences, as well as a different kind of significance here. I think you’ll know what I’m getting at when you read it
The artwork here is not a piece by either in the story, but it’s something I’ve had saved for a while. Its not even polymer. But, really, it could be, and someone really needs to try this! It’s a glass mosaic created on a rock.
That is what artist Liz Tonkin does… she builds mosaics on rocks. Isn’t is gorgeous? Take a look at her Facebook page to find the most eye candy of this sort. Okay, enjoy that while reading the last of our ‘lovely’ stories this week.
Parallel Lives
Once upon a time, in a Los Angeles high school drama class, a charming boy with an amazingly cute smile sat down next to a very shy, self-conscious girl (who had unintentionally ended up in the class) and asked her to do a scene with him. She didn’t know why this guy, who every girl in class seemed to have a crush on, would ask her, but she said yes, so he suggested they get together that weekend and go over scenes.
That was the first of many weekends and many hours spent together. She was his first girlfriend and his first kiss. He was the first guy she actually fell in love with. Being young and uncertain though, they didn’t really know what they wanted and a rift developed. But, it wasn’t long before they worked out how to just be friends and would spent long hours at dingy coffee shops, comparing personal philosophies and talking about their art and writing. It was always so easy to just be themselves with each other.
They stayed irregular friends for nearly a decade, unintentionally following each other around, but rarely seeing each other. They went to the same community college, then the same four year college. Then he went on to a prestigious animation program north of L.A., and she moved to New Mexico. A a couple years later, they both ended up in San Francisco at the same time and returned to L.A. for a while when both were between jobs.
During that time, the girl turned to poetry, and he to painting, both looking at what filled their souls but not their pockets. Christmas day of 1993, they spent the afternoon with her family and still talked like they always did. But, it would be the last time they would talk for 20 years.
Soon after the year the girl met another guy, got married and moved to Colorado. The boy got serious about his career and soon met a woman through work and eventually got married. Neither marriage was good but, they were both the type of people who don’t give up easily, and they stayed for far too long in relationships that crushed their spirits. She had stopped writing her poetry, and he did little more than work.
After her inevitable divorce and several years of near solitude, she tried to find something meaningful with someone else, but there would always be angry words, or they would want her to give up her art or her writing that she kept trying to resurrect. So, the girl gave up on love and sunk herself into her work.
She would think back, however, and remember those few people in her past with whom she could always be herself, those bright lights on the horizon of her past, and started looking for them. Some she found, but not the boy from drama class who she wanted to see again more than anyone. She knew he’d become successful in animation as his name would roll by on the TV screen sometimes when her roommate watched cartoons, but she had no way to reach him.
Then one particularly trying day, when she looked back at the mess of a life she’d had, she thought of that boy again and decided she would search for him one more time. Suddenly, there he was, his still very cute smile staring out at her from a new blog of his. She wrote him and hoped he’d just say hi back. A few hours later he did. But he didn’t just say hi.
They talked every day from then on, in the same way they did 20 years before. A couple months later, the girl’s father became ill, and she drove out from Colorado to Los Angeles to help. The two old friends managed to meet up and then went out for a dinner that they lingered over until the place closed. It was then that the girl realized she was still in love with that boy, and, as it turned out, the boy had the very same realization about her. The girl, however, had been resigned to being alone the rest of her life, but the boy, he jumped off the deep end and just told her how he felt. She made him wait 6 weeks before she could finally say, “Yes, I feel the same. Now what?”
That all started just over a year ago. Somehow, even living a thousand miles apart and being about the two busiest people anyone could imagine, they make it work. They talk every day, try to see each other every month and are slowly breaking down all the cynicism built by the many years in between. Their lives still parallel each other, too; both working jobs that combine art and writing. Their big deadlines even land on the same weeks. They live in a similar rhythm, but, more often than not, many miles apart.
And yes, they sometimes wonder what would have happened if they had realized when they were young just how rare and precious it is to have someone you can be yourself with and who loves you just as you are. But, that boy and girl who met in a high school drama class are not the same boy and girl who met again last year. Maybe the years in between were not always happy ones, but it allowed them to become the kind of people who can appreciate and love each other the way two people really should.
The girl’s name is Sage. The boy’s name is Brett. We will spend this Valentine’s day a thousand miles apart, but still, we believe we are the two luckiest people in the whole darn universe.
Happy Valentine’s day to everyone out there. Cherish and appreciate the love in your life in all the forms and from all the souls that give it to you.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Mixing in Mosaics
March 13, 2014 Inspirational Art
This seems to be the week of mixing it up with polymer as well as intricate pieces. Here we have one of Susan Crocenzi‘s amazing mosaics that includes glass as well as polymer to build up an almost textile feel to this wall piece. The mosaic has a natural rhythm and flow of materials that allows the story to unfold sincerely. As Susan explain it, “Mosaic art offers us the sweet possibility that our own crazy, disjointed life-bits can yield peace, beauty, and meaning.”
This California artist teaches classes at her Grass Valley studio. To view more of her mosaics and learn more about her work, visit her Flickr site. There are more beautiful examples of her mosaics on her Facebook page. “Susan makes mosaics on steroids.” –Carol Herschieb, director of Nevada County Open Studios Tour.
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.
Building Off the Center Line
February 26, 2014 Inspirational Art
The work of Laurie Mika is rather mesmerizing. You can sit and stare and find new things for many long minutes as well as every time you return to a piece. And most everything she creates is built off a centered composition with balanced shapes if not textures and motifs on either side. This is in large part due to the shrine format that is the basis for much of her work.
Laurie is a mixed-media artist with a passion for combining and overlapping a variety of mediums to create her easily recognized style. If you would like to learn this technique, she teaches at ArtFest, Art Unraveled, Art and Soul, Raevn’s Nest and Hacienda Mosaico in Mexico. You can also check out her book, “Mixed-Media Mosaics: Techniques and Projects Using Polymer Clay Tiles, Beads, and Other Embellishments,” or her YouTube video. Or just wander through the couple dozen pages of her art on her website.
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.
This New Year Go Big
January 1, 2014 Inspirational Art
Happy New Year everyone! The Polymer Arts crowd wishes you all a joyful, healthy and creative year in 2014!
Now … how about trying something big this year?
Marie Davis from Vermont is inspired by the wonders of Mother Nature. She creates finely detailed designs by layering multi-colored polymer clays in a millefiori caning process. Her large pieces look to be mosaics of cane slices created as elements she pulls from her observation of nature. Here is a shot of a large wall piece called “The Forest”. Marie says “This piece is a response to a call to artists by Frog Hollow to choose a Grimm’s Fairy Tale and create a piece. The story I chose was Hansel and Gretel. This piece is behind glass and the trails end is lit from behind.”
Here is a detail shot of the beautifully meshed canes as well.
Maria says of her work, “I love the challenge of creating a piece that, like nature, captivates from a distance as well as rewarding the viewer who takes a closer look.” Take a closer look and be inspired by her micro world of canes as they morph into large fields of discovery by perusing more of her work on her website.
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.
I don’t know if you have ever considered, or found important, the fact that most polymer art is a collection of elements constructed into a single piece. Yes, I know I am stating the obvious here but consider the fact that most polymer art is put together in such a way as to make the individual elements blend into a cohesiveness whole. Have you ever considered that maybe each element can be its own little piece of art, even if it’s to be a part of something bigger?
If you make the work about each individual elements and not the single composition they are part of, you should be able to give yourself more freedom in the creative process. The idea would be to just focus on the single component in front of you without regard for the other parts it may eventually be joined with. Since you don’t have to consider any other elements you should be able to just let your mind and hands go play. You could, in fact, just create tons of individual pieces and then pull together the ones that you find relate and from that create a finished piece. There would be no pressure to make things work together or fit. Does that sound intriguing?
Elemental Artists
There are a lot of artists that do this almost exclusively. When Debbie Crothers creates, a finished piece is usually the last thing on her mind. She is in love with seeing what the material will do and spends most of her time playing and exploring. Once her stock builds up, or just whenever the bug bites her, then she will create finished pieces of wearable art.
Recently she has also been incorporating her love of found objects as you can see in the image above. This is just a part of a very long necklace of Debbie’s. (The whole of which I’ve not seen her posted anywhere but will be featured in the upcoming Polymer Journeys 2019 book. Look for pre-sale announcements this coming week.) Each individual component definitely stands on its own here since each individual polymer and found object component is framed. But you can also see, if you look at her work on Facebook or on her website, that her pieces are almost always a variety show, one that features the results of her exploration and just having fun with the clay.
Another cool thing about this type of artwork is that the viewer will probably want to look at each and every individual component. Just the variety heightens the interest in these kinds of pieces which means the people viewing it will spend more time looking at it and more time appreciating your work. That can really help in terms of sales too because the more time someone spends looking at a piece the more likely they will be to want to buy it.
I think this kind of intrigue born of variety may be the primary draw when it comes to the jewelry of Olga Ledneva. This piece you see here is a bit more dense and has more potential movement than her newer work but I thought it was also a good example of how all these pieces, together, create a textural canvas since they are all kind of dangling on top of each other, and yet, as cohesive as it feels, you still want to look carefully at each piece in the assembly. Olga’s Facebook page and Flickr photostream are good places to look around for other assembled element ideas.
I know those two ladies make some pretty interesting and complex components but don’t think you have to go to that extent. The individual elements you create in this process can be as simple as punched out squares such as you might see in one of Laurie Mika’s mosaics. I am such a fan of this kind of free-form collage work, one that allows you to simply show off the characteristics you love about working with clay. You can assemble bits of your alcohol ink treated sheets, mokume gane, complex canes, impressed clay components, or hand sculpted forms. A mosaic or even a necklace of just simple shapes can let those treatments and colors shine, each on their own.
Of course, this approach isn’t just for polymer clay. This brilliant green assemblage necklace by an artist known only as Gebrufa is all fabric and fiber, although some components could as easily have been polymer. My guess would be that she gave herself just the restriction of a limited color palette but otherwise made all the individual pieces as whimsy led her. Should you want to know that you can have a cohesive finished piece when you are done freely creating components, this kind of approach would give you a path to that while still creating with relative freedom.
So, have I got you thinking about the individual elements of your pieces in a different way now?
Planning and meticulously designing pieces is essential in many circumstances but letting yourself just explore can also be an important part of your artistic growth as it helps to free up and expand your creativity. Letting yourself just play can be hard to do when you don’t have a lot of time and you want the time you do have to result in finished pieces. Knowing you can focus on making great little individual components which you can later put together into a fabulous necklace or wall piece might just be the thing that gives you the license to let go and doodle away with your clay.
THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO:
- Want to CLAY OUT EAST or CLAY OUT WEST? Registration for both of this multi-instructor, 4 day workshop events are open now. Clay out East is in Atlantic City, New Jersey, June 12-15th and Clay out West will be held Sept 30 – Oct 3 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Here is the link for the East event’s registration. I couldn’t scare up a link for the West event registration but you can email them at clayoutwest@aol.com to get the details.
- Did you catch the “Make Your Own Silkscreens” article in the Summer 2018 issue of The Polymer Arts? It was so much fun to make these and right now, the company that made it so fun and easy, EZScreenPrint if having a 15% off sale but it ends today! Go here, and use coupon code JAN15. No minimum purchase required.
- Did you know that Poly Clay Play has a Shopping Discount Club? If you go through a lot of supplies (or just tend to get overly excited around polymer clay and tools and want to buy everything you see) this discount club could help in big ways. PCP is one of my favorite shops, especially for pastes, powders, and alcohol ink. She gets them all! Go here to check out the club deal or just shop around.
Always glad to get your feedback!
Last week we did some history, this week was about how you approach your work. Did you like the subject and did it get you thinking? Or do you thoughts on other things you’d like for me to research and write about? Just let me know. Write me in the comments below this post (click here if you are reading this in an email).
Read More
Thank you for the responses on Tuesday’s mosaic. I loved reading your different views and loved the level of enthusiasm in the comments. I apologize that they took a day to show up–the mysterious ways of the internet did not let us in to approve them until late in the day. Technology often reminds me of when the kids were around four. You just never knew if or when they would cooperate. Actually, that reminds me of 14 year olds, too. But, wait … that is not our subject today!
We are going to get back to mosaics and I hope a few of you will chime in with your thoughts again. Let’s look at a completely different type from Cynthia Toops, who is just mad about micro mosaics.
Cynthia’s images often invoke a story but how important is the story to the success of the work? Do you easily find a story here, even with the disparate types of critters wedged into it? Do you not care if a story is easily drawn from this but enjoy it any ways? If so, why? Does it feel crowded to you or is the abundance of detail part of its charm?
Cynthia has a website here but her collaborative silversmithing partner, Chuck Domitrovich, keeps the best collection of their work on this Pinterest board.
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Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
_________________________________________
Read MoreWhen we do an article related to a technique that has been explored by several artists, we try and include art by these other explorers of the technique, but when it came to Karen Mitchell‘s article on polymer micro mosaics there was just too much wonderful stuff that Karen was sharing to expand on it. The article includes a history of micro mosaics, how the originals were created (including images from Karen’s hands-on experience recreating this old art form) and a tutorial on how to design and construct them successfully in polymer, as well as an endearing story of her discovery and exploration of the technique. That didn’t leave a lot of room for extras.
So, here is an example of micro mosaics not unlike what Karen does, created by DDee Wilder. DDee created these ‘vertical micro mosaics’ almost exclusively in rings and put together an album of them on her Flickr page. She used simple narrow canes and extruded polymer strings for her tiny mosaic elements and played with the design born from the pattern of color they created. If you enjoyed Karen’s article and are intrigued by the idea, you definitely need to take a look at DDee’s rings. And if you haven’t gotten a chance to check out the micro mosaic article and tutorial, you can admire these while you wait for your very-soon-to-arrive subscriber’s copy (issues are still making their way to many of you on the East Coast especially and overseas), or you can order your copy directly from us or from the retailers listed on this page.
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:
Today, let’s ponder a broad combination of themes from French artist, Ouedd. Here, lines of white dots play the part of contrast to densely gathered leaf forms with rich, graduated colors applied in a polymer embroidery-type manner. I also thought this might be called a type of mosaic, but do dense patterns of parts alone define a mosaic?
Merriam-Webster says mosaics are “a surface decoration made by inlaying small pieces of variously colored material to form pictures or patterns.” This would be a mosaic then, right? But, Google’s dictionary says, “A picture or design made from small pieces of colored tile, glass, or other material set in mortar.” Oh, well, it is not really set in a mortar. So, maybe it’s not mosaic.
I just think it is best to say it is a richly colored pendant whose erratic primary texture has been thoughtfully broken up by orderly white lines.
Of course, it really doesn’t matter what the type of work here is called. When we label something it is, in our mind and in the mind of anyone that ascribes to that application of the label, limited by that label. Take “polymer artist” as an example. If you consider yourself a polymer artist, do you forever limit your creative endeavors to polymer work only?
I do very much appreciate that we need labels in order to help us organize, in our minds, all the information that comes to us and all the people we meet, but it just seems like we could move beyond them with individuals we know, especially ourselves and, as an extension, the work we do. For instance, do you realize that, usually, when someone we just met asks “What you do?”, we usually say “I am …” tacking on the label that our work or career gives us. That is not what we ‘do’; that is what we ‘are’, or more precisely, what we label ourselves as. You could say “I’m a polymer artist”, but is that all you are? Maybe you could say, “I create polymer art … among other things.” Then you are this vast, complex, person of endless possibilities and action. Doesn’t that sound like a truer way of presenting ourselves? And without the label you are free to create whatever you like with whatever you like without worrying that you are falling outside of some boundaries.
I bring this up because I’ve had two conversations recently with people apologizing for not fitting a label they think the rest of the world may have put them under. My thoughts … it doesn’t matter. Do what you need to do and throw the labels out.
To see an example of art that shows off the endless possibilities of polymer and of artists who play with the medium, take a peek at Oeudd’s Flickr pages and her interesting array of work. Then there is Ouedd’s blog that is fun and a bit silly, especially if you don’t speak French and use the Google translator.
This last story was actually requested. By several readers. Why this handful of people knew there was this story to be told, I’m not sure. It is a lot like yesterday’s story, but with some significant differences, as well as a different kind of significance here. I think you’ll know what I’m getting at when you read it
The artwork here is not a piece by either in the story, but it’s something I’ve had saved for a while. Its not even polymer. But, really, it could be, and someone really needs to try this! It’s a glass mosaic created on a rock.
That is what artist Liz Tonkin does… she builds mosaics on rocks. Isn’t is gorgeous? Take a look at her Facebook page to find the most eye candy of this sort. Okay, enjoy that while reading the last of our ‘lovely’ stories this week.
Parallel Lives
Once upon a time, in a Los Angeles high school drama class, a charming boy with an amazingly cute smile sat down next to a very shy, self-conscious girl (who had unintentionally ended up in the class) and asked her to do a scene with him. She didn’t know why this guy, who every girl in class seemed to have a crush on, would ask her, but she said yes, so he suggested they get together that weekend and go over scenes.
That was the first of many weekends and many hours spent together. She was his first girlfriend and his first kiss. He was the first guy she actually fell in love with. Being young and uncertain though, they didn’t really know what they wanted and a rift developed. But, it wasn’t long before they worked out how to just be friends and would spent long hours at dingy coffee shops, comparing personal philosophies and talking about their art and writing. It was always so easy to just be themselves with each other.
They stayed irregular friends for nearly a decade, unintentionally following each other around, but rarely seeing each other. They went to the same community college, then the same four year college. Then he went on to a prestigious animation program north of L.A., and she moved to New Mexico. A a couple years later, they both ended up in San Francisco at the same time and returned to L.A. for a while when both were between jobs.
During that time, the girl turned to poetry, and he to painting, both looking at what filled their souls but not their pockets. Christmas day of 1993, they spent the afternoon with her family and still talked like they always did. But, it would be the last time they would talk for 20 years.
Soon after the year the girl met another guy, got married and moved to Colorado. The boy got serious about his career and soon met a woman through work and eventually got married. Neither marriage was good but, they were both the type of people who don’t give up easily, and they stayed for far too long in relationships that crushed their spirits. She had stopped writing her poetry, and he did little more than work.
After her inevitable divorce and several years of near solitude, she tried to find something meaningful with someone else, but there would always be angry words, or they would want her to give up her art or her writing that she kept trying to resurrect. So, the girl gave up on love and sunk herself into her work.
She would think back, however, and remember those few people in her past with whom she could always be herself, those bright lights on the horizon of her past, and started looking for them. Some she found, but not the boy from drama class who she wanted to see again more than anyone. She knew he’d become successful in animation as his name would roll by on the TV screen sometimes when her roommate watched cartoons, but she had no way to reach him.
Then one particularly trying day, when she looked back at the mess of a life she’d had, she thought of that boy again and decided she would search for him one more time. Suddenly, there he was, his still very cute smile staring out at her from a new blog of his. She wrote him and hoped he’d just say hi back. A few hours later he did. But he didn’t just say hi.
They talked every day from then on, in the same way they did 20 years before. A couple months later, the girl’s father became ill, and she drove out from Colorado to Los Angeles to help. The two old friends managed to meet up and then went out for a dinner that they lingered over until the place closed. It was then that the girl realized she was still in love with that boy, and, as it turned out, the boy had the very same realization about her. The girl, however, had been resigned to being alone the rest of her life, but the boy, he jumped off the deep end and just told her how he felt. She made him wait 6 weeks before she could finally say, “Yes, I feel the same. Now what?”
That all started just over a year ago. Somehow, even living a thousand miles apart and being about the two busiest people anyone could imagine, they make it work. They talk every day, try to see each other every month and are slowly breaking down all the cynicism built by the many years in between. Their lives still parallel each other, too; both working jobs that combine art and writing. Their big deadlines even land on the same weeks. They live in a similar rhythm, but, more often than not, many miles apart.
And yes, they sometimes wonder what would have happened if they had realized when they were young just how rare and precious it is to have someone you can be yourself with and who loves you just as you are. But, that boy and girl who met in a high school drama class are not the same boy and girl who met again last year. Maybe the years in between were not always happy ones, but it allowed them to become the kind of people who can appreciate and love each other the way two people really should.
The girl’s name is Sage. The boy’s name is Brett. We will spend this Valentine’s day a thousand miles apart, but still, we believe we are the two luckiest people in the whole darn universe.
Happy Valentine’s day to everyone out there. Cherish and appreciate the love in your life in all the forms and from all the souls that give it to you.
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Read MoreThis seems to be the week of mixing it up with polymer as well as intricate pieces. Here we have one of Susan Crocenzi‘s amazing mosaics that includes glass as well as polymer to build up an almost textile feel to this wall piece. The mosaic has a natural rhythm and flow of materials that allows the story to unfold sincerely. As Susan explain it, “Mosaic art offers us the sweet possibility that our own crazy, disjointed life-bits can yield peace, beauty, and meaning.”
This California artist teaches classes at her Grass Valley studio. To view more of her mosaics and learn more about her work, visit her Flickr site. There are more beautiful examples of her mosaics on her Facebook page. “Susan makes mosaics on steroids.” –Carol Herschieb, director of Nevada County Open Studios Tour.
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Read MoreThe work of Laurie Mika is rather mesmerizing. You can sit and stare and find new things for many long minutes as well as every time you return to a piece. And most everything she creates is built off a centered composition with balanced shapes if not textures and motifs on either side. This is in large part due to the shrine format that is the basis for much of her work.
Laurie is a mixed-media artist with a passion for combining and overlapping a variety of mediums to create her easily recognized style. If you would like to learn this technique, she teaches at ArtFest, Art Unraveled, Art and Soul, Raevn’s Nest and Hacienda Mosaico in Mexico. You can also check out her book, “Mixed-Media Mosaics: Techniques and Projects Using Polymer Clay Tiles, Beads, and Other Embellishments,” or her YouTube video. Or just wander through the couple dozen pages of her art on her website.
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.
Read MoreHappy New Year everyone! The Polymer Arts crowd wishes you all a joyful, healthy and creative year in 2014!
Now … how about trying something big this year?
Marie Davis from Vermont is inspired by the wonders of Mother Nature. She creates finely detailed designs by layering multi-colored polymer clays in a millefiori caning process. Her large pieces look to be mosaics of cane slices created as elements she pulls from her observation of nature. Here is a shot of a large wall piece called “The Forest”. Marie says “This piece is a response to a call to artists by Frog Hollow to choose a Grimm’s Fairy Tale and create a piece. The story I chose was Hansel and Gretel. This piece is behind glass and the trails end is lit from behind.”
Here is a detail shot of the beautifully meshed canes as well.
Maria says of her work, “I love the challenge of creating a piece that, like nature, captivates from a distance as well as rewarding the viewer who takes a closer look.” Take a closer look and be inspired by her micro world of canes as they morph into large fields of discovery by perusing more of her work on her website.
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.
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