Body of Work
June 20, 2017 Inspirational Art
Looking over a collection of work can tell you quite a bit about an artist and what intrigues them. The posts this week will give us a chance to consider, in a more complete and varied way, what an artist might be doing or be after in particular types of work.
Carole Monahan-Kampfe recently posted some rather intriguing pieces in what she refers to as her Steampunk collection but instead of jewelry, it looks like we are seeing a lot of ornaments. We are looking at Swellegant treatments (click the ad link below for more on this fascinating stuff) which make for some very yummy textures but the various shapes and variation on an ornament is what is most captivating about this work.
Although she is calling it steampunk and the influence of that aesthetic is there, many of the common motifs are, gratefully, missing and we can enjoy the exploration of the surface treatment and the manipulation of the ornament forms. I love the negative space in the ones with the floating centers and then those forms that are folding in on themselves which she calls Infinity Orbs. No standard ornament forms here either. Carole actually looks to be taking not the motifs and objects from the Steampunk arena but rather the inventive nature it is supposed to be representative of. Regardless, the choice of shapes and decorative touches are beautiful and more so in a collection like this where the various take on the elements and forms can be compared and contrasted.
The orbs at least, she lists as being made with Makin’s clay which is an air dry clay, rather than polymer but this could all be done with polymer as well of course. Carole just likes to try all kinds of things out as you can see on her Flickr photostream–another method of looking at an artist’s collection of work and over time at that. In this collection though, she seems to have really hit her stride and I hope she keeps playing with these ideas.
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
_________________________________________
News of the Day and Steampunk Fairies
April 30, 2015 Inspirational Art
We are going to interrupt our normal banter about art to talk a little about the news of the day and some upcoming news here at TPA. If you want to skip to the information about this wonderfully detailed doll, scroll to the bottom of the post.
The Perilous World of Niche Publishing
A number of things have happened over the last few months and especially the last few days, that has really driven home the hard reality of being a niche periodical publisher. Early in the year we saw Metal Clay Artist shut their doors due to their distributor going bankrupt and unable to pay them. Yesterday, we got the news that From Polymer to Art is closing up shop due to the burden of a difficult personal loss. After that announcement I got several texts and messages asking if our magazine is doing okay. The answer is, yes, TPA is doing well. But, we micro publishers do sit very precariously in this world.
I was reminded of this last week when computer issues resulted in nearly 4 days of lost work. Then not one, but two contributors had to pull out due to health and personal issue. To top it off, I tore a cornea a few days ago and was unable to work for any length of time for several days.
As I lay there, eyes closed trying not to move my eyeballs, praying this corneal tear was not a bad one (I have weak corneas so this is not a new thing for me and luckily this wasn’t a bad one), I thought about how easy it would for this business go down. If I couldn’t work for a time, the magazine would simply not happen. Many niche and material specific craft magazines are in a similar boat. There is usually just one or two people holding it together.
Behind the Scenes of The Polymer Arts
For those of you who don’t know, TPA is run out of my home, and I am the only full-time person on the crew. I have a handful of wonderful part-time contractors, a couple amazing volunteers and a distribution partnership with The Great Create (manufacturers and distributors of Lisa Pavelka and Christi Friesen products). I have it so things won’t come to a screeching halt if I am out of commission for any length of time, but nothing further would be produced. So, I have to keep going no matter what to keep this house of cards from falling down.
Now, why would I do this to myself and ultimately to my readers? Simply because there is no other way it could exist. Periodicals are not the cash cows they may seem to be. Every business and service we deal with takes an inordinately large chunk, and then often asks for more. There’s no much left for staffing. So we work more, sleep less and live off your beautiful thank you emails and messages about how we’ve provided motivation, courage, knowledge or inspiration for you to do something you could not or would not do before. These notes may not pay the bills, but they bury any regrets that rise up as we sit editing or number crunching at 3 am.
So bottom line, TPA is not in any danger, but we have our challenges. I like to think that the universe is just checking to see if I really still want to do this. The answer is yes! Just keep supporting the micro businesses you love and depend on with whatever purchases you can afford and we’ll keep working away.
Odd Blog for the month of May
That all said, this coming month, we will have more than our usual share of challenges. The house will be under construction for about a week, I will be relocating my office to another room, and there is also a good possibility I’ll need a minor bit of surgery at some point. On top of all this, there is the Summer issue to get out, which is going to be later than scheduled, although, it should be released before May is up. In other words, it’s going to be nuts, and something will have to give. So here’s the deal …
During the month of May, I am going to reduce the blog to 3 times a week. Even with this, you may be seeing some very brief posts. I’ll do what I can, but please be understanding if things get a little lean over here.
Newsletters, if you get those, will also be on the short side. But, I promise they will be worth opening nonetheless!
Also, if you have general questions, comments, or any kind of query about the magazine or your subscription, to get a quick response, you will want to write my wonderful assistant Kat, not me directly, at connect(not sbray)@thepolymerarts.com, and she will get back to you within one business day.
A Steampunk Fairy
In the meantime, enjoy this beautiful doll by Amanda Haney. I couldn’t go through this week without taking a bow to the polymer fairies. Fairies must be the most commonly produced polymer doll. I know that may not make this seem unique enough to present, but there is a reason for their popularity that can’t be ignore. They are charming, and polymer lends itself to truly fantastical creations.
Amanda’s Steampunk Moon Fairy includes some fun little touches like the moon morphing into (or out of) a gear at the top, and the bones of the wings being replaced with hinged bars and gears. It’s just a fun piece. And fun is certainly a legitimate mode of art.
Find more of Amanda’s skillfully crafted dolls on her pages on Elfwood, a long-standing home for Science Fiction and Fantasy artists to post their portfolios.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine, as well as by supporting our advertising partners.
Design Inspired by Man-Made
September 16, 2013 Inspirational Art
We spend a lot of time looking at inspiration that comes directly from nature here so I thought this week we should look at things inspired by man. That turned out to be a tall order. Man-made inspiration seems to make up only a fraction of inspiring sources for polymer artists which made finding subjects for this week’s theme challenging. It is even more challenging if I try to eliminate man-made creations that were inspired by nature themselves. It all comes back to nature at some point, really, but this week I aim to find work inspired by our purely functional forms. We’ll see how that goes.
Of course, when you first think about man-made inspiration in our community, the steampunk trend is likely to come immediately to mind. I will try not to make this a steampunk week but let’s start with that as a first example. Mind you, I like the steampunk aesthetic having been exposed to its basics even before there was such a categorized aesthetic but it is harder and harder to find it done well these days.
I think the original idea of steampunk–an fantasy-esque alternate history of Victorian times with anachronistic technology–has been rather buried under some misconception that it can be simply represented by the presence of watch gears. I am not a purist and I don’t believe an idea should be preserved in its original form just for the sake of preserving it but it is a little disappointing that the idea of steampunk or even just the borrowing of elements of that aesthetic is so often used as the only reason for creating a piece rather than creating work that calls for including such elements.
What exactly does that mean? Well, you can say “I want to create a steampunk piece based on a heart shape.” That’s fine but I would not call that making art. If you instead wanted to show the idea of love being an automated emotion for some people or if you wanted to contrast human emotion with the machinery of our every day world then a heart that has gears and metal plates created with these concepts in mind could become art as long as it also follows rules of good design.
The fact is, too much steampunkery is slapped together without concern for concept or good design. Watch gears and screw heads tossed onto a form do not alone make a piece beautiful or interesting. So I decided my first task was to find a piece that was inspired by steampunk but for which good design obviously came first. I think this piece by Australia’s Sabine Spiesser is exactly that. Can you see why?
In this piece Sabine uses watch gears as visual design elements, creating lines and focal points within the beads that make up this necklace. She is visually presenting an abstraction, time, as a rich and beautiful concept with movement, color and texture. The gears are laid out in an orderly fashion which can be read as reflecting on how we use the organizational construct of time. Time visually winds its way through the piece, presenting itself in both large a small ways in much the same way as we think of time with its big and small moments in our lives. I can’t say that Sabine had these specific ideas in mind as she created the necklace but she does end up with a piece using watch parts to build and support the design, not to have watch gears just for the sake of it.
This is a really detailed piece so you will want to be sure to visit her Flickr page and see the piece in her detailed shots as well as look at the beautiful pieces she’s been making of late. She has really done some great work expanding on Eugena’s faux cloisonné technique as well as creating work that is becoming more and more recognizable as her own fresh, original, artistic voice.
Steampunk Flash Drive
March 2, 2013 Inspirational Art
Just a fun piece to share with you today. We’ve been working on the next issue which is themed “Mixed Media” so covering objects has, of course, come up and is the focus on one of the feature articles. This fun and detailed flash drive created by Lynn Reno is one the items I came across while researching possibilities.
Pretty nifty, huh? We have so many very ordinary objects around us but they don’t need to stay ordinary. What can you add to something you use or see regularly to bring a little more art and beauty to your day?
Looking over a collection of work can tell you quite a bit about an artist and what intrigues them. The posts this week will give us a chance to consider, in a more complete and varied way, what an artist might be doing or be after in particular types of work.
Carole Monahan-Kampfe recently posted some rather intriguing pieces in what she refers to as her Steampunk collection but instead of jewelry, it looks like we are seeing a lot of ornaments. We are looking at Swellegant treatments (click the ad link below for more on this fascinating stuff) which make for some very yummy textures but the various shapes and variation on an ornament is what is most captivating about this work.
Although she is calling it steampunk and the influence of that aesthetic is there, many of the common motifs are, gratefully, missing and we can enjoy the exploration of the surface treatment and the manipulation of the ornament forms. I love the negative space in the ones with the floating centers and then those forms that are folding in on themselves which she calls Infinity Orbs. No standard ornament forms here either. Carole actually looks to be taking not the motifs and objects from the Steampunk arena but rather the inventive nature it is supposed to be representative of. Regardless, the choice of shapes and decorative touches are beautiful and more so in a collection like this where the various take on the elements and forms can be compared and contrasted.
The orbs at least, she lists as being made with Makin’s clay which is an air dry clay, rather than polymer but this could all be done with polymer as well of course. Carole just likes to try all kinds of things out as you can see on her Flickr photostream–another method of looking at an artist’s collection of work and over time at that. In this collection though, she seems to have really hit her stride and I hope she keeps playing with these ideas.
_________________________________________
Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
_________________________________________
Read MoreWe are going to interrupt our normal banter about art to talk a little about the news of the day and some upcoming news here at TPA. If you want to skip to the information about this wonderfully detailed doll, scroll to the bottom of the post.
The Perilous World of Niche Publishing
A number of things have happened over the last few months and especially the last few days, that has really driven home the hard reality of being a niche periodical publisher. Early in the year we saw Metal Clay Artist shut their doors due to their distributor going bankrupt and unable to pay them. Yesterday, we got the news that From Polymer to Art is closing up shop due to the burden of a difficult personal loss. After that announcement I got several texts and messages asking if our magazine is doing okay. The answer is, yes, TPA is doing well. But, we micro publishers do sit very precariously in this world.
I was reminded of this last week when computer issues resulted in nearly 4 days of lost work. Then not one, but two contributors had to pull out due to health and personal issue. To top it off, I tore a cornea a few days ago and was unable to work for any length of time for several days.
As I lay there, eyes closed trying not to move my eyeballs, praying this corneal tear was not a bad one (I have weak corneas so this is not a new thing for me and luckily this wasn’t a bad one), I thought about how easy it would for this business go down. If I couldn’t work for a time, the magazine would simply not happen. Many niche and material specific craft magazines are in a similar boat. There is usually just one or two people holding it together.
Behind the Scenes of The Polymer Arts
For those of you who don’t know, TPA is run out of my home, and I am the only full-time person on the crew. I have a handful of wonderful part-time contractors, a couple amazing volunteers and a distribution partnership with The Great Create (manufacturers and distributors of Lisa Pavelka and Christi Friesen products). I have it so things won’t come to a screeching halt if I am out of commission for any length of time, but nothing further would be produced. So, I have to keep going no matter what to keep this house of cards from falling down.
Now, why would I do this to myself and ultimately to my readers? Simply because there is no other way it could exist. Periodicals are not the cash cows they may seem to be. Every business and service we deal with takes an inordinately large chunk, and then often asks for more. There’s no much left for staffing. So we work more, sleep less and live off your beautiful thank you emails and messages about how we’ve provided motivation, courage, knowledge or inspiration for you to do something you could not or would not do before. These notes may not pay the bills, but they bury any regrets that rise up as we sit editing or number crunching at 3 am.
So bottom line, TPA is not in any danger, but we have our challenges. I like to think that the universe is just checking to see if I really still want to do this. The answer is yes! Just keep supporting the micro businesses you love and depend on with whatever purchases you can afford and we’ll keep working away.
Odd Blog for the month of May
That all said, this coming month, we will have more than our usual share of challenges. The house will be under construction for about a week, I will be relocating my office to another room, and there is also a good possibility I’ll need a minor bit of surgery at some point. On top of all this, there is the Summer issue to get out, which is going to be later than scheduled, although, it should be released before May is up. In other words, it’s going to be nuts, and something will have to give. So here’s the deal …
During the month of May, I am going to reduce the blog to 3 times a week. Even with this, you may be seeing some very brief posts. I’ll do what I can, but please be understanding if things get a little lean over here.
Newsletters, if you get those, will also be on the short side. But, I promise they will be worth opening nonetheless!
Also, if you have general questions, comments, or any kind of query about the magazine or your subscription, to get a quick response, you will want to write my wonderful assistant Kat, not me directly, at connect(not sbray)@thepolymerarts.com, and she will get back to you within one business day.
A Steampunk Fairy
In the meantime, enjoy this beautiful doll by Amanda Haney. I couldn’t go through this week without taking a bow to the polymer fairies. Fairies must be the most commonly produced polymer doll. I know that may not make this seem unique enough to present, but there is a reason for their popularity that can’t be ignore. They are charming, and polymer lends itself to truly fantastical creations.
Amanda’s Steampunk Moon Fairy includes some fun little touches like the moon morphing into (or out of) a gear at the top, and the bones of the wings being replaced with hinged bars and gears. It’s just a fun piece. And fun is certainly a legitimate mode of art.
Find more of Amanda’s skillfully crafted dolls on her pages on Elfwood, a long-standing home for Science Fiction and Fantasy artists to post their portfolios.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine, as well as by supporting our advertising partners.
Read MoreWe spend a lot of time looking at inspiration that comes directly from nature here so I thought this week we should look at things inspired by man. That turned out to be a tall order. Man-made inspiration seems to make up only a fraction of inspiring sources for polymer artists which made finding subjects for this week’s theme challenging. It is even more challenging if I try to eliminate man-made creations that were inspired by nature themselves. It all comes back to nature at some point, really, but this week I aim to find work inspired by our purely functional forms. We’ll see how that goes.
Of course, when you first think about man-made inspiration in our community, the steampunk trend is likely to come immediately to mind. I will try not to make this a steampunk week but let’s start with that as a first example. Mind you, I like the steampunk aesthetic having been exposed to its basics even before there was such a categorized aesthetic but it is harder and harder to find it done well these days.
I think the original idea of steampunk–an fantasy-esque alternate history of Victorian times with anachronistic technology–has been rather buried under some misconception that it can be simply represented by the presence of watch gears. I am not a purist and I don’t believe an idea should be preserved in its original form just for the sake of preserving it but it is a little disappointing that the idea of steampunk or even just the borrowing of elements of that aesthetic is so often used as the only reason for creating a piece rather than creating work that calls for including such elements.
What exactly does that mean? Well, you can say “I want to create a steampunk piece based on a heart shape.” That’s fine but I would not call that making art. If you instead wanted to show the idea of love being an automated emotion for some people or if you wanted to contrast human emotion with the machinery of our every day world then a heart that has gears and metal plates created with these concepts in mind could become art as long as it also follows rules of good design.
The fact is, too much steampunkery is slapped together without concern for concept or good design. Watch gears and screw heads tossed onto a form do not alone make a piece beautiful or interesting. So I decided my first task was to find a piece that was inspired by steampunk but for which good design obviously came first. I think this piece by Australia’s Sabine Spiesser is exactly that. Can you see why?
In this piece Sabine uses watch gears as visual design elements, creating lines and focal points within the beads that make up this necklace. She is visually presenting an abstraction, time, as a rich and beautiful concept with movement, color and texture. The gears are laid out in an orderly fashion which can be read as reflecting on how we use the organizational construct of time. Time visually winds its way through the piece, presenting itself in both large a small ways in much the same way as we think of time with its big and small moments in our lives. I can’t say that Sabine had these specific ideas in mind as she created the necklace but she does end up with a piece using watch parts to build and support the design, not to have watch gears just for the sake of it.
This is a really detailed piece so you will want to be sure to visit her Flickr page and see the piece in her detailed shots as well as look at the beautiful pieces she’s been making of late. She has really done some great work expanding on Eugena’s faux cloisonné technique as well as creating work that is becoming more and more recognizable as her own fresh, original, artistic voice.
Read More
Just a fun piece to share with you today. We’ve been working on the next issue which is themed “Mixed Media” so covering objects has, of course, come up and is the focus on one of the feature articles. This fun and detailed flash drive created by Lynn Reno is one the items I came across while researching possibilities.
Pretty nifty, huh? We have so many very ordinary objects around us but they don’t need to stay ordinary. What can you add to something you use or see regularly to bring a little more art and beauty to your day?
Read More