A Feast of Canes
March 7, 2017
Inspirational Art
The Spring issue is out and as usual, there is a bit of chatter on it out there in the social network world but there is an unusually high level of enthusiasm out there this issue. Is it that fabulously colorful cover? The wide variety of articles by or about amazing artists like Donna Greenberg, Christi Friesen, Wiwat Kalmpornjiwit, and Sylvie Peraud? So far the most talked about articles are the Lariat making, Donna’s inspiration from the past and Christi’s treatise on armatures which was pretty eye-opening since she picked the brains of some of the most amazing artists for which armatures are essential, namely Ellen Jewett (with that incredible opening piece!) and Adam Thomas Rees who I knew built his own animal shapes but had no idea how he did these huge things. But Christi revealed that for us.
The one thing we couldn’t do in Christi’s article was blow up some of the images so you could really see the detail of the work these artist’s do. Adam layers canes onto animal shapes in a manner reminiscent of Jon Anderson though they were developing their work around the same time so I don’t think Adam came to this idea from seeing Jon’s work although either of them may have influenced the other since. But other than canes on animal shapes, they have different approaches. Adam’s pieces are huge and his canes are large, broad patterns and often very bright. He sometimes mixes up other sculptural textures and additions to his creatures that create a feast of interesting details for the eye to roam over. The hanging matted hair like texture built up on this one creates a swath of white to give the eye a resting place below all that intense color and pattern above.
Just open Adam’s website and try not to be startled by the creature staring out at you. It’s beautiful but intense! Take some time out today and enjoy Adams colorful patterns in his galleries. And grab your copy of the Spring issue of The Polymer Arts on our website here.
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Spring Issue Has Sprung!
March 4, 2017
The Polymer Arts magazine news
Ta da! The first issue of 2017 is coming out today (scheduled for 11am PST) and, I know I am usually extremely enthusiastic about every issue but this one has so many wildly passionate artists sharing their process and their secrets. It is really heart-warming how much these people share. There are also a lot of cool techniques and new forms to learn, not to mention a few different ways to get and stay inspired in your own creative polymer endeavors. We really hope you like it!
If you are a digital subscriber, look for it in your inbox (or check your junkmail/spam folder if it’s not there) or, if you have a print copy coming to you, they were shipped out yesterday.
If you don’t have your copy on order yet, head over to the website and get yours now. www.thepolymerarts.com
Now I am going to go play with clay. That’s how I relax after a new issue goes out! How about you?
Weekly Inspirational Challenge: Let’s make this weekend simple. Create something in a familiar, easy and uncomplicated design and set of techniques. See what design choices come to you instinctively and just enjoy the process!
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Standard in Stripes
March 2, 2017
Inspirational Art
So many artists spend an inordinately large amount of time looking for the next really cool and totally different thing that will get them all kinds of attention and make their work stand out. But here is the thing … nothing is really new anymore. It’s just a variation of something that was done before. Thinking and creating with this in mind can be so freeing. It allows you to just create what you love or what you want to express.
And some days you just want to be simple, clean and use some no-fuss forms and applications. Nothing wrong with that. Go for it. You can see how a basic striped composition on a bangle shape and a couple of lentil earrings did for Julia Peker‘s approach. Choosing an array of both visual and tactile textures gives this variation within the limitations of a palette of subdued and tinted cool colors. Nothing crazy or new design wise, but it pulls off a tasteful and understated elegance that most anyone can appreciate.
Julia takes notes from a lot of other polymer artists as can be seen in her work so I suspect she is still working on her voice but I think I see it emerging. Her postings look to be relegated to Instagram for the moment but I would be interested to see how her work develops. We’ll keep an eye out!ow
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Simple Efforts
February 28, 2017
Inspirational Art
Some days, you just want things simple. You know … you head off to the studio or to work and you hope for something that is not going to bend your brain or make you feel all beat up and worn out when you’re done, even if it is successful. Some days, you just want to take it easy.
You can do this in the studio any time and, regardless of your simple approach, you can still get stunning results. The funny thing is, you can set aside all the complex techniques and the tricky materials and you may still end up making something that takes you all day. I think that once we engage the creative mind, it will just keep going on its own momentum even when you were thinking that you wanted to do something quick and easy.
I think that is what Veruschka Stevens was thinking when she first sat down to create this necklace she calls Prorsum. As she says:
I generally use different techniques that vary in complexity for making our jewelry. This necklace in particular was made using the simplest technique I know. However it is equally one of the most time-consuming and very much detail-oriented as well.
You can see some great close up views of this piece as well as its inspiration and a “how I made it” video on her blog. Also stop to take a look at her interesting approach to marketing herself and her jewelry on her website here .
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All Out Pattern
February 25, 2017
Inspirational Art
Okay … so you know how I’ve been saying all week that you can’t lean on pattern alone. Well, I meant it but there is one kind of exception to that rule and that is, if you are going to do a lot of pattern, go all out with a lot of variation and then be reserved in other design elements so it doesn’t look messy. And this is what I mean by that.
Louise Fischer Cozzi focuses on pattern a lot. She will silkscreen, image transfer, etch, stamp or whatever suits to get the pattern down. I know this would have been made after she got more heavily into silkscreening but I can’t actually say whether any of it is. But that is fairly irrelevant because the idea is that you can see what using a lot of pattern, and successfully, looks like here.
There are more patterns here than I have been able to count but for all that chaos of pattern, there is this very clean collection of circles carrying it all along. Some variation in size and solid versus donut type circles mix it up some, but they are placed at regular intervals to keep everything orderly. A little order in the chaos allows the viewer to enjoy the variety without feeling lost in it. Plus this works as both a necklace and a belt so for those of us that like versatility, this piece has quite a bit going for it.
Louise does a lot of wholesale and a lot of shows so you don’t see her stuff bouncing around the internet too much. To see her latest work, just pop over to her website or check out what she is selling to us mere mortals in her shop.
Weekly Inspiration Challenge: Focus on pattern this weekend–bit it silkscreen, stamps, image transfers or even hand made marks. You could pick one pattern and see how many ways you can use it. It could be an accent on a bead or the background on a vase upon which you lay other elements. How does the use change how you see the pattern? Or go for an all out piece like the one here, using as many patterns as you can while keeping the design in check.
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Balancing Silkscreens
February 23, 2017
Inspirational Art
As mentioned yesterday, silkscreen is great for adding pattern to a piece but you want to be careful that you don’t lean too heavily on the pattern to carry your design. As fun and novel as silkscreening can be for the maker, it is still just a visual texture. Something else has to come into play.
So, of course, I had to check out Helen Breil’s silkscreened pieces because I knew she’d have a fabulous example for us. This gorgeous bracelet gets energy and an interesting texture from the silkscreen but if it weren’t for the color choices of gold against a rich red and the undulating form, the pattern would not be overly interesting. But with texture, color and form combined, we have a very dramatic and energetic piece. Let’s not forget the anchor of that black focal point. Without it, all the movement and energy might be a bit much but the button in the middle gives the eye a place to rest before heading back out to take in beauty of this great combination of elements.
Of course, Helen’s shop is an excellent source of silkscreens as well as instruction on how to use them. You can find both on her website here and her Pinterest board of examples here. Also take a look at her video classes, including her new Magnetic Pendants class, all on her website.
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Many Faces of Silkscreen
February 21, 2017
Inspirational Art
I just realized the other day, as I was admiring a slew of silkscreen work by one Noelia Contreras, that I don’t think I’ve ever spent a week admiring this little gem of technique. So as I keep focused on fixing a couple snags that are in the way of getting the Spring issue off to the printer, let’s admire a some nice silkscreens and look at ways it can be used.
Noelia’s set seen here shows a number of applications for silkscreened clay. It works as a background, a foreground, a peek-a-boo ground (yes, I just made that up) and even to create singular objects to raise about the surface. I enjoy these pieces because they all have focal points, some more subtle than others, but it is more than just a swath of pattern. What I assume are brooches on the right side are probably my favorite designs because of the energy of their shape, just off-center focal point, and the couple of layers there that lead to a small spot of negative space. A bit of the cloth those will be set against will be framed in those negative spaces which integrates the brooch and its background. It’s a nice touch.
The silkscreen and patterns are the primary focus in these pieces, which can be a little tricky. Just using lots of pattern can make for weak design if the artist depends on it to be the sole point of interest. As much as we might like a pattern, it needs contrast and context, at the very least, to create strong design. Here there is a mix of pattern that invites the viewer to find relationships between pattern choices and enough contrast in other design choices, including those bold black outlines, to show the pieces were well thought out. You can see alternate views of most of these pieces on Noelia’s Flickrphotostream and in her website gallery.
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Scratching Through
February 18, 2017
Inspirational Art
To finish up a stretch of blog posts on vessels, I have for you this interesting ceramic vessel done in a style easily translated into polymer. The technique is referred to as sgraffito. The beautiful texture and imagery are created by scratching into a surface that reveals a contrasting surface beneath it.
This vase is the work of Terri Kern whose choice of large bold scratches add to the illustrative and dreamy quality of her imagery. The way she has to work in ceramics makes the process all the more impressive. “Black is painted on in a small section and while it’s still wet, a carving tool is used to carve away the black to reveal the color underneath. It normally takes as long to apply black as it does to apply all the other colors combined on any given piece.”
This is where polymer would have the advantage. Although I have only done this in small decorative swathes, it is quite easy to lay a very thin layer of clay on top of a thick contrasting color, run it through the pasta machine until the top layer is even thinner and then you can scratch or carve the raw clay. It has got to be faster than the process necessary to scratch wet glaze out on ceramic clay. You can also shape and cure the polymer layers and then scratch or carve the surface afterwards since cured polymer, especially when still warm, is quite easy to carve.
The two approaches yield a different kind of mark with soft edges in raw clay and very sharp and smooth edges in cured clay. Although I have not tried it, I imagine you could apply a very thin layer of raw clay to a cured piece and scratch the raw clay which would create a uniformly shallow mark. It would be fun to try and I have it on my to-do list!
I was thinking you could also go over the scratched areas with paint, the way you apply an antiquing effect. I got the idea while I was analyzing Terri’s work since it looks like some colors would have been laid back in after scratching. That could really add up to some beautifully complex and intriguing color.
You can also use oil paints on raw clay as shown here by Kate of Kalinkapolinka. This is actually the page through which I found Terri’s very intricate work. Want to see more from Terri? Go to her website here.
Weekly Inspiration Challenge: Scratch out a little something this weekend. Whether you try one of the sgraffito ideas listed here or just scratch at the clay for textural purposes, let you mind go as you doodle-scratch your way to some interesting effects and imagery.
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Following the Rooftops
February 16, 2017
Inspirational Art
I so need something bright and cheery as we prepare for serious flooding level storms out here in Southern California. What a winter we are having! I wish it were snow though. Much less messy. But here we are, under cloudy skies, waiting for the deluge.
So, in looking for a couple more bowl style containers to share this week, I was delighted to find this beauty by the equally beautiful Nevenka Sabo. Her work lately has been so intensely bright and cheery. It was just the thing for a day such as this.
I love that she breaks away from the standard bowl form and cuts the lip of it to follow the roof tops of her little neighborhood. The bright blue interior and the mixed colors of the houses add to the playful look. The fully saturated colors are well matched to the illustrative look of the imagery on the pieces she creates. It’s just a wonderfully done, fun piece. If you like this, you’ll want to see the other views of it on her Flickr photostream.
Nevenka has been working with this technique for a couple of years now with really eye-catching results. She even put out a very detailed tutorial for this technique she calls Nambi. You can find it in her Etsy shop. But also take a look at her other examples of how this technique can be applied by checking out her Flickr pages and her Facebook page.
Ok, hopefully I won’t be heading to the rooftops myself this week. Hope you all stay warm and dry!
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The art jewelry at these events is also a big draw. There is nothing quite like seeing masterful polymer work in person.
Here is a gorgeous piece by Bonnie Bishoff. She wore it to the final gala event and I just could not stop looking at the delicate forms and sunset-like colors. The picture (and the poor lighting in these places) doesn’t quite do it justice.
Another bonus to coming to these events is the local color. In this case, Sherman Oberson, a board member of the IPCA and a local Pennsylvania resident, treated a small handful of us to a tour of his insanely packed and ever-entertaining collection of flea market and thrift store finds. We did this, in part, to honor Nan Roche whose birthday it was. A huge collector of the curious and visually enticing herself, it was a perfect birthday outing for her and an immensely entertaining evening for those of us who got to tag along.
Poke around on Instagram and Facebook for more on Sherman’s place and other Synergy events.
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Exploring technique and design doesn’t ever end, or at least I don’t think it should. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been working with a material, there is always more to learn. Barbara McGuire is a true and long standing polymer pioneer who may often return to signature techniques but she keeps expanding on what she has done, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes in big leaps.
This collection of beads is one of her subtler explorations. Barbara has been making face canes for ages but she keeps changing up what she does with them. The angelic looking collection here gets its ethereal feel from the use of translucent wings and background cane slices. Past variations were commonly surrounded by opaque slices and balanced or radial backgrounds. The more freeform application here adds to the otherworldly feel of these little angels.
Barbara posts most of her recent work on her Facebook page while her products and news can usually be found on her website.
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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.
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Another way to push the disk element in strung jewelry design is to create designs on those inside surfaces. This might push you to design the disks in such a way as to open up space between them so that the work on the inside could be seen. That might present a bit of a challenge but it will likely present some interesting options for added accents and forms.
Margit Bohmer did just that. Her solution to show off the intricate and highly colorful faces of her disks was to slightly dome them and have them stacked in pairs with the concave sides in, allowing an angled view to all the beautiful color and textures she worked into them. It looks like quite a bit of work too. I just love seeing this kind of dedication and commitment to a piece. Each bead face is different and could stand on its own but all together, they create an engrossing piece that will probably take the owner years to become familiar with all its varied surfaces.
A riot of color and texture is a signature of Margit’s and she never leaves us wanting for more of either. See her latest work on her Flickr photostream.
Weekly Inspiration Challenge: Choose a basic or commonly used design and push it. By sketching, planning, or just playing with your materials, change the form or the way this basic design is constructed as far as you can until you come up with something that intrigues and excites you then create your own original work from the ideas you came up with.
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Let’s move on from the ‘ordinary’ disk necklace and really push what these could be. First of all, who says they need to be round? Or strung on their center sitting neatly one on top of the other? Well, no one, that’s who.
Silvia Ortiz de la Torre goes completely off the disk reservation by squaring off the standard disk necklace element and taking full control of their positioning. This necklace is getting so far from a disk that I bet some of you are thinking it’s not a disk necklace at all. And maybe not but the stacking and repetition of form is the same and this is a good example of where an idea might start with some common or basic design and really veer off in very exciting directions, ending in a place barely recognizable from where it started. I don’t know that Silvia started with the idea of disks but she could have. And so can you start from a well used (or over-used) form or basic design and end up somewhere quite different. The thing is, it would have been hard to get to that cool and very original design without that common or basic starting point.
This piece is several years old but Silvia still loves disks and stacking but she is taking things in a very different direction these days. See how she has journeyed from pieces like this to her big intricate disks display in her Flickr photostream and her Etsy shop.
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Disc beads are fantastic for the complexity they can create just by sheer numbers. They also pull the design away from any one bead and put the focus on how they work together. Employing Skinner blends to create the series of well-arranged colors on this necklace, Spain’s Carmen Morente del Monte, develops a rather striking look with the common stacked disk necklace design as the basis for her composition.
It is not that we haven’t seen quite a few Skinner disc arrangements but this one is rather intriguing with its wide array of colors that still somehow conveys a sense of quiet coherence. I believe that is primarily due to the muted, natural tone of the colors. Their thick spacers subtly echo the surrounding color while their variations trail off to long stacks of warm grays. I think the choice of gray rather than black or white or simply more of the colorful blends for the back half of the bead string is actually what makes this piece work so well. The gray creates a kind of neutral background for the colors to contrast with but the contrast is a gentle one which is also echoed at points in the front beads where the blends go to gray.
I was just having a conversation this weekend about how people steer away from anything well used believing their work won’t be appreciated unless it’s wholly original but how far from the truth that is. Doing something really, really well, even when it has elements seen many times before, is a far bigger and more difficult accomplishment than striving for something purely original. I think this necklace is just such an example.
You can find more of Carmen’s well thought out pieces in her Etsy shop and her Pinterest boards.
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To round out this week’s quick focus on beads, I thought I’d share focal beads in another medium that is very well-known for them–glass.
Glass artists have some very particular and, literally, inflexible limitations and yet they create these extremely intricate and amazing beads. They do get to work with super clear transparency–a characteristic of their medium that they use to great advantage–which is something that is difficult to achieve in polymer, but their forms and patterns are something that, I think, could be a gold mine of inspiration and a jumping off point for ideas in polymer that go beyond the basic and common beads seen in polymer.
Here are just four examples of the intricacy and beauty in glass bead making today. Starting from top left is a bead created by Leah Nietz, top right is Lisa Fletcher, bottom left is Andrea Guarino, and bottom right is Ikuyo Yamanaka. You can click on each artist’s name to reach their shop or website to look further into what they create. You can also immerse yourself in glass focal beads by putting that very phrase into a Pinterest, Google Images, Etsy, Flickr, or even Instagram.
Weekly Inspiration Challenge: Choose your favorite image posting service, such as those just listed above, and enjoy the art and inspiration that comes up when you search for “focal beads”. Choose a couple of images and try to determine what you like best about the bead or beads and then figure out how to recreate those characteristics in polymer. Hopefully that leads you to some original and very fulfilling polymer bead explorations.
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How about just a little bead beauty from the consistently wonderful Sarah Shriver today while I amble down the road?
Six canes constructed into a cube that is both turned on its side and has had its corner’s tweaked makes for a beautiful simple bead design. Just those two changes to the upright and steady cube has created movement due to its relative instability, facing the world with but one point down, and direction since the slight sweep of the sides slides our eye out to the point of the cube corners and beyond. And let’s not forget the lovely lines of the canes themselves that add to both the movement and directing of the viewers eyes beyond the constrains of the cube.
Apparently, Sarah will be teaching this Celtic cane on the Alaska Polymer Clay Cruise, the “Clayditarod” coming up next month. I was not able to discern if spaces are left for what is certain to be an amazing polymer adventure but you can check out the details and query as needed on the cruise website here. And for more splendid Sarah Shriver work, jump over to her website here.
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This will be a simple, and hopefully simply delightful, week as I am traveling or in the midst of preparing to travel and will have to be brief. But I have had the idea of the ‘bead’ on my mind. That sounds pretty basic, I know, but for art jewelry, the bead–be it a simple, plain spacer or an extravagant focal piece–is the most common single element created and thus, has a pretty highly esteemed place in the world of adornment. So let’s take a closer look at some very well-considered and lovingly created beads.
These beauties are cane constructed by the ever clever Ivy Niles of iKandi Clay. Canes takes their place on center stage as well as energetically running around the circumference for an intricate and rather mesmerizing look.
If you are partial to either a well-done cane or intricate, take a break to look through Ivy’s her Etsy shop and her website.
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