{"id":16832,"date":"2020-01-26T02:30:32","date_gmt":"2020-01-26T10:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/?p=16832"},"modified":"2020-01-29T15:23:08","modified_gmt":"2020-01-29T23:23:08","slug":"changing-forms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/changing-forms\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing Forms"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Table by Alice Stroppel –\u00a0www.polymerclayetc.com<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

So, have my suggestions thus far this month triggered any new ideas for fresh and exploratory directions in the studio? Well, if it hasn\u2019t yet maybe it will this week. Even if this month\u2019s ideas did have you looking into some previously uncharted territories, my theme today can work in conjunction with new materials, big new projects, and collaborations as well.<\/p>\n

But first, at quick note \u2026 have you signed up for the new Virtual Art Box<\/a> coming out next weekend? I do hope you plan to join us if you haven\u2019t already. Not only will you get great material to keep you inspired and keep that creative wheel in your head turning all month long, I have a couple specials just for my art boxers including a freebie and deep discounts.\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be drumming up such specials from polymer and mixed media craft resources every month, most will be worth much more than you are paying for the art box itself. Plus, for just another week, you can get in on a forever lifetime discount, just because you jumped in both feet first with me on this new adventure!<\/p>\n

Ok, back to pushing ourselves, or at least thinking about it, this month.<\/p>\n

I was thinking that a really stimulating challenge would be to work in a form that you have not worked in before. You know, like if you normally do jewelry, try decorative arts or sculpture. If you do wall art try your hand at jewelry. But knowing most of you, you\u2019ve probably dabbled in a quite a few different forms. So, I think we need to look at some unusual territories within various art forms you\u2019ve already tried.<\/p>\n

For instance, if you work in jewelry or other adornment, consider what types you haven\u2019t tried creating. Hair adornments, perhaps? Ankle bracelets? Gauge earrings instead of pierced? Tiaras perhaps? How about lapel pins, cufflinks, tie bars, or bolo ties? Or just men adornment in general?<\/p>\n

If you create or cover a lot of home decor, move beyond the vases and switch plates and look around for other hapless home victims like ceiling fixture pulls, trashcan lids, lampstands, or the finials on the ends of drapery rods. Really, nothing should be safe from your decorative touches.<\/p>\n

I could probably make an insanely long list of oddball things that could either be made with their covered with polymer, but let\u2019s just look at what a few people have done with some less than common forms and see if these pieces can\u2019t push your ideas about what you can do with polymer clay.<\/p>\n

Strange Polymer in a Strange Land <\/strong><\/p>\n

when sitting down to write this, I wandered around the house looking for things I thought could be made with polymer, but I hadn\u2019t seen much of. It is actually kind of hard. I see a lot. But how about this\u2013 incense burners? Maybe people don\u2019t burn incense quite as much as they used to and perhaps that\u2019s why we don\u2019t see people making them in polymer clay but, on the other hand, they\u2019re so easy to make and you have a really wide range of possible shapes they could take. You would think a few people would be regularly popping some out. But they are hard to find.<\/p>\n

For an incense burner, all you need is a stable form with a snug hole big enough for the incense sick to stand in and, preferably, a platform to catch the ashes. You can have incense stick standing straight up or have a long tray the stick would hang over or you can ignore the tray component completely. That should be easy, right? I do wonder if people hesitate to make incense burners with polymer because they believe the hot embers will singe the clay. I very much doubt that would happen, especially if you create a straight up stand type, where the ashes have a long way to fall. Here is one example of an incense burner created with cane petals by Israel\u2019s Marcia of Mars Design<\/a>. It\u2019s a straightforward construction and a pretty, as well as functional, little piece<\/p>\n

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You should check out her dreidels<\/a> as well. I\u2019m not sure Marcia is working in polymer anymore, or at least she\u2019s not posting, but she did have a lot of fun ideas you can find on her Flickr photo stream<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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This next suggestion seems to be such a minimally explored area of adornment for a category with such a wide range of options. I\u2019m talking about hair adornments. There are so many of them \u2013 barrettes, hair sticks, hairclips, hair combs, hair beads, bun caps and cages, hair slides, tiaras, head wreathes, hairbands, headbands, hair charms, hair rings, and hair twisters (a.k.a hair spirals or ponytail wraps). I am partial to hair slides myself because they can double as scarf and shawl pins so you can pull them out for all kinds of occasions. You can see how I make mine with the in-depth tutorial in the Polymer Art Projects \u2013 Organics<\/em> book<\/a>. Here\u2019s another example of a hair slide from Emily May<\/a>. Like the incense burners, as long as you planned for the basic form, one that allows a stick to pass through from one side to the other, you can create pretty much whatever you want.<\/p>\n

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And I did mention the nothing should be safe from polymer in the house? I can\u2019t tell you how often I look up at window molding or the insets in a door panel or the trim on a cabinet and think \u201cA bit of polymer could go right there!\u201d Okay, maybe I\u2019m pushing it for someone with limited studio time who wants to add sculptural elements, not canes or other veneers, to large immovable parts of my house. So, does may be a cane covered table sound more reasonable? That can be pretty ambitious as well but at least it can go with you if you move or can be sold. Just look at the table by Alice Stroppel<\/a> that opens this post, or this amazing work by Bridget Derc<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Bridget\u2019s canes are intense, as is her process, really. You have to skim through her Flickr photostream a bit (check out the bottom half of pages 3 and 4<\/a>) but she posts a lot of photos of her process. It\u2019s pretty amazing. And check out Alice’s website for more of her polymer table adventures<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Now, what if you\u2019re into sculpture? How do you push the form there? I suppose if you normally sculpt \u201cin the round\u201d you can do bas-relief sculptures or vice versa. You could, of course, also venture into any of the other myriad areas of polymer and craft and apply your sculptural skills there, but this next piece might give you a whole other set of ideas. Why not, literally, take your sculpture somewhere you haven\u2019t taken it before. Like outside maybe?<\/p>\n

Tatjana Raum photographs her tree spirit sculptures as if they are in trees, although I think these are all in detached parts of trees like large swaths of bark and pieces of drift or dead wood. Even if they are not attached to a living tree, the tree material gives these other-worldly faces an unusual context that enriches the sculpture and how a viewer will perceive it. And what if you did put a bit of polymer art into a living tree? What a great surprise for a passerby!<\/p>\n

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Okay, that is all for today. I\u2019ve got to start making these posts a bit shorter as I will have a lot to do for the Virtual Art Box<\/a> each month. I am so super excited about what I have for our adventurous art boxers though. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be what anyone is really expecting but I think it\u2019s going to be a fantastic surprise, especially for readers who really loved The Polymer Arts<\/a><\/em> magazine. I think we\u2019re going to get to know each other a lot better and are in for a really creative year!<\/p>\n

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For now, have a wonderful and really creative week and I\u2019ll see you next weekend!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, have my suggestions thus far this month triggered any new ideas for fresh and exploratory directions in the studio? Well, if it hasn\u2019t yet maybe it will this week. Even if this month\u2019s ideas did have you looking into some previously uncharted territories, my theme today can work in conjunction with new materials, big…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,6],"tags":[552,1716,13,7791,19,4699,4847,157,7788,17,7786,7785,7793,7792,7784,166,7789,7787,294,29,7750,7752,640,12,1687,4698,11,3661,164,7783,79,3730,7790],"class_list":["post-16832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspirational-art","category-polymer-community-news","category-the-polymer-arts-magazine-news","tag-alice-stroppel","tag-artist-inspiration","tag-artistic-inspiration","tag-bolo-ties","tag-caning","tag-craft-blog","tag-craft-magazine","tag-creativity","tag-cufflinks","tag-design","tag-dreidel","tag-emily-may","tag-hairclips","tag-hairy-dormant","tag-incense-burner","tag-jewelry","tag-lapel-pins","tag-marcio-of-mars-design","tag-mixed-media","tag-necklace","tag-nudge-sale","tag-personal-projects","tag-polymer","tag-polymer-art","tag-polymer-arts","tag-polymer-blog","tag-polymer-clay","tag-polymer-jewelry","tag-sculpture","tag-table","tag-texture","tag-the-polymer-arts","tag-tie-bars"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2O0Lm-4nu","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16832"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16846,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16832\/revisions\/16846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}