A Pinch Here
December 10, 2018
Inspirational Art
Polymer clay is well-known for how well it plays with other materials. Pushing that mixing of mediums seems to be the next great horizon for the polymer community as a whole as we seem to see more and more crossover of mediums in polymer art.
Polymer artists have played with inclusions mixed into polymer nearly since the inception of polymer as a fine art material. In a kind of flipping of the tables, Melanie West brings a source of the fine arts to polymer clay when she works her inclusions into the clay. Melanie searches out and acquires high-grade dry paint pigments which she mixes into her polymer clay, creating these incredibly rich colors and densely grainy visual textures, as you can see here in this lovely bracelet.
Having dabbled a bit with natural paint pigments and polymer in the past, I have a fairly good idea of just how tricky it can be to mix in the right amounts as different color pigments have different grain and dispersion characteristics. Melanie shares her processes in her intense technique-driven classes and workshops so you may have a chance to learn about her pigment inclusions if you’re lucky enough to grab a spot in an upcoming workshop.
If you’re interested in joining Melanie for one of her workshops, keep an eye on her upcoming schedule on her website and follow her for workshop news and her fantastic inspirational artistic finds on her Facebook page.
Spikey Blue
December 7, 2018
Inspirational Art
Even here in Southern California there is quite the nip in the air and winter is making herself known all across the US and in other parts of the world. To match this weather and season, I thought I’d go with icy blues to wind up this week of blues and what a piece we have here to contemplate.
Maud Traon has taken gem-setting far beyond the classic expectation. These marquis-cut stones are installed not so much to be admired for their beautiful icy blue color but to generate energy and a sharp boldness that verges on the dangerous. This ring could possibly double as a weapon!
All kidding aside, you can see how this unusual setting reflects a gem’s organic origin where the crystals form in a variety of directions at the behest of various geological forces. They do not sit in the Earth, cut and clear and ready to sparkle for us but are surrounded by other elements, many that are dark, dirty, gritty and swallowing them up.
These were my thoughts before I found this explanation of her approach on Maud’s website. It seems her objective has been met when viewers like us read similar sentiments in the work:
Maud’s work sits in direct contrast to the standard approach to jewellery of setting highly cut stones within a traditional fixing. The stones are set in a manner that reflects their natural structure, glitter is treated as an equal to precious stones and the object in its entirety appears to have fallen out of a natural wonderland.
If you find this work intriguing, head over to Maud’s website to look at other pieces in the series as well is the variety of approaches she takes under this organic philosophy.
Refereeing Blues
December 5, 2018
Inspirational Art
Today we’ll contemplate blues and beyond with the joyously colorful work of Anarina Anar.
Although the oranges dominate with their bright hues and fill the largest and terminal shape, I think the blue grounds all the colors here. Sitting in the middle like a color referee, the calm blues blush purple on one side as if the purple circle above has been allowed to drain into it. The bold oranges, on the other hand, are given a definitive border of dots that say, “Hey, you can play with us but stay on your side.” The oranges concede to have a bit of purple in their territory with an ode to the blues within the purple ring so that we have a visual connection between all the pieces and color players on this playground.
Yep, I just personified colors as if they were characters in a story. And why not? They really are, more often than not, integral to the telling of they story within any piece. Here they are central characters that give the necklace its lively spirit.
Color is at the core of all of Anarina’s work as you can see with a quick jaunt over to her Flickr site and her Etsy store.
Off-Center Blue
December 3, 2018
Inspirational Art
I seem to be in a blue mood. Not blue as in sad but rather, I’ve been picking out a lot of blue artwork lately and with yesterday being the first day of Hanukkah, blue seems to be the color of the week so I’m going with that as a theme.
This first piece from an artist in the Czech Republic who goes only by the name of Hira in her shop on Fler.cz. Hira is quite the exploratory artisan. There are numerous styles and techniques in the work displayed in the shop. You can see the influence of many different artists, such as the Melanie West style cane seen here, but there are sincere efforts to design with the artist’s unique aesthetic.
Bright, deep blue on black is always a dramatic pairing but with the added bright green moving into yellow in this cane, we have a fairly energetic piece even though the color palette is limited. Then there are the yummy tactile textures adding a bit of background buzz to the high energy feel of this piece.
You really should take a look at Hira’s shop and the variety of work she does. There is careful attention paid to the finish regardless of the style and there is a satisfying balance in most all the pieces. Hira also knits! So go ahead and take some time out to check out the work.
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Here you are, on the eve of the new year. What are your resolutions for the upcoming year? Isn’t that the big question tonight? Well, in my humble opinion, the only thing that really matters, art-wise, is that you create and that what you create is something that makes you happy and satisfies your soul. Now, how do you make that happen?
A big part of keeping yourself creating and doing something that makes you happy is keeping motivated with fresh ideas flowing. That is really hard to do all alone in your head so getting outside help is extremely advantageous. To that end, I want to share with you a few options for keeping yourself motivated this coming year as this week’s theme.
Of course, keeping subscribed or checked in on this blog as well as other excellent blogs such as Cynthia Tinapples’s “Polymer Clay Daily” will be a great help. I would also suggest looking at non-polymer artwork. This can be easily done through other art blogs as they will basically do the searching for you. Some of my favorites are Colossal, which looks at all types of art but, it seems to me, they show more craft art than a lot of art blogs but mostly it’s full of amazing crazy work.
If you focus on jewelry-making, you should really check out the Art Jewelry Forum blog. I think I first became aware of this blog when led there by a search for work by Ford and Forlano. This post, which you can click through to here, featured some gorgeous jewelry by the duo including the necklace you see here. Although they do not commonly feature polymer clay, it will introduce you to a lot of mixed-media that can readily inspire polymer ideas as well as beautifully designed pieces.
You can also search for blogs by keywords plus the word blog for additional resources of inspiration, such as +art +jewelry +blog, or +polymer +clay +blog. Try it out and see what treasures you find!
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Now that I am safely ensconced at my sister’s house in Colorado I’ve been catching up on some social media, seeing what other people have been up to this week. I ran across Ron Lehocky’s Facebook page and although I was quite taken by his fabulous “ribbon wrapped” Christmas hearts but I found I most wanted to share these beaded bezel versions of Ron’s hearts created by expert beader Marcia Antle from Atlanta, Georgia, that Ron posted last month.
This is such an excellent pairing of mediums—not that polymer cabochons and beaded bezels are a new thing—but Ron’s hearts are already a collaborative endeavor as he takes scrap canes and surface-treated clay sent to him by other artists to create the majority of his hearts. Then to have a skilled bead artist continue the collaboration with this type of bezel work gives these pendants an unusual richness in their story and creative cooperation. They have a feel-good quality that just fits the season
As you consider your goals and projects for the coming year, perhaps this type of thing will get you thinking about collaboration or mixing mediums. I have a feeling 2019 will be the year of leaps and bounds in mixing or crossing mediums with polymer clay. I know so many people with plans of that sort. It makes you very excited to see what 2019 has to bring.
Don’t forget to jump over to Ron Lehocky’s Facebook page to see the posts of these hearts and his other holiday centric pieces, if you’re not too tired of Christmas motifs and scroll down to November 28th to see more of Marcia’s beaded hearts.
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I’m getting on the road today, trying to beat a snowstorm so I can spend New Year’s with my family in Colorado, so this is going to be quick.
To stay in the theme of my day today, how about a beautiful Snow Dragon? I don’t recall snow dragons being a thing from my days of collecting and reading about everything having to do with dragons—I had quite the obsession with them in my teenage years. But this is a beautiful idea of one. I just love the serenity of Evgeny Hontor‘s sculptures. Evgeny’s creatures are actually created out of something called velvet clay, not that it matters if this is polymer not. If you want to make a sculpture of this type, you can make it with polymer.
The real takeaway here is seeing how just putting in the eyes keeps the expression of the sculpture quiet and calm. That matches the calm inherent in the color of blue which, in this piece with highlights of white, still harkens to the idea of snow.
So off to see my own snow now. I hope you all enjoyed your holidays and are resting up. I’ll pop in on Friday with something Colorado-inspired, I’m sure. In the meantime, you can check out more of Evgeny’s work on Deviant Art and Etsy.
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Today, I am off to enjoy the season with my family. I thought I’d leave you with an ornament of mine from an exchange I did the year I started The Polymer Arts. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the time to join in an exchange like this but I’m hoping this coming year will prove to be more open to studio time for myself. I hope it is the same for you.
Here is to wishing you a wonderful wrap-up to the holiday season. Regardless of whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I do wish you and yours warmth, inspiration, and joy this holiday season!
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This bit of drama in silver is not, of course, polymer, but just look at the textures and possibilities!
The drama comes from the swirling motion initiated by the ammonite shell but this artist team, Sergey Toritsyn and Svetlana Larina, selling under the shop Art-Dreams on Livemaster, have ramped up the energy with a variety of textures and lines that move off the central body of the work. The bezeled stones help to put the brakes on this just enough to keep it in the barely contained state but that just adds to the beauty and satisfying feeling of the movement in the piece. The shimmer of the ammonite interior also helps to anchor our eyes towards the center so that our eyes wander from the sparkle and shimmer to the swirling wire to the stones and back to center again.
The piece is a great example of well-composed movement in jewelry as well as being an intriguing piece to just visually investigate. From the lined-up granulation in the center to the bits of color under the wires near the base of where most of them start (enamel, I think), there is just a ton of detail to take in and admire.
This is the most complex piece of theirs that I found but they have plenty of other work to admire on their Livemaster page here.
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I love how silver can be representative of snow in winter even though it’s gray and not white. It’s that clean simplicity, I think, that echoes the simplicity of a landscape under newly fallen snow. That’s why think this piece by Wiwat Kamolpornjiwit makes me think of wintertime.
Wiwat’s mastery is often in his simplicity although a lot of his work isn’t simple. For instance, he does not usually treat the surface of the clay but rather goes for smooth shiny layers, accented with simplified or symbolic motifs of natural objects like flowers, leaves, trees, etc. In this piece, those motifs are nothing but pokes in the clay but we get an entire scene out of it. The rolled wire accents are like flowers popping out of a pot, and add a touch of energy outside the frame of those repeated shapes, breaking the line the top of the half-circles make. It’s not complex, but it’s not all that simple either. It’s just those little touches that give it a sense of sophistication and make it a satisfying design.
If you have not seen Wiwat’s work, or haven’t looked at it lately, you can find it on his website.
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So here we are, a week before Christmas and I thought it best if I can share some things to put us in that holiday spirit. As for me, I think I’ve had enough of Santa Clauses, Christmas wreaths, snowmen and candy canes. Not that there’s anything wrong with those motifs but you’re seeing those everywhere right now. So I get to thinking about the season in a more noncommercial way and, perusing through my collection of art to share at a future time I found myself drawn to the silver pieces. There’s something about the stately near whiteness of silver that feel so appropriate for this time of year. Its quiet and yet bright manner are also seen everywhere in silver bells, silver ribbon, silver tinsel, and even outside our windows for those of us who get to admire a snowy night landscape. I don’t know if that wholly explains what I’m doing with silver this week but that’s going to be our theme.
This is a piece that started me thinking on it. It’s a recent necklace by Celine Charuau. I had been thinking stars like on the top of Christmas trees or the radiating ones often found in nativity scenes but this is what I ended up finding. It’s not a star but is a beautiful radiating piece full of texture and still presenting that quiet, stately feel. The lines in the urchin are followed by the lines of the silver pieces radiating from the center and, combining with the silver color, gives us a sense that it is heralding some moment or celebrating an occasion. It may seem like a stretch but it feels a little like Christmas to me.
Of course, Celine’s work is often quiet and stately, using pale or subdued colors and lots of silver. You can see more of her work on her Flickr photostream.
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Our last look at using polymer and other materials this week will be with Debbie Crothers. She posted this lovely assemblage of elements this week on Facebook and I just had to share it.
Debbie is well known for her surface design work and posts tons of her experiments and beads but it can take a while for her to come around to putting the pieces together into finished jewelry. I understand inclination. The textures revealed and the blooming of colors that happens as you manipulate and add to the polymer on your worktable can be intoxicating. I know I just want to keep trying new things but at some point we gotta do something with the elements we’ve created.
So I’ve been excited to see this whole slew of finished work popping up on her social network feeds right now. But she isn’t just using polymer elements. This dynamic piece includes polymer spikes, recycled beads, and a recycled ring. Debbie is also a thrift store hound (something else we have in common!) which can be such a fabulous way to find additional bits and bobs to add to polymer jewelry and other assemblage work.
Take a closer look at Debbie’s recently assembled finished necklaces and earrings on her Facebook page and her website. And don’t forget to stop by her shop for some fun tutorials to keep you busy and entertained this winter.
(Right after I wrote this, I found that Debbie wrote her own post about her “Upcycling Jewelry” so for more on the subject, jump over to her blog here.)
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Here is another wonderful mixed-media piece that makes you really stop and ask, “Is that really polymer?”
The work is by Sue Savage who keeps a low profile in the polymer realm but is highly regarded for her jewelry. She works in metal, precious stones and polymer but although the polymer is usually the focal point, you don’t think of it as polymer clay when you look at the design. You see how well integrated her mokume polymer cabochon is here. The black dots in the polymer are inversely echoed in the reflected white of the stones placed around the keyhole frame of the piece. The handmade metal frame itself works primarily on the diagonal as do the lineup of the dots in the mokume, set around but not hugging the polymer cab. It makes for a lovely balance and flow.
The design could really have worked with any stone as the focal point but the use of polymer allows her to create a dynamic type of “stone” that might be difficult to find and probably harder and more expensive to work with. Her use of polymer in her pieces allows for a wide range of design without the limitations of what is simply available.
Take a look at the many other designs mixing metal and polymer on her website here.
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