An Orderly Spring

First … we are doing a bit of Spring cleaning ourselves this week with our big Annual Damage Sale. Our stack of imperfect, slightly dinged up, but perfectly read-able issues and books are available on Etsy as of today. Just $4 for imperfect magazines and $10 for imperfect copies of Polymer Journeys! And we took off up to 35% on our other back issues (discount good through April 3rd). We do this only through my Etsy shop–it’s a first come kind of thing, so hurry. Half of the imperfect issues will sell out today if tradition holds.

Part of spring cleaning is spring organizing, right? Well, maybe this piece will inspire your organized side. Mervat Radwan put some of her organizational talents into this well-arranged pattern of brilliant color and tantalizing texture a few years back but I only recently spied it on Instagram. The simple shortened bib style of the necklace allows us to focus on the intricate patterning and color but as a clayer, you can’t help but admire the carefully consistent and skilled placement.

I imagine she laid out this pattern before starting—how else do you get such even lines and spacing? My recent exploration of techniques for tiny bits of clay has made me come to appreciate this type of work even more than I did before. You can read about my adventures and learn a number of techniques, like you see in Mervat’s work, in our latest magazine, the Spring 2018 – Big and Small issue, which you can get on our website here: www.thepolymerarts.com.

I was not able to dig up a lot of information about Mervat, quite likely because I can’t search her Arabic text online. The image came to me through the Polymer Clay Tribe Instagram account. I also found this Google plus page and this YouTube video in which Mervat is interviewed on TV, but if anyone has more information I will add it to the posts. Just write in the comments or reply to the blog email if you get that.