December 8, 2019 Uncategorized

Sunflower Wall Clock, Joy Gregory Studio 

Do you ever get to the end to your day and wonder where the heck it all went? Do you often feel like you slaved away for hours and yet got nothing accomplished? I think that’s a pretty common feeling for many of us, especially those of us who are self-employed and thus self-accountable, often working from home where distractions abound. Even when you create as a hobby or a fun part-time side gig, it can be really frustrating trying to carve out the time to get your artwork done. Finding the hours to create can be one of the biggest barriers to completing creative projects and living a life as an active and fulfilled artist.

I generally feel I’m pretty good with time management, but I have really needed a refresher and kick in the pants as of late. Being off my schedule with these restricted hours, my organization and process has had to change but I didn’t do it in a conscious and planned manner. I’ve just been kind of winging it.

Well, this past week, my laissez-faire attitude back fired and I didn’t get nearly enough done. I thought I had been prepared for all the changes we are getting into with closing down one magazine and starting a new project, but then old Murphy decided to test my methods. Several rather sticky technical issue arose on the back end of the website requiring 3 straight days of work on my end to straighten it out as my tech guy was sick and I couldn’t move forward with this week’s plans until it was fixed.

That’s left me only 3 days more to complete the subscriber credits calculations, draft those promised subscriber emails, as well as a newsletter and this blog. But, instead of proceeding in an orderly fashion with the time I had, I kind of ended up all over the place – trying to get all the work stuff done, get my workouts and physical therapy in, take care of the everyday household stuff, and still get some decent sleep was a challenge that I went at all willy-nilly and got next to none of it done or done well. So, today I decided to review my time management process and get back on track. With that in my mind, I started writing this blog, so guess what we are going to talk about today?

I know… time management is probably the least interesting, stimulating, or creative sounding stuff I could possibly bring up, but it is immensely important! And, wanting to save you poor souls from a fate similar to mine this week, I gave myself a challenge–could I talk about time management and make it fun and interesting and maybe even attractive? Let’s see!

Wrestling Hours to Your Will

Even if you are great at time management there’s always something new to learn. So, I’m going to share a handful of tips along with some literal and metaphorical examples, primarily through the art of polymer. Art is great for metaphors, isn’t it?

• Here is my #1 little tip that really gets my day going in the right direction – Prioritize what you need to do, starting with the most dreaded things first! Why would you want to start with the things you most want to avoid? Well, so they won’t be hanging over your head all day for one. You are also less likely to waste time procrastinating on things that don’t need to get done while trying to put off those dreaded tasks. And it feels so, so good to get those out of the way! Then you can focus (and accomplish) the fun stuff. I’m telling you… you won’t believe how helpful just getting those tasks off your list can be.

• You probably know this one, but do you do it? If at all possible, put away or turn off your phone. Also turn off any kind of mail or other notification on computers and tablets. You don’t need to answer people right away just because we have the technology to do so. Every time you stop to read a text, answer a call, look through your email, or check the latest update to your Facebook or Instagram page, your mind switches gears and you lose your flow. Most of the time, it really can wait.

Working on detailed techniques like these mandala cane earrings by Silvia Ortiz de la Torre, can go so much faster if you can stay focused on the project. Being interrupted would make this kind of work take so much longer than if you just sit down and work on it without distractions.

• You don’t need to work business hours – try instead to identify quiet hours. You’ll get a lot more done when there is nothing to distract you, which, for a lot of people, is primarily at the start or the end of the day. If you can break up your day, try working in the first few hours and the last few hours of your day. You see, if it’s too early or too late, you can’t make phone calls, run errands, or do anything else that is normally accomplished during standard business hours. Also, in the morning, many of us take a while to wake up fully, making it great creative time because our internal critic tends to be a bit sleepy too and, studies have suggested that your brain is more creative first thing, still cycling off REM sleep and hypnagogia (that state between dreaming and being awake). Then, at the end of the day, you’re more likely to let go of the to-do list of everyday life and can just focus on creative tasks.

• Don’t multitask. Simply put, you’ll do less with less quality when you multitask. It may feel like you’re doing more but multitasking requires you repeat and review things over and over again as you switch your focus between tasks. Not only is this inefficient, chances are you will make mistakes, forget some necessary thing, and won’t be able to identify things that need changes, all requiring fixing or redoing later which means more time. Focus on one thing at a time, do it right, and do it well. It’s also a much less stressful way of working.

Can you imagine trying to work on multiple sections of this little piece by Leah Radlett, at the same time? You can see that she works one color at a time and progressively from top to bottom across her little 4” x 4” canvas. Consider it a bit of a metaphor for how you need to work on anything. Work focused and progressively so that you do it well and ensure it gets completed.

• If you want to speed up, especially if you’re at all competitive, use a timer and challenge yourself to get tasks done within a set time. Your oven timer will work although there are apps of all kinds for this as well. Simply set yourself a goal, like 30 minutes to get through your emails and social media notices, or limit time on your breaks, especially those breaks where you sit down and start watching a Netflix show and next thing you know you’ve binge watched for 3 hours. Put the timer out of reach, too. Then you have to get up to turn it off and that should break the spell of any Facebook rabbit hole you went down or Game of Thrones episode you were re-watching.

• Group similar tasks, ones that require the same type of mindset, into the same work session. For instance, I do all my accounting on Mondays (because I dread it, so I try to get out of the way first thing!) and do most of my writing the second half of the week. My most visually creative days are midweek and weekends. I tried doing a couple hours of each kind of task every day but constantly switching gears meant I was having to take time to get into a new mindset several times each day. Staying in one mindset for a good length of time is much more efficient, less stressful, and you’re also more likely to finish something and feel accomplished at the end of the day.

Below, Barbara Fajardo shows her studio table where she is focusing not only on the same techniques but the same shapes. Working this way (or with the same type of back end business tasks, or online work, etc.) allows you to complete a lot in a short period of time due to uninterrupted, focused sessions. This is not just for creating a lot of the same pieces either.You can make a many unique pieces quickly by switching it up within a similar approach, like Barbara has done with her lovely mokume gane earrings on the right.

• If you only do one thing every day to help manage your time, have that be making a list at the end of the day for the next working day. Make the list with the most important and/or most dreaded items at the top. This way you know what you’re going to do when you get up and you’re less likely to fritter away the morning in a fog of aimlessness. When you get one item done on the list, cross it out and go to the next. This will keep you focused and far less likely to be sidetracked by the laundry (when that’s not on the list at least) or an online shopping excursion. It is also easier to stop thinking about work at the end of the day once it’s written down, all safe and sound in black-and-white. You can mentally set it aside and truly relax with the family or friends, and, hopefully, fall sleep easier because you don’t need to think about your next work day until you get up.

So now, what tips might you have that you find to be of paramount importance in guaranteeing you have the hours in the day that you need to do what you want to get done? Help out all us poor souls and insert a comment at the end of the post. Remember, if you get this by email, click the title of the post to go directly to the website, then scroll down and insert a comment. This is an area where our shared wisdom can really boost us all!

Do as I Say and, Now, as I Do

So, I am writing this at the end of my Saturday with a working Sunday ahead of me and I’ve got to make my list, so off with me! I promise I will take some time off to relax (I love how many of you write to tell me to ease up and take care of myself. I promise I do try!) But I’ve got to get those active subscriber emails out.

I’ll also get a newsletter out early in this week to give you all an update. I’m hoping I will have more details on the Virtual Art Box as well as some new (to our shop, not new publications) stock of books by Christi Friesen in the shop. These are the first of the books I’m adding to the shop so you have more options to spend store credits on or buy for Christmas gifts as well as being the start what I hope to be a fantastic one-stop shop for all the great polymer related books you might want.

If you’re not on the newsletter list but find you are interested in the timely news there, you can sign up on the homepage at https://tenthmusearts.com/

In the meantime, I wish you a wonderful, easy-going, productive, and creative week!

November 24, 2019 Uncategorized

How do you determine the composition of the pieces that you make? Is it purely intuitive in that you just start putting things down until you find something you like or do you look to the designs of other artists to get ideas about how to arrange the layers, patterns, and shapes that make up your creations? Perhaps it is mother nature that you get your inspiration from or maybe your work is highly conceptual and designs arise from planning in your sketchbook.

I remember a couple years into being a full-time polymer artist that it struck me that I had no idea why I composed my work the way I did. I definitely leaned toward symmetry and horizontal arrangements but was that because it was something I’d succeeded at previously and therefore it was comfortable or was that really what I needed for what I wanted to express?

To answer that question, I just started asking myself what I was thinking about before and during the design process and I found that when I was working on jewelry, necklaces in particular, I thought about the body and its symmetry but for wall art, or secondarily for adornment, most of my designs seemed to be rooted in scenery. Desert scenes, mountain scenes, scenes of babbling brooks, scenes with roads and streets running off into the distance, and even the scene of a long studio table scattered with work in progress were fodder for my compositional ideas. I just really like the whole picture, especially anything that could be seen as landscape, which helped to explain my penchant for horizontal compositions. From then on, I thought a lot about design in terms of whole scenes and landscape in particular.

I have found the observation of scenery a great way to educate oneself about composition. It doesn’t matter whether you prefer to create one big beautiful leaf or an abstract design with not a single recognizable shape. There are lessons to be learned by observing the scenes around us.

Most of us react emotionally to wide open scenes, especially those that are not part of our day to day because their novelty allows us to look at them with fresh eyes. If are stopped by a scene because it visually strikes you, chances are, there are compositional elements you can draw inspiration from. For instance, looking across a field to the front of a dense forest, you might admire the line of tall trees reaching up to the sky in unison, recognizing how very strong and invincible they appear. Creating a design with a lot of closely arranged vertical lines can impart that same sense of strength. Looking down a long meandering road running through a desert of rusts, hazy purples, and cream colors may feel calm and relaxing to you. You can re-create this atmosphere in a mokume stack of similar colors with long undulating lines as the impressed texture.

Scenes as compositional inspiration is a huge subject since there are so many different types of scenes to draw from but I thought, this week, we could look at work that literally recreates scenes as the template for the designs and from that, you can consider the composition, how it might translate into more abstract elements, if you work in an abstract or purely decorative mode, or how your own imagery can be used to create a scene and convey emotion or atmosphere. But, really, this is about just getting you to consider scenery itself as inspiration, if you don’t already do so. So, let’s go consider.

Set the Scene

When it comes to literal scenes using cane, Wendy Jorre de St Jorre is an absolute master. Inspired by the landscape in and around where she resides in Western Australia, she creates scenes using multiple but visually connected canes for variation. The care she takes in developing these perfectly lined up canes creates scenes that looks seamlessly continuous and varied. Just look at this three-tier box opening this post. It was created with the canes you see below. Wendy made them so that the canes can be re-arranged in multiple ways to make several slightly different scenes. She even inserts a single small scene on the inside of each polymer box as well. She really likes scenery!

Here is a piece from way back by Carol Simmons. These days we associate Carol primarily with her bright colored canes but I have always had a fondness for this piece. The canes are laid out in lines to show the different strata in scenes she saw while at a polymer clay retreat in 2010. The application of canes onto a piece can be so nicely informed by the variations in natural landscape scenes, city scenes, and even scenes you see any room, and it doesn’t have to all be from the same scene. You can take bits from the various scenes you come across and put them together if they are related or you recognize similarities in mood, form, or compositional elements. Carol’s horizontal bands are a mix of things seen in the landscape outside a window and organisms found on seaside rocks. The commonalities she looks to have drawn from seems to be the textures and patterns, made cohesive by repeating the horizontal bands (also likely an element she was seeing in the scenery) but contrasted with a tall vertical form in which it is all framed.

Of course, imagery using canes is not the only way to re-create compositions from scenes. You can also go textural and sculptural. Jo Anne St. James uses cabochon focal bead forms for her scenery inspired, textured and sculpted compositions. They include everything from literal interpretations of beach side scenes to silhouettes of birds and plant life on cool colored backgrounds. You can see here how the Grand Canyon inspired texture and color in a pretty direct interpretation. However, without the reference photo, some of these might come across as abstract textured pieces but are just as interesting when not associated with the actual canyon scene.

Here’s a great example of mixing literal scenery and decorative inspiration in a scenic composition. Karen Harry is very much inspired by the decorative details and symbology of medieval times as well as the Victorian Gothic era but also seems fond of mixing the sources to create her own fantastical scenes. The sky portion of this mixed media mosaic draws from decorative details of these past times while the building on the sloping land next to a stylized sea looks to be a rendition of an actual place Karen is familiar with. The result is an impression of the joy and beauty she draws from the present-day reminders of the past.

Drawing directly from a scene that you see does not have to be about the forms, lines, colors, and patterns only. Often times, we are inspired by the energy of a scene, the literal movement. Think of a waterfall, the ocean crashing against rocks, the rush of clouds ahead of a thunderstorm, the flutter of fabric in the wind, or the coordinated flow and flight of a cloud of starlings. The dynamic energy of a scene may be the entire reason that it captured your attention. Such movement can also be fantastic inspiration for your compositions.

The most impressive piece of visual movement I’ve seen in recent months has to be this mosaic below by Mia Tavonatti. Mia paints in both oils and in mosaic stained-glass. And, yes, saying she “paints” with glass is appropriate, don’t you think? It’s a term commonly associated with her mosaic work in particular. This immense 7’ x 13’ (215cm x 400cm) glass mosaic won second place in the largest and probably most prestigious (and, I think, most lucrative at a $200,000 for 1st place) art competition in the world, Art Prize, in 2010.

Although the woman in the scene is a natural focal point since we are compellingly drawn to faces, her head is slightly cut off, showing a diminished importance. It’s really the energy and color of the scene, particularly the energy in the flow of the fabric and the color variation and contrast between the fabric, the water, and the rocks beneath it, that dominates the subject. (Be sure to click the image and scroll down the page it takes you to see the detailed photos of the glass mosaic work in this piece. It’s just amazing.)

So, really, everything in a scene that catches your eye, from line to texture to color to energy, can be drawn on for inspiration. And re-created scenes, even in the abstract, are something people can readily connect to in your work since landscape and other scenery is familiar to us all.

Leaving the Scene

I feel like I could talk about the inspiration of scenery for quite a bit longer but I’m going to stop here. There is still a lot to do to implement changes for getting the production end of the Tenth Muse Arts business going again and being shorthanded is not helping. I’m also having to learn how to schedule things within limited work hours and not just work every waking hour to get something done when I get behind. It’s not easy! Who would’ve known?

I will be sending something out this week to existing subscribers for the magazine and hopefully a newsletter as well to give you all a bit of an update. It doesn’t look like everything will be in place as of this week, especially with the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, but I have at least two bits of news I’ll be able to share once we get some changes made on the website in the next couple days.

So, I plead once again for your patience and understanding. I just need to arrange everything into an organized and sustainable situation before I start blathering about our new projects and what you can look forward to seeing from Tenth Muse Arts in 2020. Because I know there will be questions and I want to be sure I can answer them without a lot of ifs, ands and buts.

With my focus on Tenth Muse Arts business this week, I haven’t quite finished the mosaic backsplash in the kitchen but being Thanksgiving is at our house this year, all of my breaks between work and other things is on that backsplash. I can’t wait to share that with you too!

In the meantime, look around you wherever you go and see the beauty in the scenes before you. What details are you drawn to? What are the feelings and emotions they bring to the surface for you? Grab inspiration from these observations and see what you can transfer into your studio time. I’m sure a good number of you in the US will be out and about, road tripping to be with family for Thanksgiving or getting out to enjoy time with visiting family. Take advantage of the less common scenes you’ll see out the car window or that you’ll stroll by while out and about. And we will chat again next week if not before! Very happy Thanksgiving to my American readers!

November 17, 2019 Uncategorized

What does the word “monochrome” bring to mind? Do you think boring? Monotonous? Unexciting? I know that you know that monochrome color palettes don’t have to be humdrum and spiritless but does the idea of working in monochrome leave you less than thrilled?

Of course, a lot of people come to polymer because of the color possibilities, so I think, as a whole, we may have a bias to using lots of color or at least a lot of contrasting color. If you’ve never worked in a monochrome palette, however, you may be surprised at just how much you can learn by doing so. Not only that, you can create some wonderfully stunning work with little to no color.

Monochrome refers to the use of one hue but also includes its variations in tone, tint, and shade. For a quick reminder if you don’t recall the meaning of those terms, tone means to add gray in order to “tone” down a hue, tint refers to adding white to lighten it, and shade means adding black to darken it. A piece that includes red but also pink and brick red is still monochromatic because these are all versions of the hue of red. Monochrome can also mean shades of gray, including everything from black to white. That is also one of the most important monochrome palettes and I’ll explain why in just a few.

Okay, now that were all on the same page with what we mean by monochrome, how can working with a limited palette of this kind help you improve your work including your design sense? Well, it comes down to two very important things. One, when you aren’t working with a variety of color you stop thinking about your work in terms of color and start focusing on the other design element. And secondly, it really makes you aware of color value. Let me explain and show you an example.

There’s plenty of work out there that is completely dependent upon its color palette for its impact. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but it can mean that there are missed opportunities in the design. When you’re not thinking about the color, you will have to lean on form, line, texture, and pretty much every other design characteristic to create work that expresses your intent and garners interest, including color value which refers to the lightness or darkness of a color.

I think it’s quite a worthwhile exercise to take your work and photograph it in black and white both to emphasize the role color plays in the piece and to recognize the differences in color value. Go ahead… grab a piece that you have on hand and take a black-and-white photograph of it (look for a “grayscale”, “noir”, or “mono” setting on your camera or phone), or take a photo you already have and change it to grayscale in photo editing software or print it out on a black and white printer.

How does the black and white version of the work change the impact and your impression of the piece? If it really loses its impact or loses all its energy without the color, maybe there are some area of its design that could be improved.

Let’s look at a design by Kathleen Dustin. I’ve always loved this pair of earrings but is it because of its color or are there other elements that really make this work well?

Wouldn’t you say that the impact of this pair of earrings is rather dependent on the color? I think it is, so the question becomes, can the design stand up to being switched to black and white? Well, what you think of this –

It’s just not the same, is it? This is not to say that the earrings were poorly designed because they were not. But the design was heavily dependent on color to give it the interest and appeal I believe she intended. However, even in grayscale, there are still quite lovely. The folding of the lines around the elongated pod creates a graceful flowing movement and the pointed, arrow like ends add strong directional movement, giving energy to the piece regardless of the color. There is also a fair amount of contrast in the color value within those flowing lines and even a touch of textural contrast with both a matte and a shimmer in the clay finish, further supporting the energy of this piece.

So, that was an example where the color carried the design but other design elements were shown to support it. However, those other design elements became much more evident when seen in black and white. Taking black-and-white photographs also helps you recognize color values which will help you determine whether to increase or decrease contrast as you prefer.

Which brings us to the reason I said that I think a black-and-white/grayscale palette is the most important of the monochromatic pallets. Just like looking at photos of your work in black and white, working in grayscale forces you to look for opportunities for contrast, especially in color value. Now, there is no right or wrong in terms of high contrast versus low contrast. They’re both relevant and useful approaches to designing your work — it all depends on your intention.

If, for instance, you want to create a calm, subdued piece, the first choice you might make is to lean heavily on the most psychologically calm color, blue. But then you may come to depend too heavily on color to express your intention and may not make intentional design choices in other aspects of the design that could really help support the look you are trying to create. Low contrast in the values, texture, line, etc. could also support a calm, subdued look. If you work in black, white, and grays, you’ll end up working with those other elements a lot more, and the more familiar you are with them, the more likely you are to use them intentionally in future designs.

If you’re thinking that working in monochrome just wouldn’t be any fun, that you are too in love with color to work with just one color or none at all, maybe sampling the world of monochrome art might change your mind. Let’s go see.

The World in One Hue

Hopefully, if even thinking of monochrome means black and white, the previous bit of conversation will disabuse you of that notion. You can still work with color and play with monochrome and make just stunning pieces. These decade old caned pieces by Judy Belcher that opened this post are still quite stunning. I know I have an image of three different colors in it but each set is a monochrome necklace or beads that will become a single necklace with just one color in different shades and tints, such as the necklace below.

The high-energy of these beads come from the wide range of value of each color as well as the contrast of shapes. Notice the circular beads have a lot of straight lines and the rectangular beads have a lot of circular accents. There’s also a lot of variety in the shapes of the layers, direction of line, and the presence, or lack of, pattern. These are anything but boring!

The work doesn’t need to be all high contrast to add energy to a monochromatic set. I blogged about this set by Russian artist Natalia Lemeshchenko before because it’s such a great example. The background color that might appear to be a cream does have a tinge of green, just enough to keep it in the green color set. There is a touch of color besides green in the gems, but they just add a bit of glimmer to an otherwise matte finish and is not really about the color they add. The fine flowing lines and details create energy but the symmetry along with the muted green support a quiet and sophisticated feel for the set.

Now if you want to really see what value contrast can do for a piece, work in grays. Bénédicte Bruttin’s pendant, channeling Betsy Baker’s crackle and domed shapes and Jana Lehmann’s form and style but without the saturated color, allows form, texture and value contrast to create energy and interest.

Also, consider that silversmiths, or other metal smiths who choose to work primarily in one metal, have to create primarily in monochrome. Not that they can’t use stones or patina, but you have to admit there is plenty of stunning metal jewelry that needs no color. On Facebook recently, Melanie West posted work by Teresa Kiplinger. Teresa calls herself a “silver poet”, including poetry in parts or on the back of her work but I think its visual poetry as well. She contrasts extremely delicate lines with swathes of open space and contrasts the natural metallic sheen with the matte of patina finishes. The effects are gorgeous and haunting. And there’s no color.

Now, what about work that is all one color with no variation in shade or tint? Can the work be impactful, beautiful, and exciting? Of course. But you REALLY need to focus on things like form and texture. And shadows. Since we work in a three-dimensional material, we have the option to create shadow and make that part of our value contrast in our work.

Angela Schwer masterfully uses shadow into her well-known dimensional tiles, done completely in white polymer, with only the dark spaces for contrast.

You can do this in black as well, even though shadows themselves are black. You just need the right finish. Give the surface a little bit of sheen or gloss and the shadows, which don’t reflect any light, will always be darker. I found this amazing black vessel on Colossal, an article sources for contemporary art you should check out if you have not already. Hitomi Hosono, using nothing but form and texture, creates dramatic and dense vessels, with shadow defining the contrast in texture.

So, what do you think? Curious about trying something in monochrome, if you haven’t already gotten on that train? Give yourself a play session with it. Pick one color and/or some black and white and just sit down and play. If you are used to starting with colors, look to other elements you like to work with:

–Big on texture? Use your favorite texture applications and let the textured play the staring role.

–All about surface design like mokume, caning, or alcohol inks? Just plan these in monochrome and remember to choose color values with high contrast so patterns show well.

–Do you like to play with creative shapes? Work out some interesting shapes in one color and then add layers, canes, or accents in different shades and tints of your one hue, going for high contrast to increase the energy and minimal contrast for something soft and subdued.

Really, just let yourself play and see what comes of it when lots of color isn’t your primary focus.

A Long and Winding Road

I had hoped, by now, to be ready with news about changes I am making with the magazine and production going forward for publications as well as having ready new stock in the shop. Unfortunately, I live in California and I had to jump through some unanticipated hoops just to get some services I need. But… This whole next week is dedicated to resolving everything that needs to be resolved and getting things set up so we can move forward.

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to get the mosaic kitchen backsplash done. I am absolutely loving the process but it’s easy to get lost in it and I can be just ridiculous about getting things just right. So, it’s taking a while but it’s looking pretty good. Here are some work-in-progress shots. It’s really awesome to be doing something creative and big and just for fun!

Mid-week, all the stone was finally up and the glass mosaic was started. Yeah.

Four days later, the glass mosaic is coming along. Slooooowly.

Nothing much to report on the health front. No real progress but no backsliding either this week so holding steady. I did get back to the gym, although I’m feeling like a wimp because I can’t do all I used to do and I can’t use a lot of weight on many of the machines. But it’s better than being a lump! I aim to get back to some light trail running this week as well. I hope you all are taking care of yourself as well. It’s hard to on your creativity, and pretty much anything else, if you’re feeling poorly.

So, off with me for now to do a bit more work on the backsplash. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a beautifully energized, while possibly monochromatic, week!