November 10, 2019 Uncategorized

Do you ever find yourself steering clear of the studio for fear of failure or frustration in your projects? Do you ever just throw down your tools in the middle of a project and think to yourself, “I suck!”? This is not uncommon but is also highly detrimental to your ability to both create and to get the fulfillment and other benefits from your creative pursuits. I know its hard when you’re anxious to do something well, to recreate the work you see in your head, and what happens on the studio table is something else entirely. Ugh. It is so disappointing. But the important thing to do when that happens, is to keep going.

My husband and I just started working together on an online class series in figure drawing. As a storyboard artist and director, my husband has to work with the movement of bodies all the time so he is always looking for ways to improve his skills but I found this particular artist, Mike Mattesi, had some very interesting insights plus the fact that I’m so rusty at figure drawing and it’s something we get to do together, which is important as we are both so busy all the time.

We’ve only gone through a couple of the lessons so far, but we’ve found there is both fear and loathing in our drawing sessions, on both our parts. I am frustrated at being so rusty when this kind of thing is where I shined in art school and so I loathe my diminished ability. My husband fears that he doesn’t actually have enough skill to do draw the human figure in the way he would like even though he’s made a living from his drawing skills for over twenty years. I tell you this just to show you that it doesn’t really matter what point you are at in your artistic endeavors, – there is always trepidation and frustration, especially if you are brave enough to be learning something new.

In one of the course videos, Mattesi makes an interesting statement that goes something like, “You can’t be fearful and learn at the same time.” How true! You can’t improve your skill if you’re afraid of doing something wrong or are afraid of the inevitable failings and frustration. You will not learn and you will not grow if you let fear steer you.

Have you ever known a child to be afraid to try something new? Sure, there are some children that are fearful of trying new things at some point in their young lives but, for the most part, children will just dive in. There is no ego and there is no expectation. They are just explorers in a new (to them) world and they take it on with such wonder and zest. It’s only because we have learned to evaluate and judge ourselves that we feel the strain of judgment from others upon us and allow these carefree explorations of our childhood to be replaced by highly critical little devils on our shoulders. Wouldn’t you like to do without that little devil? Some artists do. Look around and see if you can identify those who approach their work with fearless, childlike abandon and maybe seeing what others are doing well I you to let go.

The Artist as Fearless Child

I think Wendy Wallin Malinow has always put exploration and her childlike curiosity first, creating some of the most fantastical, disparate, and, yes, sometimes, disturbing work. I love the abandon of her creativity that runs rampant through her pieces. It was hard to pick out just one piece as an example of Wendy’s playfulness so here is a sampling of her playing around with embroidery and polymer, both in the confines of the traditional (albeit very small) embroidery hoop and “in the round” on sculptural pieces.

It’s more a suspicion than anything that Claire Maunsell approaches her work in a fearless childlike manner. Her work is highly textural and includes a variety of surface treatments that aren’t widely different from one another, but her work is very organic looking, coming across as being formed in the process rather than planned. This is, of course, is the way most children create. Claire does return time and again to pods but just look at the selection here opening this post. There is no repeatable process that can be discerned. I think she must simply sit down and work away and see what comes of it. Of course, just playing with materials will hone your skills until you can re-create the textures, colors, and other techniques you come up with in an unerring and controlled manner.

Knowing Melanie West a bit, I’d say her change in direction of late has much to do with wanting to recapture or expand her fearless child as well as fire up her motivation. Over the past couple of years Melanie has been exploring fiber arts. Although she has combined felting with polymer in the past, more recently she’s been combining various fiber techniques, such as felting with silk painting as seen here. Take a look at her gallery of fiber work. It’s interesting to see how her polymer work has informed her fiber art as well.

I think childlike fearlessness must be at the core of what Debo Groover and Tina Torrance create in their fantastical wall art. There is so much energy, color, story, and sense of joy in their compositions. I’m sure the intensity of the type of work it takes to create one of these can be very arduous, but they never lose that spark. You can see what I’m referring to in these pieces that hang on the wall of LeBonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

Working fearlessly is not just about letting your child play but is also about challenging yourself. I know Donna Greenberg struggled with the piece you see here. It is, in part, a self-portrait, literally, with a drawing of herself in the background layer. If I recall correctly, I think it was primarily Donna’s concern about what she wanted a self-portrait to really be about that she struggled with. It doesn’t really matter whether the challenge is conceptual or skill driven though, as long as we keep challenging ourselves so we will continue to grow and to learn.

The Fearless You

So, I’d like to propose that, this week, you tell your inner critic to take a vacation. Create without concern for whether the work is good or bad. Don’t post your new work online either, not right away, so you are less likely to be thinking about what others will say about it if you put it out there. Just explore and learn fearlessly as a child again.

Too Tired to Be Loathing

For me, this week has been too busy for any real loathing to creep in but childlike fearless creativity has also been in check. As always, I wish I’d gotten more done but it was a week of family and friends in need, mostly in need of my ear, so I spent a lot time on the phone instead of working out business plans but I did you get some progress on production for this coming year. I didn’t get much farther on finding books for the new shop but I do think those of you who threw me a few suggestions and for all the well wishes I continue to get from you wonderful people. I would love to continue getting suggestions since I am a one-woman band over here for the time being.

It’s been a rough week physically too. I swear I’m laying off the arm, I even draw left-handed for the little online class we sneak in every few nights, but apparently, I can do something that seems quite benign and set myself back. I do loathe how long it takes to heal when one gets older! But we are trying some new things. My blood sugar has been more regular though so yay for that! I still need to see more consistent normal numbers but I’m getting there!

Still working on that kitchen backsplash, a little at a time. This may be the real reason I have fear in creating on my mind! I keep making little test boards to check my technique and designs but took a while to actually get to installing it. I finally came up with something that we are both happy with and that I can do, more or less, one-armed (I won’t use the tile saw one armed!) Here’s a peek at the final test board the backsplash is being based off of.

And, no, it doesn’t show any polymer, not yet. I don’t know if you can see the round object in the center set of glass shards. It’s a magnet. I decided I want to make multiple polymer pieces for the backsplash that we can trade out as the mood strikes but I needed to have a backsplash that was fully sealed. So, magnets in the wall followed by magnets or metal in the polymer pieces I create for the backsplash will give us that freedom. My husband really likes to spontaneously redecorate so I wanted to give him something he could change on a whim. Just gotta get the darn thing done.

Ok, off to relax with family and recharge. Go forth and fearlessly create this week and maybe this will be the start of really keeping fear and loathing at bay in the studio!

November 3, 2019 Uncategorized

Do you prefer to make pieces that are high-energy or calm and still, or something in between? I ask because a lot of my recent posts, especially in September, talked about high energy approaches to designing your art work. However, I don’t want anyone to start thinking their work has to be high energy. It can be as high or low as you want it to be. It all comes down to your intention.

The level of energy in a piece is integral to directing our emotional reaction to it. So if you want something fun and exciting, sure, use high energy approaches like lots of saturated and contrasting colors and  visual or kinetic movement, but if you want to create something that reflects your introspective morning walks in the woods or those quiet moments watching the sun go down from your porch, you would be better off with muted colors and calm, horizontal lines and shape orientations. The quieter look can still have a strong and awe inspiring impact on the viewer but the emotional reaction will be of the more tranquil variety. There is a place in everyone’s life for both excitement and tranquility. So, instill the kind of energy you want to convey to the viewer or wearer of your work.

A lot of times creating a calm energy entails the use of simplicity because the more complex the work, the more likely it is to be infused with layers of energy. But here’s the thing… even calm looking pieces have discernible levels of energy. It’s not about having no energy, it’s about the quality and level of it. Honestly, it would be hard to have a good design that didn’t have some energy. It just doesn’t have to be a lot.

I did find that it is really, really hard to keyword search for designs that are more tranquil. Tranquility and similar terms just don’t seem to be what people think to put in their descriptions. I’m not sure why. I did come to realize that the work that I gather and set aside for future blogs tends to be high-energy as that’s what I’m drawn to, as are most polymer crafters. So, the search for designs with a more minimal level of energy has been a bit of a challenging and intriguing experience for me. Let’s go see what I found on the quieter side of design and see how much they speak to you.

Cool, Calm and Collected

When first I went searching for pieces I thought represented this idea of tranquil energy, Genevieve Williamson’s artistic jewelry came immediately to mind. Her work is definitely an example of undeniably evident energy that nonetheless conveys a comforting tranquility and calm, like early mornings on a clear fall day or lazy late afternoons when you have nothing pressing to do.

However, her work tends to have some small deviation from the balance and symmetry that she employs to help relay this calmness. They are little things, like the uneven nature of the colorants on the left side earrings you see opening this post. On the gorgeous set on the right, the scratch lines are very similar between the two earrings until you get to the bottom of the larger triangle of the right-hand one and suddenly all the lines go horizontal. Things are just off a touch, just a little out of place or unexpected. There is an honesty approachability to her brand of intentional imperfection which adds to the relaxed feeling and calm emotional response so much of her work tends to elicit.

Key to good design, when trying to create with a minimal level of energy, usually involves employing cool and/or muted colors, symmetry, and an even balance. In France’s Sophie Pollion’s set here, we see all three of those go-to calming design elements but with one deviation, where the perfect circle is broken as a section threatens to break away. This creates a point of interest and just enough energy to keep such a combination of characteristics from being too static or rather dull. It is not unlike what Williamson does above, but it is more obvious.

That is not to say that design with perfect balance and symmetry is boring. Such pieces can be absolutely transcendent if done well. Look at this set of earrings. The design seems so simple – completely symmetrical and perfectly balanced without any deviation in the symmetry between the earrings. And yet, they have a gorgeous sophistication and beauty. Why is that?

The reason this works without being boring is because there is a tremendous amount of subtle contrast. The jewelry designer, Maike Barteldres, connects the softness of a solid round object and a thin delicate circle with a rigid straight line. She also pairs the perfection of shiny, hard-edged, man-made metal components with the matte, organic form of a pebble. And, of course, there is the stark contrast in value with the near whiteness of silver against the near blackness of the stone. So, the energy is minimal, but the allure of these artful juxtapositions is not.

For all that balance and symmetry does for creating calm and tranquility in a piece, I think the most dramatic and impressive low energy design choice is to simply provide a tremendous amount of “white space”. The term “white space” does not necessarily mean that the space is white but rather that it not complicated with texture, line, focal points, etc. Such work really needs to keep the focus on form and the finish, as evidenced, I think, in this wood turned vessel by Carlyn Lindsay.

I was really hoping to find a polymer piece that exemplified the heavy use of white space to convey calm energy but we sure are a group that loves our texture, line, abundance of color, and pattern. I would say that most people come to polymer because of the variety of surface design as well as sculptural possibilities so, yeah, pieces with lots of white space are not going to be easy to find. Who would like to change that? Can you create a piece, using your favorite techniques and forms, but create areas of calm where you would normally puts a lot of pattern or texture? Or, if you already do that quite a bit, maybe challenge yourself to see just how much white space or other element of calm you can use in your work with while still creating a satisfying piece.

The whole idea of calmness in your work may not suit what you prefer to do or want to express but, like anything else in design, you can make an intentional choice about the amount of energy you want to have in any one piece. It’s just something to think about.

A Bid for My Own Serenity and Sanity

Okay, as mentioned last week I have a lot of things I’m working on, albeit slowly between being a one-armed bandit and being short-staffed as my assistant has not been able to return to work. So, I am rather on my own right now, but I have moved forward with a few things.

Expanding the Tenth Muse Book Store

One of my primary goals for Tenth Muse Arts is to support our working artists in any way I can. It occurred to me a while back that there are a lot of artists who publish their own books but struggle to sell them to a wider audience because they are the sole promoters. I want to change that. So, I’m looking to expand the publications we sell on the website to include books by artists who are independently publishing as well as procuring some classic but hard to get titles I believe every ardent polymer crafter should not be without.

I’ve already started to get some stock in but have to get it organized and posted to the shop. I also have a long way to go in getting all the books from independent artist-authors. So, if you are an artist-author with a book that you think we should carry, please contact me. If you have any suggestions for independently published polymer related books that you would like us to carry, please do let me know by using the contact link at the top of the blog page or, if you get this by email, simply respond to the email.

As soon as I have this first round of stock ready in the online shop, I will have a celebratory opening sale. So, keep an eye on the newsletter (if you aren’t signed up, go to our home page here and scroll down to the newsletter sign-up form) as that will be the first point of notification for the sale but, of course, I’ll also let you know on the following Sunday right here.

If I’m lucky, I’ll get that done in about a week. Just send out good vibes that we will no longer be threatened by fires or have to deal with the precautionary power outages our crazy fire season has necessitated this past week here in California. We’ve stayed safe here so far but flash backs of last year seeing a wall of fire at the end of our street has made our high fire danger days a bit distracting.

The Question of Production

One of the other reasons for expanding the bookstores is to diversify the business since it is pretty certain now that I will not be able to produce books and magazines so much on my own anymore. The bottom line is that my arm has not healed all that much over these last three months and my last consultation was not overly encouraging. It is more than possible that I have some permanent damage in my arm and I need to plan future projects accordingly. I can still work but gone are the days of marathon layout sessions and long nights of photo prep. Don’t you hate it when your body tells you to slow or stop working? What a wimp.

So, although I was told to take up to 6 months and it’s only been 3 months of rest, I can’t keep our magazines subscribers hanging much longer so after much number crunching and creative problem-solving, I’ve decided on a plan but have a few more details to work out before I can share more about the production of The Polymer Studio magazine. You, my subscribers, are always on my mind though. Know that.

With calm and serenity on my mind for the rest of the weekend, I’m going to take a little time off and do some fiction writing. Since I can talk to my computer, I’ve been doing a lot more of that kind of thing these days as I haven’t even editing or layout to fill my creative needs. You’d think I would have worked in some polymer time, and I had hoped to, but I’ve been a little worried on how working with hand tools would affect the arm plus, to be honest, the studio still hasn’t recovered from the invasion of the family during the remodel. So maybe I’ll do a little cleaning up around here too while the husband is home to assist and remove that excuse. All this talk about calm and serene energy is really got me thinking about some new designs.

I am also pondering trying Patreon for a little side income (although for my poetry and prose writing, not my art). I kind of thought it would be a neat way to try the platform and see how well it works (which I can then share with all of you) and keep me motivated (aka accountable!) to continue my creative writing. Have you been curious about Patreon or would you be interested to see what kind of creative nonsense I write? Leave a comment in this post’s comment section or write using the contact page, or just hit reply if you get this by email.

Ok, off with me and with you. I hope my chatter has gotten your own creative juices flowing. Maybe you’ll consider a change up in the energy level of your work just to see what fresh ideas it might bring you this coming week.

October 27, 2019 Uncategorized

When you think of Halloween themed art, do you think fun and goofy or maybe dark and gothic? Do you ever think of it as beautiful? Of course, we all know that there is beauty in all kinds of art but holiday and seasonal pieces tend to be more lighthearted and lean towards fulfilling the need for family fun and entertainment or tasteful but not overly obtrusive décor.  Halloween, however, is not about being unobtrusive, and although we see a lot of fun and silly things, there is always the underlying theme and the reason for the season … the observance of our connection to the dead.

Halloween, and the root of the name, comes from the Christian observance of the eve of All Saints (aka Hallows, as in hallowed people) Day which occurs on the 1^st of November. In Scotland, the word for “the eve of” something is ‘even’, commonly contracted to e’en. And so the name, Halloween, is a mash up of Hallow and e’en.

Although Halloween is the day before a Christian day of observance, it was actually built upon a pagan observance, Samhain, representing the last day of they pagan calendar because, being a calendar focused on the seasonal and agricultural cycles, it was approximately the last day of harvesting, and the bounty of the year’s harvest would be celebrated. Being this was the time of year that folks turned to face the coming Winter, there was a lot of superstition surrounding the day and many came to believe it was the time when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead was thinnest and so it made sense to consider one’s loved ones who had passed on at this time. I bring this all up to show that the origins of Halloween was one of celebration and love for family and friends lost and not born of a fear of evil or the devil as some might assume.

Halloween is definitely my favorite holiday. For one, I like that we take a day to address and symbolically stand up to our innate fear of death and darkness. Death is a part of our cycle of life and without it, how well would we appreciate the days we have? We are physiologically wired to avoid and dread death, of course, otherwise we’d not likely have survived very long as a species. (As it is, we have dummies taking ridiculous risks for selfies and adrenaline junkies just taunting the grim reaper. What we be doing if we had no fear of our demise?) But it awaits us all so why not face its existence and embrace that it makes our every moment more precious? Sorry I got a bit heavy there! Moving on …

Another reason I like Halloween is that people get so dang creative. From home decorating to lawn displays to costumes to self-adornment, this feels like the holiday that most everybody has tried their hand at creating something of their own. Craft stores, fabric stores and thrift stores are mobbed and people get excited about making their ideas a reality. I love that energy.

Another huge reason for my love of this holiday is that we see a lot more of the dark side of beauty circulating through art, fashion, and décor. There is beauty in all facets of this world of ours and the dark side is no exception. So, in the spirit of this season, let me show you some of the beauty being created on the darker side.

The Dark and Lovely Arts

When you opened this post, did you cringe or think “ew” at the sight of the skull adorned journal cover, or did you react with appreciation and a desire to take a closer look? Skulls are creepy, I’ll give you that, but it’s mostly because of what they represent. You can find similar lines and forms in plants and geological formations and those we think are amazing because they don’t remind us of our final days. I think you have to do something a bit different with a skull to get people to look beyond the symbolism so they can gain appreciation for what it actually is—the formation of bone that is the base for the human faces we know and love.

Poland’s Alexandra ClayMaiden chose a difficult, but much more interesting angle, than the standard skull, to create her bas relief sculpture on the journal cover that opens this post. The three-quarter view allows Alexandra to create flowing lines and elegant forms not usually associated with skulls as well as more of a sense of movement with it being tilted. Straight on or profile skulls look both still and, well, dead. There is a liveliness here that makes these rose adorned bones take on a marvelous splendor.

As morose as the death’s-head hawkmoth appears, the beauty of the colors and, in particular, the textures, especially in this piece by Julia Galisina, are easy to see if you ignore the skull pattern. If it weren’t for the symbolism, the look of this work would be simply a gritty beauty all about the innate color sense of mother nature as interpreted by Julia. But with the skull on the back of these moths, and one exaggerated by the artist here, this moth carries a symbol of our dreaded end, which may be hard to get past. I think the lovely detail and colors do, however pull us past that symbolism to focus on the beauty of this work. I am grateful when an artist can show us that something is more than what it symbolizes.

And of course the Raven, with it’s black plumage and scavenging ways has long been a bird people have been wary of but this time of year, it gets to share a spotlight. Edgar Allen Poe didn’t help their image, being referred to so prominently in his famous poem. Melissa Terlizzi, however, does them proud with this beautifully textured, sculptural rendition complete with a ruffled and unkempt look one often sees in wild ravens. Although head feathers are not usually so ruffled, I really like the artistic choice to make them more dimensional and heavily textured, bringing your eye to its head and onto the eye of the raven in the process.

Ok, this next artist’s work completely creeps me out but I also can’t stop looking at it. Skink Chen creates some of the most beautifully disturbing sculptures, mixing human forms with and insect and reptilian components into create highly unusual creatures that would be easily fit in any otherworldly nightmare. However, the graceful lines and delicacy in the details makes them things of beauty. They just feel like they are going to be dangerous.

Isn’t it interesting that something most people will find utterly creepy, like tentacles, especially those wrapped around your neck, can end up looking like an elegant kind of lace, simply by changing the colors to pure white? This necklace, as best as I have been able to gather, is actually part of a wedding jewelry line. Chelsea Komschlies just thought it would be popular since beach themes are so prevalent in weddings these days. I was thinking HP Lovecraft and other fantasy fans would jump on something like this for their fan based weddings, which are also popular these days. But mostly I picked this for you just to consider what one single design change–color in this case–can do to take something from purely creepy to disturbingly beautiful. Or just beautiful, for those who have a keen appreciation for sophisticated cephalopods.

Ok, so, we’re not going to get through this holiday with out at least one good laugh. Mr. Barghest takes creepy to hilarious heights with these pieces (I think they’re magnets). There is a lot of funny and even cute Halloween themed work out there but having a refined style like this brings the imagery alive. The uneven placement of teeth, the slight cross of the eyes and the antiqued texture carries the goofiness in designs that are well balanced and skillfully sculpted.

Preparing for the Hallows

So I am just back from traveling for nearly 4 weeks, which was weird because I was originally only going to be gone just over 2 weeks. It was supposed to attend 2 weddings and do some visiting with family and friends with a couple days dropping in on the house I rent out to friends there in Colorado to make a couple small repairs. But, you know … best laid plans don’t hold. The house needed a lot more than a faucet replaced plus things got slowed down when my assistant became ill so I was doing a lot more business work than expected, hence the delay in returning home. But I am here now, still without an assistant (seems to be the year of taking breaks to attend to one’s health, which is a good, if difficult thing) but getting back into the rhythm of things. I still have that darn backsplash to finish so that is on tap this week. Plus I should have a real update on the magazine and some cool news on new projects we have decided to get going on in the very near future. Still ironing a few things out so give me a couple more weeks and thank you so so much for your incredible patience with me!

While I was in Colorado, I got to hang with a couple of my favorite polymer people. Here is Christi Friesen, Debbie Crothers, and I creating our own little red hat society in one of our runs through a Denver thrift store.

The next day we saw Christi off to Tennessee then Debbie and I wandered around an area in northwest Denver dubbed RiNo (River North) and saw all this incredible stuff and more!

Oh, the beauty and laughs you can find just getting out and about!

Well, I hope you all have time to enjoy and admire a little beauty on the dark side and more than a few laughs this Halloween week. I’m off to enjoy some overdue California family time carving pumpkins and watching old holiday appropriate movies with some of the nephews before heading out to check out the creatively, and sometimes insanely, decorated haunted homes of a few of our like-minded friends. I wish you all treats and no tricks this week and tons of creative time!

October 20, 2019 Uncategorized

My apologies that there was not a blog this Sunday morning. A confluence of unfortunate circumstances got in the way. Working while traveling is a bit of gamble but at the end of this trip, I have found that I am short an assistant for the time being and I have had some unexpected family issues to attend to among a lot of little bits of craziness. But … I head back tomorrow! Phew! Looking forward to getting back to a normal-ish schedule and get back to working on some new projects that I will share with you shortly.

In the meantime, since so many of you seem to love the little historical bits I bring up on occasion, here is a great Ted Talk about how and why our society differentiates art from craft and why painting and sculpture are thought of as fine art while jewelry and quilts and the like are called craft. Its rather interesting and, really, kind of silly. Let’s see what you think.

October 13, 2019 Uncategorized

Are you, like me, one of those folks that just wants everybody to share your joy in creating art and especially your favorite medium? I think my family is pretty tired of hearing about the many wonders of polymer although no one objects to the handmade Christmas gifts. I have, however, gotten one niece and one step-grandchild into it so all my talk has had, at least in part, a desired effect! I just want everyone to experience that same kind of joy that I find in creating with a fascinating medium like polymer.

During this break I’ve been taking from production, I’ve been thinking really hard about how I can best share this joy as well as consider what this community needs and how we can help spread the word about polymer and the benefits of having a creative outlet in general. It wouldn’t really matter to me whether people work in polymer or some other medium, as long as they have the chance to discover how creativity, in whatever form it takes, can enrich their lives. But, since I am so integrated into this community and would like to see it stay vibrant, I’ve been pondering ways to increase our reach and bring in some new blood or at least get other artists interested in using polymer in addition to their primary medium.

To that end, I have been researching and talking to various non-polymer specific outlets to see how we might be able to increase polymer’s exposure. My first successful foray this round was with the Craft Industry Alliance with an article I wrote on the possibilities of polymer clay, their first on the medium, published on their website early this week. You can see it at the link here.

I’m excited about this because polymer has such a potential to add truly unique and inexpensive additions and accents to so many other types of art forms. And you just know that some of those people will be complete converts before all is said and done. I was a sporadic fiber and found objects artist before polymer was put into my hand. Actually, come to think of it, that happened in the very room I’m sitting in right now in Aurora, Colorado, almost exactly 13 years ago. My polymer centric path was nothing I could have envisioned back then, but then, oftentimes, the best things we end up with in our life were not planned.

That’s why I like to encourage serendipity as often as possible. Magazines are a serendipitous source of information in that, although you know you have an interest in the subject, you don’t know what you’re going to get out of that publication until you open it up and flip through. The opening image of this post is of a bracelet by Jill Palumbo who, some 8 years ago, opened The Polymer Arts Winter 2011–Education issue and found my article on a wax impression texturing technique,  shown here with the wax and polymer clay impression made from it.  She fell in love with it. The bracelet shown above is from 2018 using the same basic technique although she has taken it much farther than I have and has made it her signature technique. And that happened by just opening a magazine with no expectations.

Same goes with this blog. You don’t know what I’m going to talk about each week but I hope, on a somewhat regular basis, you find something that gets you thinking and helps nudge you onto a path where you find more and more joy and fulfillment in what you do and create.

Inviting Serendipity

To that end, while I am here in Colorado, embroiled in the fun and frenetic event that is my baby sister’s wedding while visiting with family and friends including the coincidentally present Debbie Crothers and Christi Friesen, all on the one weekend, (and thus my time for research and pulling and prepping photos and all that has been severely limited) I am going to suggest that you consider pushing your creative boundaries a little this coming week by going out and finding serendipitous inspiration around you. Here are a few suggestions on how to do that:

• Play with the medium that you’ve never worked with before. Take a stroll through a local craft store (because that’s always a fun thing anyways) and pick up something unfamiliar that catches your eye and see what you can do with it.
• Go to your local bookstore or newsstand and find a book or magazine on a craft or art form you haven’t worked in and flip through it. If something really catches your eye, buy it and try it.
• If you don’t have time to try a new thing, at least try to photo hunt. Photo hunting requires nothing but looking around for things that you find interesting and taking pictures of them with your phone camera. Aim to take at least three photos a day (although more would be better!) and then when you are next in the studio take a look at the pictures and see if you can integrate textures, forms, lines, colors, or whatever caught your eye, into a practice piece or even into your present work.
• Write about your work. This doesn’t have to be poetic or sound like a museum catalog, just write about how it makes you feel or the concepts behind where your ideas come from. Working visually often means working instinctively and so you may not be identifying what you are doing with your artwork. By writing about it, you can really define and illuminate your approach and why you’re doing it which can give you more focus and success as you move from one project to the next. If you find this helpful, spend 5-10 minutes every day before you sit down to your studio table writing down your thoughts about your artwork as well as what you want to accomplish that day.
• Collaborate! What other artists do you know and admire? Sit down to tea or coffee or have a Skype call with them and see if you can’t come up with something that you both get jazzed about. The conversation should be enlightening and invigorating even if a collaborative project is not the result.

Serendipity … It’s Up to You Now

So, again, my apologies that this post is a bit spare on images but hopefully these suggestions fill your mind with ideas. You can start right now. Turnaround and take a picture of something near you or walk outside and find something to photograph. Call up an artist friend for that cup of coffee and talk of collaboration or head on over to the craft store to find a new and invigorating publication. These are small things, but they could end up changing your entire life. A random discussion with a friend is what brought me to polymer. What moment or event brought you to polymer? There may be another great discovery for you out there—just open the door to your own bit of serendipity.

Today I’m off to spend time with family and friends and then show off my previously adopted state to Debbie Crothers. I will take lots of pictures! Maybe serendipity will drop something amazing into my lap while I’m at it!