Frilly Flower Canework

Creating a repeatable section to develop complex looking canes is a standard approach in polymer caning. However, with most such canes, the section repeated has a centered image or pattern which, of course, makes it easy to halve and repeat or at least allows the artist to butt the pieces up next to each other without worrying about how the edges will match. So I do always admire the canes that depart from this and build from sections where the imagery is not always fully centered such as these Frilly Flower canes by Cathy Harm.

It’s a subtle difference but if you look at the  bottom left and bottom center cane, there is a dynamic sway to the imagery that you dont’ see in a cane built from balanced and centered components such as the top left piece. Nothing wrong with centered work, as I’ve said before, but if you want to have more movement in the patterning of a cane, learning to to build such components will give you that option.

So what kind of considerations must be taken into account to create canes like these? Well, I personally don’t know … yet. Luckily, Cathy is sharing her approach in a CraftArtEdu class which happens to be discounted right now so it’s a great opportunity to learn from this caning master. According to the class description this is not just a limited number of canes you’ll learn but rather an “open-ended technique that will enable you to design so many unique canes depending on the amounts of blends and the colors that you choose.” How cool does that sound?