Outside Inspiration: Organic Order

When searching for artists in other mediums to work into this week’s theme, I was rather surprised to find polymer came up more often than any other medium when searching for organic and geometric in the same search. Ceramics was the next most common. Not that we are the only mediums that mix in both but it would seem clays are more commonly used to express this dichotomy or is it that artists that work with clay feel drawn to both?

Inspired by a part of the Arizona desert known as Arcosanti, ceramic artist Chris Gryder started out playing in dirt using silt, clay and concrete as his primary means of expression. Using silt molds, he patterns these tiles and after firing them, colors the surfaces with slip before firing again. As you can see, his organic inspiration in the desert does not limit him to those forms but rather he finds the geometric patterns and connections between what he has found in nature.

As polymer artists, we can take inspiration not only from his process and all this wonderful texture, but also in the composition of his many wall installations. Polymer would lend itself–and has–to multiple smaller pieces assembled into a larger work. Look at his work on Flickr and his website for much more rich texture and some really creative wall compositions.

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