Outside Inspiration: Trying Not to Be a Polymer Snob

Below is an intriguing, elegant necklace by Danielle Gori-Montanelli. Fairly simple with a calm yet random pattern and subdued colors. Nice, right? It’s felt.

Have you ever worked with felt? Dense, rich, durable and a really earthy medium. Great fun for the very tactile artist. It’s also pretty forgiving if you mess up and have to take your piece apart, rebuild, extract or expand. And still … my first thought when I saw this piece was “How cool. But it would have been so much easier to make in polymer.”

Now why did I say that to myself? It wouldn’t necessarily be easier or quicker — considering the conditioning and handling of the clay that would be needed before constructing it. But it did make me realize that I’m a tad bit biased. Okay, more than a tad. And that’s with fiber being one of my first loves.

I think it really comes down to an overriding admiration for the versatility of the medium as well as the very sharing and generous nature of the polymer community. It’s really hard to beat. It’s rather insane how many other art materials have been sitting in boxes — untouched — since I became a full-blown polymer addict some 7 years ago. I think I need some intervention.

All materials are valid. There are a very few that cannot work with polymer. So to temper my snobbery, I have been mixing fiber with polymer. It has been seriously all too fun. Has it been helping my prejudice though? Well …

Do you have a medium that you worked in before polymer? Have you tried combining the two? You should really try it if you haven’t. You will probably come up with some incredible works of art!

Of course that would further support a prejudice for polymer … what can’t polymer do? Oh, well. I guess those of us so inclined need more therapy … yep, we will have to spend more time in the studio exploring. Oh, how terrible.