The Party is in Full Swing. Come join us!
May 31, 2023
Polymer community news, The Polymer Arts magazine news
What party is this? The latest project from little ol’ me, Sage. The Sage Arts podcast is more than up and running… I have 25 episodes up as of this posting, ready on your favorite podcast player (New to Podcasts? Click here to find out how easy it is to enjoy them!) and a new one coming out every week.
What’s This Podcast All About?
This podcast is all about feeding and exciting your muse. By enlightening or reminding you about important and maybe unconsidered aspects of creating and living as an artist, I hope to help you find more joy and satisfaction in what you do, sharing ways to create with authenticity and fearlessness, while supporting your uniquely defined version of success.
Now what the heck does that all mean? Well, let’s look at what this is and what this is not…
It IS…
… a way to consistently feed your muse
… all about you. Myself, my guests, and my guest co-hosts speak to the issues, curiousity, and hurdles that you as a creative deal with on a regular basis.
… focused on creating a more fulfilling, joyful, and meaningful artistic journey.
… a conversation that goes both ways with lots of opportunities for you to be heard.
It is NOT…
… all about polymer clay or any one medium, as it’s important stuff for all artistic folks.
… focused on “how-to” or the latest tools and materials.
… just interviewing successful artists and talking at you. Rather it is like a coffee house chat or other friendly gather and I include you, the listener, in every way I can.
I created this podcast to supercharge your creativity, motivation, and artistic style through novelty, story, conversation, and community. Everyone has how-tos and ways to increase your sales – valiant and necessary stuff, of course! But what does your muse need? What does your work and your love of your art need to thrive? That’s where I want to help.
I aim to give artists ways to further hone their unique voice, increase their joy and productivity, and create a version of artistic success that is meaningful, satisfying, and anything but ordinary.
Come Join the Conversation
If you have something to share, would like to be a guest (for a chatty interview), or be a guest co-host (you and I banter on a particular subject) drop me an email me via my contact page on the show website: https://thesagearts.com/contact/ or send a voice mail (use the red button on that same site, bottom right corner of any page.)
And join me on social media!
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thesageartspodcast/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TheSageArtsPodcast
And don’t forget to click “FOLLOW” or that little arrow on your favorite Podcast player so you get notices of new episodes. New Episodes come out weekly on Friday evenings, barring natural disasters or other bits of interference, of course. I hope you’ll join me there, on The Sage Arts podcast!
There are new artists and creatives joining every day with tons of great things to say…
“Just what I needed!”
“I just binged-listened … and I can’t wait for more!”
“There is so much validity in your presentation…”
“Looking forward to all the thinking and creating that they prompt.”
Taste test on my RSS website: https://rss.com/podcasts/thesagearts/
Or on the podcast home website: https://thesagearts.com/
Or start with this episode:
Evoking with Color
August 7, 2013
Inspirational Art
Our connection to nature is so strong that a set of colors alone can represent the natural and a sense of being outdoors.
Elsie Smith does a nice job of keeping her colors simple, while still evoking a strong association with nature. The colors we identify with trees, earth, wood, and sunshine come through in the soft, brushstroke-like lines of this subtly designed pendant.
The combination of colors is what brings this sense of nature to us. But if the stripes were graphic and well-defined, or if the pendant was a square rather than a soft leaf shape, or if we had a glitzy, faceted gem instead of a water-drop-like cabochon, we’d probably lose that association almost completely. It’s a rare element in art (or in nature) that is not in some way dependent on other characteristics to carry the intention through. So although the right color palette may be key to portraying a sense of organic and natural, don’t forget that every choice you make in your artistic creations has the potential to change the message. Every choice is part of the whole.
Stories in Nature
August 6, 2013
Inspirational Art
Meredith Dittmar has an affinity for organic forms and natural motifs; but instead of representing nature in any direct or realistic manner, she often tells stories in which nature, including leaves, vines, animals, the sun, stars, and mountains, are contrasted against men’s buildings and machinery in detailed, illustrative wall pieces. She also has a very playful side which can be seen in the imaginary creatures she calls her “Guys“.
This piece here falls somewhere between her more serious psychepolymereganic art (her term) and the “guys”. It’s a rather idyllic scene, with stylized creatures and plants that come close to a direct natural interpretation, but are more representative of a wish for something that doesn’t quite exist.
Check out the many sides of Meredith on her website. Her main portfolio has a nice overview of her work including her personal art, some of her “guys,” and client work. But if you have a minute or two more, go have fun looking through the many variations of her “guys”.
Bringing Attention to Nature
August 5, 2013
Inspirational Art
Since the upcoming issue of The Polymer Arts is all about organics, I have spent the last few months immersed in the idea of defining “organic”. This is a truly interesting subject to study in relation to polymer, a material that seems to be anything but. In an age where we have come to focus on green and sustainable materials, we work in a material that doesn’t easily break down. This guilt factor has been an on-going discussion in our community; it took up what seemed like half a day’s discussion at the RAM symposium in 2011. We as artists in this medium are not unconcerned about the environment and how we as humans affect the natural order of things; quite the contrary. If it weren’t for the minimal waste (how often, if ever, do you throw away scrap clay?), minimal energy usage (small ovens rather than kilns, torches, or major power tools) and durability of the medium (this is not disposable or temporary art!) we might be facing a conflict with today’s view on plastics. But it’s not only that; as a whole, polymer artists seem heavily drawn to recreating and bringing attention to nature and the organic state of our world. I think we do darn good for artists working in ‘plastic’.
This week, I want to look at just a few examples of polymer bringing people’s attention back to the natural. For instance, jewelry like this necklace allows adornment that would be too fragile and temporary if picked directly from nature.
Olena Mysnyk from Ukraine created these realistic leaves, as nature and leaves in particular are a favorite subject of hers. There is definitely something to be said about being able to throw a bit of Mother Nature around your neck and have it still fresh and lovely at the end of the day.
You are the only You
August 4, 2013
Ponderings
I must admit that I’m a little overworked and brain-dead today (as I am around this time every three months, when the next issue is almost done), so I’ve no particular thoughts on today’s quote other than, yes, be yourself, don’t copy, and strive to be exactly who you are and need to be in your life and in your art.
And I thought the way this was put was pretty funny! Funny because it’s so true, of course.
Creative Patterning with Canes from Israel
August 3, 2013
Inspirational Art
Did you know that Israel is geographically on the continent of Asia, but for political reasons is considered a European country? I didn’t. How very interesting. This fact has allowed me to go ahead and share the work of a rather active polymer artist from Israel, Tova Reshef, under this week’s Eastern European theme. Her penchant for great canes and floral designs fits into the aesthetic veins we’ve been seeing from Eastern Europe, so I think she’s quite well placed here.
Canes are where Tova really shines, as you can see on her Flickr pages. But along with the popular cane covered objects, she occasionally comes up with little gems like this pendant. By cutting out spaces in the center of the placed canes, she develops both visual and tactile patterning, making for a very interesting piece.
She also creates these rather intense color combinations with her rose canes–the soft gradations of the colors in the petals somehow intensify the contrast of colors. Take a look at these earrings on her Etsy site. They’re quite lovely.
Outside Inspiration: Pysanky – Ukrainian Egg Dyeing
August 2, 2013
Inspirational Art
There was a novel I read not long ago where a character described the process of drawing on eggs with wax and then dying them. I had this pretty cool image in my mind of what they might look like; but it wasn’t until today, when putting in the keywords “Eastern European art” into Google’s image search, that I actually got to see what these are – and just how far off my imagination had been!
The eggs below are labeled as “Pysanky: Ukrainian Easter Eggs” on a photo-gallery website called www.thingography.com. If you go to the Pysanky gallery on this site, you can see just how intricate this egg dyeing gets. The level of detail on these is quite mind-blowing; everything is created with wax and dye.
For those of you looking for inspiration for canes, I think you will find that perusing these eggs on the previously mentioned page or putting Pysanky into a Google images search or on Pinterest will bring you quite the bonanza of color and pattern ideas. There is also a Flickr group that posts more than just eggs. What a wonderful art form!
(There is no attribution for the artist or artists and an image search revealed no further information. If anyone happens to know a more specific way to credit the artist or artists, do let me know!)
Caning in Belarus
August 1, 2013
Inspirational Art
Here’s an example of something that probably would have founds its way into our themed week on caning if I had been able to search with the right keywords in the right language and alphabet. Anastasyia Arynovich from Belarus creates absolutely beautiful canes and applies them in such a way that you forget about the cane; all you think at first is that she’s created something amazing.
The straight-forward, centered, and symmetrical design of these monochromatic earrings is simply gorgeous. Creating work that is this simple and eye-catching is no small feat. I have tremendous respect for perfectly executed design that uses the most basic concepts. Work like this requires just the right balance, just the right level of intricacies, and some serious skill and patience in construction and finishing.
The monochromatic kaleidoscope cane in these earrings is just a single example of the excellent work Anastasyia does. There are many more examples on her Flickr page, so many I couldn’t help but share one more! It’s just red, gray, and white, but isn’t this beautiful?
Go check out her Flickr photostream to see what she does with this cane, along with more of her well-executed work.
Sculptural Jewelry from Ukraine
July 31, 2013
Inspirational Art
Our Eastern European artist today is Olga Zhukova from Bila Tserkva, Ukraine. Like her neighbor from Russia we saw yesterday, Olga does a lot of sculptural floral work in polymer; but if you look over her body of work, you realize that she enjoys playing with all kinds of polymer recreations, as long as there are vibrant colors to show off.
I would not say that this bracelet below is representative of the majority of her work, but it is representative of the breadth of sculptural techniques and realistic recreations she is capable of. And maybe I just really like the idea of the frog being the focal point of the bracelet. I can certainly see this being the center of conversation wherever the wearer goes with it. How often do you see a complete, rather realistic sculptural scene on someone’s wrist?
See the wide variety of Olga’s work in her shop, on her blog and on her Flickr photostream. Olga creates in cold porcelain as well as polymer–especially with her sculpted flowers–so keep in mind that not everything you see is made out of polymer clay. Nonetheless, all her work is beautiful and inspiring.
(To translate pages you find in the links this week, copy the web address for the page and paste into the translation box at http://translate.google.com/ or use Google Chrome as your web browser as it automatically offers to translate pages for you into your native language. Go here for more information on this cool toolbar.)
Russian Floral
July 30, 2013
Inspirational Art
I don’t know what it is that makes three-dimensional floral work in polymer so popular in Eastern Europe, but there is a lot of it … and most is done breathtakingly well!
Irina Dzhalilova, known more commonly on the Web as Zafirka, hails from Yekaterinburg, Russia and creates the most amazing polymer flowers. I read through a couple different pages I found this necklace on just to make sure that these flowers really were polymer. They are quite amazing.
Irina’s work leans towards romantic vintage, often using natural stones, crystals, pearls, and glass beads in addition to polymer. She found polymer in 2009 and left her bank job in 2011 to become a full-time creative. She generously shares quite a few of her amazing her techniques and tips on her website so do take a moment to jump over there and see what she has to offer.
(To translate pages you find in the links this week, copy the web address for the page and paste into the translation box at http://translate.google.com/ or use Google Chrome as your web browser as it automatically offers to translate pages for you into your native language. Go here for more information on this cool toolbar.)
Eastern European Beauty
July 29, 2013
Inspirational Art
I recently noticed that there has been quite the decline in representation of the non-English speaking countries in our community on this blog lately. It is certainly nothing intentional; I previously worried I leaned a bit too much that direction since I am personally drawn quite strongly to the aesthetic tendencies of many of our European clayers. But when I thought about how I have been finding the material lately, I realized that my search methods necessarily leave out non-English websites–or more specifically, sites and images that do not have “polymer” spelled out in English. This has to be fixed, I thought, and I immediately went about determining ways to search based on theme and not miss wonderful artwork because of English search terms. Turns out this will not be easy, but then, it must be done.
I will get to my solution at the end of the post (and ask for a little of your help!) but first, let’s start rectifying this shortcoming by making this week’s theme based on artists living in non-English speaking countries. Since The Polymer Arts readership has such a huge Eastern European following, I thought it appropriate to honor our talented clay folks from that region.
Variation in visual texture is the hallmark of work created by Slovenia’s Ursa Polak. This piece uses canes, crackle, and hand tooled circle patterning, with little to no repetition in the lines and shapes of the surface treatments as applied to each bead. The collection of applications is made cohesive by the green and black theme throughout and the symmetry of the basic bead shape, size, and arrangement.
Ursa is a self-taught polymer jewelry artist who works heavily in millefiori and mokume, with a great deal of exploration into the variety of shapes upon which to apply her canes and other surface treatments. More of her work can be found on her blog and on her Flickr photostream.
How to Search for Polymer Art in Other Languages
So here is my solution to finding more polymer art when it is not posted in English. It requires actually using the translation for the word polymer in both the spelling and text characters used. This could be quite a job if I did this for every search; so for now, I think I will try and do themed weeks based on languages or geographical regions. What do you think?
Based on the subscribers of The Polymer Arts magazine, I made a list of how polymer is spelled and written out. I thought some of you might find this of interest if you regularly search for polymer art online; these are the languages in the many countries where we have readers of The Polymer Arts magazine that do not spell polymer as we do in the English alphabet. I think I might still be missing a few, so if you don’t see your language and you know polymer is not spelled or typed as it is in English on native language pages, do let me know! You can leave a comment below or, if getting this by email, reply to the email.
Bulgarian: полимер
Dutch: polymeer
Estonian: polümeer
Finnish: polymeeri
French: polymère
Greek: πολυμερές
Hebrew: פולימר
Hungarian: polimer
Indonesian: polimer
Italian: polimero
Japanese: ポリマー
Latvian: polimēru
Lithuanian: polimeras
Persian: پلیمر
Polish: polimer
Portuguese: polímero
Romanian: polimer
Russian: полимер
Slovak: polymér
Slovenian: polimer
Spanish: polímero
Turkish: Polimer
Ukrainian: полімер
I do worry that I will still miss out on a quite a few gems out there, even searching with these translations. So for those of you who live outside the US, especially non-English speaking countries, would you help us out and send links to blogs, websites, forums, and specific artist’s websites to help me with the geographical themed weeks and just to get me linked in on pages I might be missing? Art has no language barriers, but the web often does, and I don’t want that to get in the way of us being able to learn from the whole of our international community!
(To translate pages you find in the links this week, copy the web address for the page and paste into the translation box at http://translate.google.com/ or use Google Chrome as your web browser as it automatically offers to translate pages for you into your native language. Go here for more information on this cool toolbar.)
