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:
Amazing Cane
November 19, 2012
Inspirational Art, Technique tutorials
There are many amazing, detailed canes out there by some incredibly talented artists. But there are some that just amaze and stay with you. When I saw this caned butterfly by Jane Zhao it was simply hard to believe it was a cane.
The details are really quite incredible … well thought out and executed. The best part is, I found this on CraftArtEdu … as a class. So if you’re intrigued, you can check out the class which promises many a tip and trick for great canes, here on CraftArtEdu.
Create Yourself
November 18, 2012
Ponderings
I particularly like this quote because it promotes the idea that you decide who you are, not your circumstances, your upbringing or your genes. Who do you want to be? It doesn’t matter what your age; you are forever growing and changing so why not direct those changes rather than let life determine who you are for you?
Textured Teardrops
November 17, 2012
Inspirational Art
Here’s one for a straight forward weekend project if so inspired. Textured tear drops.
There is just something so enticing about the teardrop shape. A little texture framed with silver caps and you have a wonderful little charm that needs nothing more.
These beauties were created by polymer artist Janine Muller. She has quite the collection of creative polymer pieces on her Flickr page. It would be minutes well spent to peruse her pages.
Outside Influence: Sugar Sheet Flowers
November 16, 2012
Inspirational Art
As you might know, there is a lot of cross over between cake decorating and pastry art and polymer art. We use many of the same tools. In fact the D.R.E.A.M. machine you find at Polymer Clay Express is being used by fondant artists along with those great big extruders PCE sells. We form and shape in simliar manners when it comes to sheets of our chosen material. But there are restrictions in cake decorating that we don’t have. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Limitations make one creative in other ways.
Like knowing when to keep things simple.
This simple flower of black sugar sheets and white wafer (edible) paper by cake artist Deborah Stauch is just such an example. Here you get drama and sophistication without using any visual texture or surface treatments. Just the white accenting the black, repeated to bring on a sense of texture and richness of form. Nice.
If you are so inclined, you can even learn to make one of these on Deborah Stauch’s blog here.
One thing I am thankful for … no one is likely to eat your creation. I can’t imagine making something so pretty knowing it will be consumed. How depressing to think of that. I think I should go have some cake now to keep me from getting any sadder.
Free Form Wall Flowers
November 15, 2012
Inspirational Art
Do you accent your walls?
Did your brow furrow at that question? What does accenting a wall mean?
Well, I was thinking that we accent a lot of things, ourselves in particular. We wear necklaces and earrings, jazz up an outfit with a pin, add a flourish to a dessert or appetizer, toss decorative pillows on the couch and arrange knick knacks or vases on tables for no other purpose than to visually accent them. But how about walls? Walls are more likely to be hung with pictures or shelving. But how about it? Polymer is so well suited to making bright pieces, why not create to accent an empty stretch in the living room or down a hall?
These wall flowers, with their freeform shapes and whimsical colors would be the perfect accent for a room that needs a little brightening. Can you imagine a little field of them crawling across the dead space about the front door?
The mysterious young woman of Bull’s Eye Studio in Anchorage Alaska creates these along with wall plates, business card cases, utensils, and more all with similar stylized floral designs. The making of such decorative items could give you a nice break from any heavily engineered or complicated work. Layers of color, shapes and texture … might be a great way to use up some scrap as well. Just an idea …
Mini Pillow Boxes
November 14, 2012
Inspirational Art
Containers have an intrigue for many people. They enclose spaces that could have any number of things inside … a little unexpected gift, a misplaced precious trinket or thoughtful note. The containers themselves can be such wonderful little treasures. These mini boxes with rich colors, shimmer and a fanciful pillow shape are just that.
These mini pillow like boxes are the creation of Madrid’s Fabi (fperezajates on Flickr). Fabi is a polymer teacher as well and has a fabulous (sorry, couldn’t help using that word!) blog showing not only her work but the work of her students. She may only post a few times a month but the posts are something definitely worth tracking.
Busy with Beadstyle
November 13, 2012
Inspirational Art, The Polymer Arts magazine news
I had an email from BeadStyle magazine this morning about their latest issue with a rather pretty little bracelet in the header. Geez, I thought … that could be or should be polymer. Turns out, yep, it’s mostly polymer. And it’s from a favorite and all too busy polymer artist, Christi Friesen. Here is a close up of the bracelet’s beads below.
Christi has certainly been busy! She wrote an article on creating the look of ice and snow in polymer which you’ll find in our next issue of The Polymer Arts as well as continuously adding new products to her retail line, a couple of which are in our Shimmer and Shiny product review in this upcoming issue. And she’s still been flitting about the world, teaching classes and spreading the love of polymer. You can see more of Christi’s work at www.CForiginals.com
If you haven’t checked out Beadstyle magazine, they do often have beautiful designs that could be translated for polymer so could be a source of inspiration for you polymer beaders. And of course, if you don’t have a subscription yet and want to get the latest Polymer Arts issue when it comes out this coming week, go to our site at www.thepolymerarts.com and choose Buy/Subscribe to get your subscription or pre-order your Winter 2012 Shimmer and Shine issue.
Tactile Scene
November 12, 2012
Inspirational Art
Cate van Alphen hasn’t been working with polymer for very long but her background in numerous other mediums has assisted and influenced her polymer creations. Her experience in painting is obvious in this donut pendant.
Cate says this was inspired by a painting by Maurice Utrillo, a French painter that worked primarily in the first half of the 20th century. The heavy tactile nature she gets from manually manipulating the clay rather than using stamps or other machined imagery reminds me of heavy impatso painting where the texture itself is part of the design and draw, as it is here.
So, enjoy a little scenery and the idea of manually working your clay in the purest sense.
The Genuis of Wee Houses
November 10, 2012
Inspirational Art
I started my list of gifts I need to make for family and friends this holiday season. The kiddies and non-jewelry wearing adults are a little more tricky for me. So perusing for ideas this morning, I found these wonderful little houses by Etsy’s OneElf.
The genius of making these kinds of items (aside from how adorably attractive they are) is that whether it’s for gift giving or selling, you can create a series that people will want to collect. Making a variety of buildings and other scene specific pieces can bring customers back again and again to add to the little village or scene on their shelf. And family and friends will have something to add to each year.
They might not be houses either. They could be animals in a zoo, dishes, food, etc. Anything that would be increased in value in the owner’s eye by adding new related items. And they’d be fun for the creator too!
