The Party is in Full Swing. Come join us!

 

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:

Art Jewelry Grant Call for Entries

I thought a few of you would be interested in this grant. With so much talent out there, polymer clay could certainly bring in some serious competition. Here are the guidelines:

http://www.artjewelryforum.org/emerging-artist-guidelines

There is a definite lean towards non-traditional materials or non-traditional applications of common materials such as this mix of felt, plastic and enamel by the 2006 recipeint Natalya Pinchuk.

The grant applications need to be in by September 30th!

Get Out There and Live It

September 9, 2012

I have been on the road now for a week and a half. I have had the opportunity to visit many friends and artists at the show in Atlanta, spend time at Creative Journey studios, visit William Holland Lapidary School in northern Georgia, John Campbell Folk School in North Carolina (both schools are now offering classes on polymer clay) as well as visit friends in Tennessee  and Iowa. After spending such long days and weeks in the home office this summer, getting out and actually seeing, experiencing and being part of life outside my work space is invigorating. And necessary. We can’t forget that as artists we get our inspiration from life, from new experiences, and from intriguing people. And the only way to do that is to get out and be part of the world outside our own.

What’s In a Name

September 8, 2012 ,

Primative and tribal influences are quite popular and certainly catch my eye. But what actually drew me in to further investigate Christine Damm‘s Flickr page and then blog was her business name: Stories they Tell.

A simple but very compelling name. Who are “they”? What stories are there to be told? And then you look at her work and think, yes these  pieces, even though they are new and recently constructed look as if they have been or could be part of a story, reflecting upon something old or well-used; work influenced by the idea of objects as reflecting an individual’s history. Yep, that is a great business name.

What does your business name reflect? If you have been considering changing or starting a business, an Etsy page, a blog or something else that requires a name, consider how others will react to it. Will it draw them in or at least well describe what you sell or do?

You can peruse Christine’s Flickr page here or her blog here. And yes, most of that metal look is polymer clay.

 

Outside Influence: Ideas from Lampwork

September 7, 2012 ,

I have meet numerous polymer artist who also work, or have worked, in glass.  There are similar approaches to designing beads in lampwork so it’s no surprise that there are ways that this bead below could inspire polymer bead makers.

This is a bead from Jennifer Cameron’s Nightmare Insomnia series. I suspect from the name that these are the result of those late night forays into the studio when new ideas grab you and don’t let you sleep. I think many of us have been there! But beside the commiserating, the inspiration of the components here are something to ponder.

First of all, the bead caps are wonderfully fun. Rather than just cover the end of the bead, Jennifer extends the bead caps into the body of the bead making it an integral part of the design. This would be a simple addition to a polymer bead design with all kinds of variations to explore. Then there is the wire mesh inclusion. It’s a large inclusion but who says inclusions need to be small and scattered? We have liquid polymer and translucents that could show off all kinds of larger non-polymer additions below the surface.

And a side note … I visited Creative Journey Studios in Buford, Georgia this week and had a wonderful lunch and visit with Ellen Prophater and Sue Sutherland. I wish I could have stayed long enough to take Christi Friesen’s workshops there this weekend. If you are close enough, do consider attending. The studio space you get to work in is an inspriation in and of itself with a huge retrospective gallery of polymer from nearly all the masters and innovators of our community. That is worth the drive down alone! Check it out here.

Sculptured Floral

Floral motifs are so popular in polymer but not quite so much as a realistic sculptural subject. I think that is why this grabbed me.

These flowers are by Catherine Zverzhanskaya of Moscow. They are all polymer delicately formed with great little details. I don’t think these are even her most impressive flowers. She works these into jewelry as well as decor. Take a look at her website. Really incredible variety of flowers, all very realistic. If you want to learn how she does more of this, she has a nice FAQ section as well that covers her use of cold porcelain as well.

Frosted Polymer

Being from Denver where there is, literally, no humidity much of the time, I’m having my all-too-warm moments down here in the humid south of the States. So this frosted piece just looked so very cool and soothing to me!

Through the use of nothing more than a thin layer of translucent clay, Celine Charuau mutes the saturation of the color for a rather ‘hushed’ feeling while giving the surface a subtle depth. The holes drilled in for texture and the variation of color add that touch of interest to a simple design to pull the necklace all together. This page here has a full tutorial for making these beads.

There are actually embedded English directions in this tutorial so you don’t even need translate.google.com for this French language site.

Cheery on Dark

September 4, 2012

I will be on the road for the next week plus still so the blogs might be a more brief than usual but I certainly can’t stop delving in and finding great inspiration for you daily. It’s one of the great ‘perks’ of this job!

Today, for your viewing pleasure, a pendant from Munich’s Eva Winckler also known as Chili Crab on Flickr and Etsy.

She details this pendant with cheery, colorful flowers but on a matte dark blue, nearly black, background. Dark colors may not be the intuitive background for a floral piece like this but the contrast really makes the flowers pop and adds a bit of unexpected drama.

If you periodically question your choices for color combinations and try some different backgrounds … light bases with dark detailing, muted tones on bright backgrounds, a spot of red in a sea of calm blues and greens … you may surprise yourself. It won’t always work but push yourself as that is where the best discoveries will come from.

 

Thoughts from Atlanta

September 2, 2012

I have been doing a lot of washing the dust off of my every day life these past couple weeks — creating artwork for a truly fun and low-stress show. I am now in Atlanta at DragonCon … a show of monumental proportions where creativity is unleashed in nearly limitless ways and shown off to the over 50,000 attendees. Yes, it is a geek show. Fantasy, science fiction, horror,  speculative and established sciences and tons and tons of costuming. This market is where I got my polymer career off the ground.

Although my work has changed and doesn’t fit this market so much anymore, I have really come to appreciate the incredible depth and breadth of the talent in this community. They also have such an appreciation for polymer and what it can do. I present several talks on polymer each year here with attendees literally spilling out the door at each one. These people really know how to shake off the dust of every day life and get creative!

Synergy Presenters Announced

September 1, 2012

Synergy, the one and only keynote polymer clay community conference run by the IPCA, is set for March 2013 in Atlanta. Information on presenters and programming is starting to emerge.

Yours truly is honored to be one of the presenters and panelists. I’ll have presentations on the new idea for a central polymer clay online knowledge library with Maggie Maggio as well as a workshop on turning your love of polymer into publication opportunities. I have also been asked to be represent The Polymer Arts magazine (I’m not sure who else would have … I think my cat might feel she has a thing or two to say on the matter!) on a panel on craft publications where we’ll answer questions and, I hope, get the kind of input from you, the community, that can help direct the content we publishers will be offering you in the coming years.

The real draw though would be just the wealth of information, the insane level of creative brain waves that will infuse the conference, and the chance to meet truly huge names in our scene such as Christi Friesen, Judy Belcher, Lindly Haunani, Cynthia Tinnapple, and Jeffery Lloyd Dever — all of whom will be presenting and teaching workshops.

Outside Inspiration: Paisley Patterns

August 31, 2012

You know if your poor, over-worked brain ever wants to just play and not have to work, following patterns can be fun and lead to unexpected discoveries.

I ran into this embroidery site and was drawn to these abundantly-colorful paisley patterns. Of course, I couldn’ t help but wonder what they would look like ’embrodiered’ on polymer. We already have artists working in a technique often called by the same term using small bits of clay. So roll out a few snakes you can mince up, a few dots of clay in different colors and go wild. Be sure to share with us what you create.

 

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