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:

Timmins Technique in Full Color

June 11, 2012

No one makes swirls lentils like Laura Timmins. And I have never seen anyone put together a more concise, accessible and interesting way of explaining such a complex process.

This is really a pretty cool visual of how Laura builds the components that make her gorgeous lentils. She created this quite a few years ago to help explain to her customers how she uses polymer clay to make her work. She has found that the popularity of polymer has made explaining the material and process less necessary than in the past but it’s still a fun and colorful visual to have.

What do you use, if anything, to educate people about your process when at public events?

Keeping Up with The Polymer Arts magazine

Would you like to be a writer or contributor for The Polymer Arts? Do you often wonder when your next issue will be on the way? Do you like little tips and tricks in your mailbox a couple times a month?

In our TPA newsletter, we keep you up to date on new and upcoming issues, the types of articles and art we are looking to acquire for future issues and we add a tip and/or trick to give you something to think about and improve in your art process.

Our next newsletter goes out this week with ideas for contributions for future issues. (You don’t need to be a writer to contribute, just have some great ideas and good information for your fellow artists and we’ll help you craft an article.) Also news on back issue specials and the best of our blog and Facebook posts.

You can sign up for our twice monthly newsletter on our website. Look for the form on the left hand side.

Inspired by Ceramic Textures

June 9, 2012

So, I thought we’d spend some time on this blog each week looking at potential inspiration from areas outside of polymer. We already take so many techniques and processes from other types of art so it’s not a stretch to think that there is just a ton of non-polymer art that can inspire our work.

Here we have ceramic artist  Andy Rogers, He is quite the texture fiend. (Geez … sounds like someone else we know!) The colors, forms and texture he uses could all be replicated in polymer. I also like the arrangement of forms he puts together to link and contrast them in one cohesive composition. This kind of presentation of polymer work is not that common but doesn’t it get you thinking about what you might be able to do with your work?

Do you have favorite artists or pieces of art that aren’t polymer but has influenced what you do? If so, I would love to help you share that here on the TPA blog. Send links to me at sbray@thepolymerarts.com

Clay Carnival in Las Vegas anyone?

June 8, 2012

You may have read the article in the present Summer 2012 issue of The Polymer Arts magazine and as I promised, we are announcing that Clay Carnival registration is now open! Clay Carnival Las Vegas 2012 will be October 18 – 21st at the Imperial Palace Hotel.

This is 4 days of total polymer clay immersion with 8 instructors and one of the easiest, best laid out set-ups. You get there, get a spot in one of the 3 or 4 workrooms and the instructors come to the room so you get to spread out and play straight through without all the packing hassle at the end of the day. And it’s in Vegas! Play with clay during the day (oh, my that rhymed all too well!) then play out into the lights of the Las Vegas nights.

There is a core group of 4 instructors – Judy Belcher, Kim Cavender, Leslie Blackford and Donna Kato and each year they invite four more. This year they also have Sarah Shriver, Wendy Malinow, Dawn Schiller, and Natalia Garcia. Six of the  eight classes are already posted on the website including information on Sarah Shriver’s Acorn pendants you see here. Clay is provided by Van Aken International for classes. The event is capped off by the Pizza Party Carnival Night of which we had lots of photos in the article so you can see just how much fun this group is. Do consider joining this year if you can.

So are you going?  I’ll be there again (it was too much fun to miss) and bringing my camera and light box to get shots of attendees artwork for the blog and magazine.

Don’t forget to follow the news and announcements on their blog or on Facebook.

Pretty Little Wonderland Girls

June 7, 2012

Today we’re going to just admire something pretty for the sake of it being pretty. Doll art is just so incredible.

This is a pair by artist Nicole West who makes incredibly detailed polymer dolls. The expressions on their face here, the choice of color for the eyes and accents on the skin and the pairing of these two is just gorgeous.

Her comments: ” These pop goth girl are sculpted with every detail including fingernails and fine hair eyelashes.  Their eyes are a bright pink/purple and are hand made by the artist. They reflect light for added depth and realism. They are not computer generated.” That is a lot of dedication to detail!

These are for sale on Ebay. Wouldn’t they be a wonderful gift to receive!

 

 

 

Working with Quiet Space

June 6, 2012

The response to the Stroppel article in our recent Summer 2012 issue and the fan base she and the technique have is bringing more and more variations of it out of the woodwork. (If you are a fan of this technique do check out the Stroppel Cane Flickr group.)

Here  Nikolina Otržan  of Croatia combines Stroppel canes with a Rex Ray influenced design. Visual texture (remember that discussion in the texture article in the Spring 2012 issue?) contrasted with large smooth spaces make the small area of Stroppel caning really stand out. This approach is not unlike utlizing white space in a painting or drawing (or in the layout of a magazine, actually) to bring the eye into the primary area of focus. The ‘quiet’ spaces recede in importance, playing up the busy spaces.

So if you have a texture, cane or other surface treatment with a lot of color and/or detail, you might consider balancing it out with calm, broad, solid spaces in order to direct the viewer’s eye where you want them to focus.

Thanks to Maja DeLorean for bringing her friend Nikolina’s work to my attention!

Want More Organizational Help?

June 5, 2012

Since there was so much excitement over the Spring 2012 issue of The Polymer Arts magazine  and all the organizational ideas it had, I figured many of you would be interested in this little book or organizational wisdom, Controlling Creative Clutter which is presently on sale for a mere $6.99 for a digital copy!

This book is structured as a workbook primarily text based rather than just being lots of photos.  It’ll get you thinking about how and why you have your space organized the way you do and help you work out ideas on how to change it to make it more usable and you more productive.

The author, Diane Dobson-Barton is also the author of Polymer People, a three book series on realistic sculpting in polymer clay. (A must for any polymer figurative sculptor.)

You can check out these wonderful books here as well:

http://artist-how-to.com/front.html

Attending to Your Back Sides

June 4, 2012

Let’s start this week with some thoughts about our back sides. (Ok … where did your mind go?!) The back of our art, especially in jewelry, can be too easily ignored or at least is treated with less consideration and attention to detail than the side we consider the front. But if you think about it, the person who owns that piece sees the back all the time. Wouldn’t you want your customers to be just as pleased or awed by what they see on the back as they are by the side that every one else sees? I think it’s such a missed opportunity to leave the back plain. How fun is it to know that the work of art around your neck or on your wrist is hiding a beautiful surprise on the back side.

This is why I so adore the work of Daniela D’Uva. She lives in Italy and works under the name Alkhymeia. All of her pieces have a carefully considered back side, some so detailed as to be more stunning than the front, making them readily reversible. (click on the photo to see the detail here.)

What do you do with your back sides?

 

A Day to Say Thank You

June 2, 2012 ,

Today I FINALLY got out to go see the group at our local Mile High Polymer Clay Guild here in the Denver, Colorado area. They were finishing up their annual Spring retreat. I wandered in around noon, into a colorful, chatty room to be warmly greeted by some 30 or so smiling faces. How fantastic it was to meet so many people, whose names I knew as subscribers to the magazine, but hadn’t had a chance to meet in person. I was heartily reminded, as they directed me to various tables to check out the art work being done and as I watched people bounce from table to table to help each other out, just how wonderfully sharing our community is.

I’ve worked in a few other creative communities and I don’t think I’ve known such generosity and eagerness to help and support each other. Our efforts to grow as a community, to get the word out about our fantastic medium, and to help elevate the perception of polymer as a fine art medium is rooted in this essential aspect of how we communicate and interact. It is also a huge reason why The Polymer Arts magazine has done so well, as new as it is. It’s  because so many of you write to let me know what you like and even what you think is missing so I can improve the content as well as spreading the word about the magazine through your groups, networks, blogs and websites. How wonderful you’ve all been.

So I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you for your support, enthusiasm, and especially your generous spirits. Thank you in particular to all our readers, especially the ones that write to offer suggestions and keep me on track. Big warms hugs to all the “midwives” at the PCAGOE that helped form the magazine to start with. And today, thank you to the MHPCG for being so gracious and welcoming to a stranger who just wandered into the middle of your event.

We  really have an amazing community.

Encouraging Constructive Criticism

June 1, 2012

Yesterday I posted observations about an organically inspired necklace. Beautifully done, it still had room for improvement and I mentioned my thoughts on that. It felt rather odd to do so. Our community doesn’t really spend a lot of time talking about the missed opportunities in our art work. Usually we praise (and usually deservedly so) the work of our fellow artists which certainly helps bolster confidence and enthusiasm in the artist. But how much does it help them improve their work?

A week or so ago I had a great Skype conversation with Christine Dumont of Voila (see the interview/article on Voila in our latest magazine issue). One of the very unique things about her site is that members get constructive feedback on work they submit in their gallery. Much of the Voila concept is built around ways to help polymer artists improve their work, not just receive confirmation that they are going in the right direction. I think this is a concept we all need to embrace further.

The hard part of with working more constructive feedback into our conversations is that most of us have not been through the training and educational experience of art school or other exposure to critical commentary on our heartfelt work. But in an artistic and educational environment, constructive criticism is a major part of the learning process. Not only does it help to hear other people’s opinions and ideas about how to improve what you do, but honing a critical eye through observing the work of others can help you more readily see ways of improving yours.

I would certainly love to see more of this kind of exchange in the community.  Do you think you have a thick enough skin to hear people express what might be done to improve your work so you can learn and grow your artistic skills from it? And can you give others helpful and supportive advice on opportunities you find in their work? If so, perhaps try including small suggestions in your conversations about other artists’ work. And try Voila if you haven’t already done so.

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