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:
Organic Support
July 19, 2017
Inspirational Art
Fantastical and fun as well as fundraising, this amazing polymer bra was Randee Ketzel‘s entry into the annual Art Bra event in Austin, Texas. The chosen pieces are showcased during a one-night event by local models, all of whom are breast cancer survivors. The huge event raises money for the Breast Cancer Resource Center which assists Central Texans affected by breast cancer in overcoming obstacles related to accessing treatment and confronting the issues that affect quality of life, all for free. What a cool event!
And what a beautiful piece Randee created for this very noble cause. The composition, with the leaves coming up to cradle the mix of flowers as they flutter off towards the straps, is nicely balanced by the composite cane flower beads that ground the upward sweeping cups on their centered, drop placement.
For more on Randee and her other work, go to her Flickr photostream or her Etsy shop. For more on the organization and event this was made for, go to the Art Bra event site.
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Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
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Organic Waves
July 17, 2017
Inspirational Art
With all the hot weather we’ve been having lately, I’ve been staying in my cool home a lot more than usual. Missing my time wandering around the property looking at all the cool and unusual plants, I found myself drawn to our organic brethren in polymer as I rummaged through images online and gathered a bouquet of curious and cool pieces that should pique the interest of many a nature lover.
Here we have quite a fantastical interpretation of nature’s forms, colors, and textures. The waves atop the petals would certainly make one want to reach out and run fingers across it, then down through the hanging strings as well. The combination of the old standard primaries is an interesting color palette choice. It gives it a carnival feel. That and the directional lines from the wavy texture and the yellow strings makes this feels like it is on the edge of some riotous dancing.
This is just one of several recent works by Kathy McCurry where she creates her own version of flowers. This looks to be the most ambitious piece so far, taking 40 hours and 8 curing sessions in the oven. As hard as these kinds of pieces can be to create, I think it’s just wonderful when an artist takes a risk, investing so much time in one piece. But what a reward we have in store for us when we spend a lot of time on one piece and have something so wonderful to show for it at the end.
You can see images of her recent work on Kathy’s Facebook page and on her website.
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Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
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Trilateral Glow
July 14, 2017
Inspirational Art
While I was deciding on a final soft triangle example for this week, I spotted this piece and, when seen as a small image, it looked like it could be polymer but on closer inspection, it obviously is some serious seed beading. Still, what an inspiration this could be for an avid caner who likes to create glowing, blended canes!
The piece was created by Anastasia Ilyashevich who seems to create in all kinds of materials, not just, or even primarily, beads. But even though she is not a wholly devoted beader, this is certainly a well conceived and skillfully accomplished piece. In her blog post about it, Anastasia admits she really didn’t like it until the end. I can’t imagine doing all that and not liking it at least halfway through. But we can see how perseverance can pay off.
I have to acknowledge that a large part of the impact of this image is that it is shot on a black background, making the glow pop even more. But still, this is all triangles, creating pattern as well as being the basis for the focal shapes with those severe straight-edged triangles, giving it a very powerful visual feel. It is also huge–the lowest triangle hits somewhere around the waistline, as you can see in this blog post where it is modeled.
By the way, you can brush up on the kind of canes and color combinations that would work really well for this kind of thing in the article by Meg Newberg we published in the present Summer issue of The Polymer Arts. Get your copy on the website, or drop in on my Etsy site and get that and a few other print edition issues you might be wanting. Our HUGE MOVING SALE ends tomorrow, July 15th.
Weekly Inspiration Challenge: Look at your work. What shapes do you most commonly use? Pick just one and play with what you can do with it, changing it up and creating new shapes through little tweaks. Do the new shapes inspire you? Create something using the new shape you made up.
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Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
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Graphically Different
July 12, 2017
Inspirational Art
I can hear you already asking, if you read my introduction to the idea of soft or almost-triangle shapes on Monday, whether these beads by the elegant hand of Melanie Muir really qualify as versions of triangles. My answer is, that is up to how you want to see it.
To me, it is both triangular in that the space it takes up is about what a triangle would cover, and based on an oval since it is also an oval cut in half. But what this points out about triangles, or any shape really, is that they are just a step away from something quite different. Soften one angle on a triangle and you have the makings of an oval in hand. Basic shapes are just a couple of steps, simple lines arranged in simple ways. More complex shapes are usually a conglomeration of basic shapes.
As an artist, keeping this in mind means you are keeping your designs open to being pushed past the basics or as far and as complex as you see fit. Not that a basic square, triangle or circle are not valuable shapes. They certainly are! But the more options you see as you create, the more likely you are to come up with something that truly reflects your personal aesthetic and what you want to express.
Melanie, who is so well known for her organic shapes and thickly framed organic mokume veneers, has really been pushing her signature techniques, heading into more graphic waters and adding in a few more techniques. I am really enjoying the directions she’s been taking and look forward to seeing what else she has in store for us in the near future.
Keep up on Melanie’s work on her website and on her Facebook page.
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Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
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Variation on Triangles
July 10, 2017
Inspirational Art
As with most weeks, my themes present themselves from the collection of images I set aside just for this blog. I collect them without a specific idea in mind, just grabbing things that I feel have something we can learn from. Right now, I have a lot of almost-triangle pieces. Straight triangles are the shapes most representative of strength. It is the strongest basic structural shape in nature and in man-made construction since the three sides support each other in an immovable way. But the straight sides are also severe in their simplicity, so in craft art, we see a lot of softening of the basic triangle. We’ll explore the way it is used in craft this week.
This first piece makes use of the various ways the surface of a soft triangle can be treated. The blogger and artisan, Laura Orihuela of Spain’s SuperCrafty blog created this last year. Using African influences for the cane pattern you see here, she applied it with her own design ideas and touches so you end up with a contemporary piece where the influence is subtle and refreshing.
And lucky us, she filmed the creation of these five beads so you can see her process. Find the video on her Super Crafty site as well as on her YouTube channel where you can find a slew of video tutorials on polymer and other materials.
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Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
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Rough Derivation …and HUGE sale –$5.20 magazines, $13 books!
July 7, 2017
Inspirational Art
Before we get into the last of our rough stuff this week, how about something that is really easy? Super inexpensive publications!
We have a MOVING SALE (I’m finally moving the business to California from Colorado) so to reduce my packing … everything printed prior to 2017 is 35-40% OFF our base retail price in my Etsy shop. Most print magazines are $5.20 and Polymer Journeys is only $13. Just click here!
You can also get similar deals on www.ilove2craft.com which is a great option if you want to stock up on Lisa Pavelka and Christi Friesen products too.
To wrap up this week of rough stuff, I am going to do something I usually avoid and show you what is essentially derivative work but definitely with an effort to create one’s own version.
The piece here is by Debby Wakley but the texture was derived from Eva Haskova’s “Earth Layers” series in which Eva created punched and tooled layers on domed lentil style beads. I choose to show Debby’s version because I think it shows a fairly direct translation of what we can see in Eva’s work, but the changes Debby made give her work a different feeling.
Eva’s work is very cleanly finished. Even when the edges are rough, you get a sense of control over the material that makes every element and every tool mark feel deliberate. Debby’s adaptation is a lot looser with freeform shapes instead of Eva’s balanced circles and then there is the imperfectly removed paint used to bring out the texture. Although Eva’s work shows a mastery of the material that is deservedly admired, I think Debby did justice to her inspiration but going with a loose, organic approach that looks to be more in line with Debby’s work as a whole.
It is obvious that Debby takes a lot of classes and most everything she posts can be linked back to a well-known master and teacher of polymer. But you can see her efforts to break out and create her own work. I find that promising and hope, in time, to see her process all the techniques she has learned into her own vision and expression. As you may have heard me say before, I am not an advocate of posting working one did in a class but if you are working towards your own variation, there may be some merit in showing how you translate what you learn, especially if one has the long-range goal of finding their own voice down the line.
Weekly Inspiration Challenge: Let another person’s work be your jumping-off point. Don’t copy but rather adapt what you like in any one piece by an admired artist into your preferred forms, colors, and techniques. You can emulate them as closely as you need to at first but set aside these exercises after a few runs and create something that is definitely and purely your own.
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Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
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Rough Layers
July 5, 2017
Inspirational Art
Martina Buriánová takes rough stuff–the theme this week–in an interesting direction for polymer. This unique use of layers in a polymer pendant might remind you of the side view of a warped, long-ago drenched book. Contained within its solid although equally roughed up frame, you get a sense that these layers have been through a few trials but, safely boxed in again, will continue to hold on. The unevenness of the layers gives it a nice texture along with the kind of negative space that allows it to be a part of its environment, not just some adornment in it.
The red spot is a bit of a mystery although I see its role as a contrast, a focal point, and a kind of anchor. I think the pendant could have stood on its own as the focal point, just layers and frame with that upper negative space peeking through the layers. But nonetheless, the red circle still works, it just diminishes the importance of the layers, where I think the real story is. I am like that with movies too, though. I am often more interested in the story of a minor but well-fleshed out character than I am in the heroes and heroines. The little, unassuming stories are the ones, I think, that really stick with us. Because most people connect with the little guy and that connection is what they will remember.
Martina is really good at rough and weathered-looking surfaces. You can find such works of hers on Facebook, on her website and on her Pinterest boards.
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Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
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Some Like it Rough
July 3, 2017
Inspirational Art
What is the attraction to texture that so many of us have? We have such a penchant for it that we find beauty in the cracked and rusted, in the uneven and worn, and generally in all that is breaking down and rough. I personally think it has something to do with our attachment to the past, to history, and to the stories these things would tell if they had actually gone through all that their condition represents.
I am a huge fan of this kind of time-worn texture and noticed that my boards and notes are filled with this kind of work right now so I’m sharing these little beauties with you. Yes, beautifully rough stuff.
This set is by Blanka Procházková. The old wood look and antiqued patterns make for a lovely vintage look with the colors still quite bright in spots and the patterns crisp but carrying a warm aged patina over it all. The scratched surface, although probably created as faux wood, has the creator’s hand evident in the rough way it was scratched out which, along with the imperfect shapes, adds to the feel of age, primarily because nothing in the clay could be mistaken for machine-made.
A lot of these rough and organic explorations have been showing up in Blanka’s work recently, her hand quite evident and delightfully so. It’s not that she hasn’t edged this way before but there is a kind of evident freedom in her latest pieces which is lovely to see. See for yourself on her Flickr photostream.
Post note: The wood look technique was one Blanka learned from Veronica Sturdy. See the original inspiration on Veronika’s Flickr photostream.
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Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
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Adapting Nature
July 1, 2017
Inspirational Art
In my search for other creative planter ideas, I came across these amazingly lovely upright planters, of sorts. The work is by sculptor Jamie North. They are made of cement, marble waste, limestone, coal ash, organic matter and various Australian plants and stand about 5 feet(165cm) high. This scale is a bit bigger than what we usually work with in polymer but the planter could be scaled down if one is so inspired.
I mean, who says that we must create large, open-mouthed vessels for plants to live in? Out in nature, they creep and poke out of just about anything that will catch a couple of grains of soil and a spot of moisture. I have only to step into the yard of my house in Colorado where high desert plants grab every open opportunity. Over here in California, they are not quite so desperate but they still perch in the oddest places. So, when making vessels, why not head out and see what kind of pockets of opportunity nature has provided that plants take advantage of as inspiration for your own vessels?
You might also look to Jamie’s work for how to translate what nature has to inspire us with. Jaime was first inspired to make these structures when considering “the way in which our native Port Jackson fig (Ficus rubiginosa) sprouts from the cracks of building mortar in Sydney.” Contrasting the straight and geometric sides with rough and tumble sides, he makes us aware of how well nature will adapt to whatever structures we throw in its path.
These were created in 2014 but since then, Jaime has made quite a number of other forms. Enjoy a trip through his projects on his website and check out this interview for more on his inspiration and ideas.
Weekly Inspiration Challenge: Let nature dictate a piece. Go out and explore whatever natural world and formations you have close to you. Borrow forms, textures, lines, or even observed relationships between nature and man and bring those ideas back to your studio to inspire a new piece.
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Plants in Disguise
June 29, 2017
Inspirational Art
So … did any of you come up with your own idea for air plant vessels? Did you think about turning them upside down? I know I didn’t but I have to agree that once you do that, they are going to look like live creatures. Perhaps that is how one crafty lady came up with the creative creatures you see here.
On her Etsy site, Jellyfish Kisses, Lish Jellyfish (I’m thinking that is not her real name … just a guess) integrates air plants with sculpted vessels off all kinds of creatures. Some are so well-integrated, you might now know it’s a plant tucked in there, at least not right away. It’s just fun stuff and I thought these images might push you aspiring air plant vessel makers to thinking beyond upright containers and into other realms. I mean, that is the advantage of air plants … they can be situated in any direction, as long as they have a spot to tuck their toes in and hold on.
For more creative ideas for vessels, just plug-in “air plant” and other key words like “vessel”, “clay”, or “holder” into Pinterest, Google Images, Instagram or other favorite visual site and just immerse yourself in all the possibilities!
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Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners.
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