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:
Subdued Passion
February 10, 2016
Inspirational Art
I know it will be hard to top Monday’s piece. The energy in that sculpture was unreal. But intensity of that kind is not the only thing that visually defines passion. How about that low but long burning fire many of us have? It may be a passion for art or for our family or friends. It might be how we feel getting out in nature or the desire for adventure. It is not crazy but it is always there and that kind of passion, that persistent, ever present emotion, is sustaining and keeps us focused on the things that are good in our lives and good for ourselves.
So, to represent that slow burning passion, I picked this mellow yet fiery caned earring and pendant set. There is not the chaos of movement we saw Monday but you can still feel the energy. The Czech Republic’s Kejka creates the energy through both the purely warm color palette and the tapered but parallel and highly directional lines. The gradation from dark on the outside to light in the middle on the pendant also gives it a glow.
Kejka made a series of these flame-like canes in various colors. Take a look at the purple and blue one as well on her Facebook page.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Create or sketch in a completely warm color palette. That means from reds to oranges to yellows. Try either creating a subdued feel with your design for these highly energetic colors or see how insanely energetic you can make it.
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The Energy of Passion
February 8, 2016
Inspirational Art
I only now realized that this week ends with Valentine’s day and I had to stop and contemplate whether I should do a theme. Last year’s personal love stories just can’t be topped, though, so let’s dial it back to the essence of what Valentine’s day represents. Or try. What it represents is rather personal though, isn’t it? I know for most people it represents romantic love, but I like to think of it as being about passion. And that passion can be towards anyone or anything that you feel intensely about. It’s definitely a more all-inclusive day if it is a holiday in which we can celebrate all the things we love so dearly as we all have someone or something that is lucky enough to get so much of our passion.
It is hard to say what passion looks like in art, but I think we all know it when we see it. High energy and maybe even a little tension works. A dash of red doesn’t hurt either. So, today I am sharing something I shared a while back on my personal Facebook page because it is so amazing and embodies what I see as a multi-faceted sense of passion.
This polymer and mixed media sculptural work is by the amazing Forest Rogers. The energy in this piece is so intense, it’s rather mesmerizing. The energy is in the heavy directional lines of the torn fabric, the horizontal arms, the flung back wings of the crow, and the slant of the weaponry on the ground. To really bring it home, there is that streak of blood-red streaming behind the figure whose implacable sense of forward motion seems to be leaving everything behind. Forest did not leave a lot of breathing room here, but we aren’t distressed by it because we recognize the emotion. It’s a full and intense passion, maybe sheathed in fury or defiance, but passion nonetheless for whatever cause this creature is flinging herself into.
I think this also embodies Forest’s passion for her work. All of her pieces have an unearthly energy to them, an energy that comes not just from her skill as an artist, but from a real sense of how fully invested she is in her craft and her vision. I feel this in that spot right below the ribcage when I get lost in my work, when the art just seems to spill from my fingertips. It seems most present when I am just creating without purpose or caring what anyone else will think of it. A passion for one’s art comes from simply needing to do it, from letting it become instead of struggling to create. I don’t know if that makes sense to all of you, but this piece very much calls to mind that truly intense passion for creating. If you have had that feeling for your creative work, then I feel sure you can see it too.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Use high energy directional lines to design or create an energetic or passionate piece. You can use Forest’s example to inspire your energetic lines or look to other work that you think is particularly energetic and passionate. See if you can discern the lines in the work that help relay this and try to recreate that energy in an original design of your own.
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Further Shaping Complexity
February 5, 2016
Inspirational Art
If you read Wednesday’s post, and especially if you took on the challenge, you might very easily find the connection between what you see here and what I talked about then. This is a great example of a repeated shape creating complexity. In this case, the repeated shape is actually a circle and most of the circles here are created with jump rings. As a way to create complex faux enamel with the wire boundary lines, this use of jump rings is pretty darn clever.
The piece and short tutorial are by Muchi at Muchi Creaciones. Something like this would have been a perfect exercise for Wednesday’s challenge. No, it looks nothing like Bettina’s stacked shapes, but it is built on that same set of ‘rules’, and in these challenges I really hope you will use the rules as the most skeletal frame to build off.
Here the repeated shape has a fair amount of variation to it which creates a cohesive as well as interesting piece. There are three types of circles (the pendant shape itself, the jump rings, and the crystals) but in different sizes and colors and yet they all look like they belong together. See, using the same shape over and over could get a little mundane, but on the other hand changing up every element in a piece makes it feel chaotic. If you have one strong, repeated element, it won’t matter how much variation there is between them as there is a common characteristic and therefore we see them as related. As long as we find a relationship between elements, we feel there is some level of order and intention. Intention-less art is simply not interesting. And although you can make something chaotic, it should be obviously intentional if you want people to have an interest in it
If you want to check out the brief instructions to making this type of faux enamel, hop on over to Muchi’s blog post here then stay to check out her other clever little tutorials and creations.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Take a single, simple shape or form and create at least 10 different variations, making them as different from one another as you can imagine. Don’t think about what you will make from them, just create the elements. Once you have your 10 or more pieces complete, put them together in one piece or create a series from them. Don’t forget, you can share what you come up with while participating in these challenges on the Flickr page!
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Complexity in Simple Shapes
February 3, 2016
Inspirational Art
You do not need a wide variety of elements, shapes, textures, or other complexities to create an intriguing piece. As I mention quite a bit, keeping it simple is often the most impressive and eye-catching approach. The trick is in developing or arranging the design in an unusual or energetic fashion.
With these beautiful brooches by Bettina Welker, there is not an abundance of variation besides size and that one shift in color at the apex of these little stacks. But the variation in position and size creates a swirl that draws you in. Simple but precise shapes, beautifully crafted and finished is all these brooches need, in addition to that visual energy, to go from fairly simple to fascinatingly sophisticated.
Bettina, also a graphic designer, creates a beautiful website as well as wearable art. Go enjoy her pieces and her presenation on her BeadWorx website, or if you want a condensed view of her brooches, check out her albums in Ipernity.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Take a simple shape and repeat it. You can give it as much variation as you like, but it must be the same shape. It can change in size, color, texture, imagery on it, treatment, arrangement, or finish. It can be separate shapes stacked upon one another or constructed into one object, like a necklace or a sculpture. Or work in two-dimension and treat or form your surface with the shape repeated on it in whatever fashion you would like. What can you get a simple shape to do for you?
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Spring is Almost Here …
February 1, 2016
Inspirational Art
… not that you can tell by the weather! But we are doing our best to get you a bit of Spring by the end of February. Here is your first peek at the next issue of The Polymer Arts, Spring 2016 – Convergence. The issue is set to come out around March 1st.
Gracing our cover is the fabulous Fabiola Periz Ajates, otherwise known as Fabi. And what a fitting name. These brooches give you an idea of some of the articles and eye candy you’ll see in this mixed media, yet polymer-centric, issue. We’ve been trying for a while to do mixed media again, but we had to wait until we had the best ideas and great artists to share them and we really think we do.
Articles you can look forward to include:
- Focal Convergence: Composing with Focal Points
- Converging Clays: Create Metal Clay & Polymer
- Found Fusion: Working with Found Objects
- Fold, Cut, Shred, and Clay: Exploring Paper & Polymer
- All Knotted Up: Polymer & Micro Macrame Designs
- When is a Technique Ready to Share?
- The Best Camera for You and Your Art
- The Perfect Cure: The Final Word on Time & Temperature
- Training Your Artistic Eye
- Convergence at Ravensdale, 20 Years Later
- … and so much more!
I am off today for a family gathering so we are going to get a breather from the challenges today, but I will be back with one on Wed!
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Repeating Yourself
January 29, 2016
Inspirational Art
It’s been a week of seeing something new in something you already have in front of you, and I have been having a lot of fun with the ideas while readers have been getting quite a kick out of what we’ve been sharing. So, let’s do this one more time, but with a twist. Let’s try out repetition and pattern.
Nature is full of repeated elements all brought together to create beautiful and perfectly formed patterns. If you follow nature’s guidelines, you can take any form or element and make it in the same or graduating sizes and repeat them side-by-side, over-lapping, sitting on top of one another, or all in a row. The formation is not as important to these beautiful patterns as the precision and consistency of form and placement. Apparently, an artichoke suggested the placement of the beautiful pieces that make up this necklace by Eva Ehmeier. Or maybe she created them and it made her think of artichokes. But the natural repetitive element is there, echoing that recognizable natural beauty.
This technique of layered, folded, and repeated elements has been a common approach of Eva’s in years past and she has plenty of examples of it on her Flickr photostream and her website.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Find a natural repeated pattern that intrigues you and try recreating the pattern using a favorite element. Nature has patterns everywhere. You might find yours in your fridge, a garden, on a hiking path, or something you see at the zoo. Recreate the pattern, not what you were inspired by. You don’t need an element that will recreate the look of that turtle shell, just something that can be fitted together in a regular pattern, like the hexagonal sections of the shell do. Or layer your favorite bright blue and purple canes slices in that similar overlay pattern you found in a pine cone you picked up. Try to see only the pattern and bring that into the studio or your sketchbook.
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An Artist’s Tail
January 27, 2016
Inspirational Art
Before I get into my little thoughts about today’s intriguing piece, I wanted to put out a couple of thoughts for all of you who are attempting to do the challenges. I’ve had some questions and concerns about getting them done. First of all, you don’t need to do all the challenges presented to gain insight and benefit from them. The goal is to push yourself to look at your work differently, to explore, and to see what there is to discover. A regular challenge will certainly help you do this because you would have committed to a particular goal. But you do not have to do 3 a week. Some people have the time to do so but certainly not all of us. Maybe just one a week, choosing whichever challenges I post that appeal to you most. Or take one night or one day a month and choose a couple to explore. Make your goal reasonable for you and your schedule. I can already tell you that three a week is really taxing me. I am barely managing the sketch suggestions and I have yet to take photos so I can share, but I do plan on doing it. If you thought you’d try to do them all and can’t, readjust your goal to something manageable.
Also, remember that these challenges do not require that you finish a piece each time. Being able to finish is extremely important and that is where sharing on the Flickr page can be a motivator. But maybe you do one challenge a week and aim to have one completed piece to share come the end of the month. Do what works for you and, please, do not give yourself a hard time if you are not able to keep the goal you set. Readjust and just keep trying. Keep your personal end-goal in mind. Mine is to have more regular studio time and, although I haven’t completed anything yet, I have at least been at my work table a lot more than I had been. Those are small steps, but they’re important. As long as you are moving forward and not stalling or going backwards, those are accomplishments to be happy about.
Speaking of small things, do you see what small adjustments were probably made here to create this mermaid’s tail? I am guessing, from the look of Kim Detmers flowers petal canes, that these cane components started out floral but, somewhere along the way, they suggested fins to Kim. I chuckled at the form being just the tail of the mermaid. Did she shed this when granted a wish for human legs? Is this the mythical aquatic version of a rabbit’s foot worn for good luck? I don’t know but I liked the whimsy and the re-purposing of the canes, if that is what she did.
Kim is all about fancy and fantasy as you can see in her Etsy shop. And what is fantasy but re-envisioning our common world?
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: If you want to try a challenge today, how about taking a cane, a motif, a form, or some element that you regularly create with and try to imagine it as something else. A bead could be a dolls head with the addition of a body and a hat. A heart motif could be petals on a flower or cut in-half to become tear drops. I’m looking at my vine motif that I usually use vertically and I’m thinking I could set them horizontally to become stylized wind motifs. But that is just a first thought. Let’s see where I can go from there. How about you?
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Material Suggestions
January 25, 2016
Inspirational Art
If you read Friday’s post about the fashion illustrators who used what we see around us every day to design their images of women’s clothing, then you might see the connecting thread to this week’s theme. I thought we’d explore the idea of the outcome of a technique suggesting the form and imagery of art work.
Crackle techniques and approaches to treating cracked clay have been rather popular the last few years, but they have been primarily used as surface texture in abstract and contemporary jewelry. I can almost see Silvia Ortiz de la Torre looking down at a conditioned sheet (you know how they get those cracked up edges after running it through the pasta machine) or one she created using a cracked clay technique, and with the sheets edge sitting horizontal on the work table, she saw the suggestion of a landscape. Or perhaps she saw crackle work created by other artists and she saw the landscape come out of those pieces. However it came to her, I think we are looking at an example of inspiration coming from the look of the material.
Just as we might look up at the sky and see animals in the clouds, we do also see imagery in what we are creating, unbidden and often unexpected, but it’s there. It’s hard for our minds not to try to create imagery in what it sees. The question is, do you let it guide your work? It is neither right or wrong to explore the imagery you see in the scraps before you or in the treated surface of the clay. It’s just another way to let the material guide what you create.
Silvia is definitely a texture enthusiast. These pieces are actually quite a departure from her bold and highly saturated colors. but the exploration of texture is certainly alive here. You can see more of her textural explorations and other ‘material suggestions’ on her Flickr photostream.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Take a look at something you worked on but didn’t complete or pull out some scrap and start playing with it. Don’t try too hard, just turn it this way and that and ask yourself what you see in it. Do you see faces, animals, objects, places, or patterns you hadn’t seen before? Find something intriguing and let it lead you in a little playtime or into working towards a finished piece.
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Outside Inspiration: Burning Up and Looking Through
January 22, 2016
Inspirational Art
These little unexpected beauties are brought to us by Debbie Crothers who just dropped them onto my Facebook page last week. These were created by Armenian fashion illustrator Edgar Artis who uses common objects and scenes to take some basic fashion concepts beyond the ordinary. The matches dress illustration is so simple, but between the heavily directional lines and the ‘hot’ implication of the material, it is a rather arresting image. The cut-outs, however, are simply a fantastic way to test out color and texture. Edgar was not the first to do this, so to give credit where credit is due, you’d want to also check out Shamekh Bluwi, an architect and fashion illustrator living in Jordan, who shows off the potential for women’s dresses with his very intricate cut-outs.
But besides these just being a fun bit of illustration to admire, I was thinking the cut-out-and-view-through process could be an excellent springboard or tool set to help you work out your own polymer designs. You can take sketches you have (or make copies of them) and cut out the essential mass of the design, then hold it up to various colors and textures. I just got my pack of Tracy Holmes’ Colour Cards today and placing a cut-out over selected solid-colored cards would be so much more telling than just holding them up to a sketch. Don’t you think?
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Trace a favorite form or shape, cut it out so you have a stencil, then take it on a walk with a camera of some kind. Hold it up to various colors, textures, patterns, etc. as you go. Take photos of what you find. Go home and put those photos up on a bigger screen and save or print out the ones you really like. Now … can you create artwork from what you found in that empty space in the stencil?
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Creatures from the Deep
January 20, 2016
Inspirational Art
As artists, we think of our imagination as a major muscle, if not the primary one used when we’re creating. But how much do you stretch that muscle?
In craft art, because we also have to create steps, a process, and consider function and durability, our minds spend a lot of time in the purely logical, problems solving sections of our brain. Not that the imagination and problem solving are not connected; they absolutely are. But pure imagination is something we don’t always practice. So, here is a little something to push you to do so.
These fun bracelets are the work of the ever creative Anke Humpert. Using translucent clay in a unique design and decorating it with sea creatures she made up is just the start here.
As she explained to me, “The bracelets have a design that glows in black light! That is why they are called deep-sea creature bracelets. You would not normally notice the night side of them, only if you go to a night club or something similar. They also have a special hinge. Most of it is made with polymer only very little metal involved.”
These bracelets, as it turns out, are the centerpiece for one of the three classes she will be teaching at the Cabin Fever Clay Arts Fest next month. In describing the class for prospective students, she says, “Since we do not know much about the deep seas, we will have fun and let our imagination run wild creating plants (or even animals?) as we imagine them.” And that freedom and use of the imagination is what inspired me to share this today and create a bit of a different challenge for those following along.
By the way, I do have a Flickr page for sharing the results of the challenges I’ve been posting, only I haven’t had time to snap pics of what I’ve done, so there’s nothing on it yet really. But if any of you want to get on while I catch up over here, I would love to see what you’ve been up to. Go here to join in!
Does Anke’s class intrigue you? She is also teaching her Big Beads and fun hand tool texturing techniques. She’s joined by a slew of amazing talent including Lisa Pavelka, Maureen Carlson, Dayle Doroshow, Lindly Haunani, Doreen Kassel, Jana Lehmann, Ann and Karen Mitchell, Nan Roche, Lynne Anne Schwarzenberg, and more. There is still room in almost every class, so, if you are interested, jump in while you have your pick of classes still. You can find the classes on this PDF and registration on their webpage.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Let your imagination run wild and recreate an image, motif, shape, or a faux effect you might otherwise recreate as it is seen in nature or as we expect it to be, making your own version. A rose with black petals, a plaid cat, turquoise in pink, purple leather, a square pendant with a chunk missing in the corner, or a peace symbol with Mickey Mouse ears. Just change it up and make it your own.
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