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:
Bright in Fall
August 5, 2014
Inspirational Art
There is a bright side to fall colors, at least according to the fashion industry. Deep, dark and rich is not for everyone, even when it’s in season, so designers and fashion magazines put together lighter and brighter palettes as well. Pantone released their Fall color forecast several months ago, but I am not as yet seeing many in our community who are following Pantone’s rather vibrant colors. I had to reach back a way to find this lovely piece by Ronna Sarvas Weltman that displays many of the upcoming forecasted colors; the magenta, reds, lavender and yellows.
There is definitely a feel of fall to this necklace. Although, I don’t think Ronna was thinking of the season when she created it. She was thinking about the various design considerations that would make it a necklace different from all the others.
In her words, “This necklace has a bunch of similar disks at the back portion. Looks a bit boring in a photo, as if I stopped being creative and just put a bunch of disks in to finish it up. But, when it is worn, it works beautifully. I knew designing it that it would look better on than off and maybe wouldn’t even be all that advantageous vis-a-vis marketing. Just thought I’d bring it up as another element in the design process. What a piece looks like on a table surface can be entirely different from the way it behaves around a neck.”
Excellent point. Ideally, necklaces would all be photographed while being worn in order to show how they fall and lay. This would also display which portions of the design are visible and whether they stand out as designed.
Because of Ronna’s organic and often antiqued look, much of her art jewelry would fit in wonderfully all throughout the fall season. For more ideas and other color palettes to ponder, take a look at Ronna’s work on her Facebook page and her website.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Classic Autumn Palette
August 4, 2014
Inspirational Art
We’re coming up on one of my favorite times of the year soon; the fall! I am a autumnal girl in many ways, but mostly I just love the richness of the colors. I even love the fleeting aspects of nature’s palette; it is so brief and so bold. It is never around long enough that we lose an appreciation for it. Well, no one that I know. If you make a living by creating, it is that time of year in which we must decide what direction to take our fall line. We want to make creative decisions in order to entice our loyal customers at our local fall fairs with all our newest designs and creations. So, we’ll spend this week taking a look at a few classic fall palettes as well as the newer trends.
We’ll start with classic autumn colors, which are my favorites. The classic colors of fall are deep greens, vibrant rusts, lush burgundies, rich, dark purples and glowing yellows; all colors that revel in the flora’s graceful and grand departure with an undeniably majestic beauty that cannot be matched elsewhere in the natural world. Although, we see a lot of leaf imagery during the season, it is really the colors that carry the spirit of the fall.
This gorgeous necklace by Cecilia Botton is like the end of summer tipping into autumn with the greens, some deepening and some fading, contrasted with the coppery orange that we all readily associate with the fall harvest while still maintaining a basic leaf pattern.
Cecilia is no stranger to natural and bold color palettes. Her combinations are always inspiring and energetic. Meander through her her Flickr pages and her blog site for more color palette ideas for the upcoming season and beyond!
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Get Ready to Hit the Wall
August 2, 2014
Polymer community news, The Polymer Arts magazine news
Well, if you are up for trying your hand at wall sculpture sometime soon, you may want to look at classes or supplies for your venture.
First, you might want to check out the series of articles on wall art that were published in the Spring, Summer and Fall 2013 issues of The Polymer Arts magazine. If you missed those, you can get all of the 2013 issues in a special package on our website in digital or print.
Secondly, start gathering supplies!
I just got a sale notice from Poly Clay Play. Trish is putting Pardo clay on sale to help raise funds to pay some pesky hospital bills her hubby incurred this past summer. Sale clay and helping a fellow clayer? That’s a win-win for certain! I personally am eyeing the new Viva Decor Inka Gold towers. Those are some yummy colors! So there’s a lot more than clay to search out here.
Trish also has great news about Pardo Translucent. There is a US supplier now, and her order is on the way. It’s coming by boat, mind you, so it might take a little while to get here, but hope is on the horizon!
So, do a little shopping at Poly Clay Play and help a really wonderful and long- standing member of our community.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Outside Inspiration: Letting Loose on the Wall
August 1, 2014
Inspirational Art
The cool thing about wall sculpture is there are no boundaries in how it is built, how big it is (unless planned for a specific wall, then you have space considerations), or even having all the components on the same substrate or even connected. It does not have to lie flat on the space, and you do not have to have just one angle of viewing. The wall is nothing but the space upon which the art will live. Otherwise, it is sculpture like any other and can take up space in 2- or 3- dimensions in any fashion you’d like.
This piece does follow a rather level plane across a wall and everything is attached, but the components really do live in their own space with the metal bars slightly connecting them to each other. Again, we are looking at individual items brought together to make a single piece. It is a very manageable set of elements that allow for contrast and comparison that take long minutes, if not hours, to take it all in. The use of many components brought together simplified the creation while making it a more complex piece.
I keep trying to imagine this with the metal bars gone. I think they would be implied in the way the individual metal items line up, but there would be this kind of airy chaos, like debris in space. I can see this being created in polymer like this, and it would be fascinating to behold.
The ‘artist’ here, C. Jeré , was a concept rather than a person. Sort of. I found the history of this venture, which was started in 1963, rather fascinating. As stated in Wikipedia: “Curtis Jere is a compound nom-de-plume of artists Curtis Freiler and Jerry Fels. The two founders combined pieces of their own names to create the C. Jeré signature. Freiler was the production chief and Fels was head of design. Their goal was to produce “gallery-quality art for the masses”. Prior to [this], the partners built a costume jewellery business …” So, as you see, the creation of jewelry can inform sculpture, and as I’ve been saying this week, sculpture can inform jewelry as well as any other kind of art.
Just don’t let the wall define what you are doing if it doesn’t make sense. Just as you shouldn’t let a neck, wrist or ear restrict your creations, particularly if self-expression is a primary goal. Let the work wander a bit. It could be surprising.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Sculptural Thoughts
July 31, 2014
Inspirational Art
It’s hard to have a week about sculptural wall art in polymer and not bring up Meredith Dittmar. Her work is often very complex with a lot of symbolic imagery, and unlike the work we’ve been looking at so far, it is not comprised of a series of smaller, similar pieces or canes, but uniquely sculptured components. However, if you are looking to see how her techniques relate to your work when you create your jewelry or decor, just look at this piece, which is a relatively abstract example of her wall sculptures. Can you see this as a pendant or the lid to a beautifully rendered box?
It is the composition, the color palette, the shapes and the juxtaposition of them that make the work so vibrant and interesting; all concepts and examples that can be translated to other polymer work. Well, any kind of art at all, really.
Meredith’s work may be even more inspiring to you if you create creatures of any kind. Some of her wall art includes endearing animals, and then she has her “guys”, which are her art toy figurines. Her website which has her main portfolio has a nice overview of her wall art while you can find her “guys” tucked away in a different website dedicated just to them.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
An Adventureland of Ideas
July 30, 2014
Inspirational Art
A more traditional approach to wall sculpture, but keeping with the use of smaller parts to complete a larger and whole part, would be something like this fantastical piece by Layl McDill. Her wall sculptures are composed of a wide variety of cane slices, beads and sheets of marbled or surface treated clay.
The entrancing thing about Layl’s work is just how wildly playful it is. This work is not about finish, precision or any particular technique. It’s about the story and a child-like ability to let the imagination roam freely.
This piece entitled “Blingo Flamingo Adventureland” has to be my favorite piece of hers to date. Every part of this piece either reaches out or swings back, and used alongside the high-energy of the colors and cane patterns, creates this frenetically kinetic composition. Such fun!
Layl is the co-owner of Clay Squared to Infinity, a shop for handmade ceramic tile as well as Layl’s polymer sculptures, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Layl also posts her work on Flickr for a full, all-at-once visual dose of her child-like abandon.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
A Wall Collective
July 29, 2014
Inspirational Art
I think a lot of clayers may avoid trying wall art because working on a larger scale may be imposing. But most wall art in polymer is smaller parts put together. We saw that yesterday. Today, we have an even more specific example of it.
This is a collective work of multiple polymer tiles by Dan Friedlander. As you can see, the whole installation is a series of smaller tiles arranged as a larger piece. Although, at about 6″ square, the tiles are larger than most of us work with to create jewelry. However, think of each tile the same way you consider each bead or element you put together when you create a necklace, and you are using the same approach needed in order to construct a wall sculpture like this.
From this perspective, does creating wall art seem imposing at all?
Dan’s work is all about texture and contrast. His pieces involve tiles or components that would ideally work as a collective as they show off the subtle difference in their compiled forms, which is the basis for his textures. It’s rather hard to describe, but it’s much easier to see and experience. Take a quick jaunt over to his website to see what I mean. On his Shows page, take a look at the large porcelain installation “Isotope Breakfast” for a rare look at his integration of color. This is another great example of gathering individual components in order to create wonderful wall art.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
It’s Coming Out of the Walls!
July 28, 2014
Inspirational Art
I wanted to look at wall sculpture this week. This is actually where my own exploration has been headed. Wall sculpture can utilize just about every technique we have developed in polymer clay. From surface treatments to inclusions, to painting and even, yes, sculpting of all things! They tend to be rather big and time consuming projects, but they are also highly expressive forms in our medium. Even if you are purely a jewelry or miniature artist in polymer, wall sculpture can be an enormously inspiring source of ideas because what is a pendant or bracelet, but the same thing reduced and arranged to hang on the body rather than a wall?
Can’t you see this piece as a pendant if done in miniature? Well, I could, but I am glad it is wall art. It being just for hanging and contemplating is what really separates wall art from jewelry or decor arts. It has no purpose beyond being created to express and to be viewed.
This intriguing piece was created by Dorothy Siemens. It is titled “Colony” for what is probably an obvious reason, but the base for each inhabitant of this colony may not be so obvious. If you sew, you’ll know right away. The forms and colors look like they might be inspired by sea creatures, but perhaps it really just started with the bobbins and grew from there. Dorothy’s work does often make you stop and wonder where these unusual forms came from. What is it that Dorothy sees around her that inspires such unusual shapes? You can check out more of her polymer sculpture as well as her other work in other mediums on her Flickr pages.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Mixed Elements
July 26, 2014
Inspirational Art
Alright … one last thought about pushing necklace design. Because we love our polymer so much, many of us may think almost exclusively in terms of polymer elements in our designs. But reaching out and grabbing other mediums can be the very thing you need to push your work in a fantastic new direction.
This necklace by Marlene Brady has the simple, but dramatic addition of felt, which is both a functional element and a contrasting design element. The soft, fuzzy felt gives one of the few textures to this piece that polymer cannot duplicate. The black and the soft edge of the felt contrasts heavily with the white, chiseled beads. Marlene also pushes the design by allowing the felt and heishi beads to fall very long down the front of the wearer. There is no dramatic engineering of the necklace here, but the choices make it unusual, and that gives us a few points to consider towards the stretch of a more traditional design.
Marlene has been exploring the mix of fiber and polymer for a few years. You can see more of her unusual necklace compositions and other ideas on her Flickr page and her blog.
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Outside Inspiration: Composition of Old
July 25, 2014
Inspirational Art
Okay, this isn’t terribly old, but let this illustrate that pushing the construction of a necklace isn’t a contemporary idea. This piece below was created 60 years ago. Note the openness of the construction and the careful balance of the compositions – things we’ve talked about already this week. They aren’t that new, but they aren’t that common either.
- “Patina” neckpiece 1955
This intriguing piece was created by Art Smith, a Cuban born American. It is all silver with some surface texturing and some careful planning in order to get the balance right. I can easily see something like this in polymer. Who is willing to push a piece to this level of engineering? It is something to consider if you are playing in the studio this weekend. I’ll try to dig up one more idea or challenge for pushing your idea of necklace construction for tomorrow. It will be quite warm in much of the US as well as other places around the world, so why don’t we all just stay in and push ourselves a bit?
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
