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:
Outside Inspiration: Lone Trees
June 20, 2014
Inspirational Art
I just got in last night from the last leg of an unplanned road trip back to California to help with some family matters. On the way into Colorado I stopped in the beautiful Canyonlands area of Utah where the soil is red and the skies are huge and blue. I took a run and hike up a canyon to a lone arch that springs off the canyons upper level. The ground was rocky and dry but every once in a while a bold tree would reach up out of the rock and break the beautiful stark horizon. I have always found those lone trees draw me. Maybe I have a thing for the lone struggle in a landscape that fights you all the way.
So when I saw this piece today, I had to pull it for the Outside Inspiration Friday post. This both plays to the scenes I was seeing yesterday and to the idea of surprising single elements creating the focus and beauty in a piece of art.
The artist here is a very interesting woman by the name of Ione Thorkelsson. She works in glass, adding other elements such as the found metal and the lichen she uses in this glass cast microcosm of our world, created as both a miniature of the globe we live on and a metaphor of the most basic truth of our lonely existence–lonely but reaching.
Ione has a lot to say as well as show us. You can get lost in her thoughts and meanderings on her website and I do encourage you to do so. She speaks very openly and honestly about her process, her struggles both in creating art and the rigors of showing and living as an artist. I have heard some of her words uttered near exactly by a number of polymer artists. It’s definitely worth a sit with a cup of coffee or tea today.
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 Point for Hanging
June 19, 2014
Inspirational Art
Our little surprise today is an ingenious method of hanging a pendant that can also be worn as a pin when removed. The device is so simple–a bead is threaded through a hole in the large domed bead, hanging securely against very much like a toggle closure. It is really no surprise that Carol Blackburn would come up with something of this kind. Interesting and inventive closures is one of her signatures as is her creative beads–she did write the book on it. (Do get yourself a copy of Making Polymer Clay Beads if you don’t have one already.)
On top of the book Carol is also an instructor for CraftArtEdu where she even has a class featuring this pin and pendant design. Get the class here to learn how to make this and take a moment to look at what else she has to offer on 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.
Floating Points
June 18, 2014
Inspirational Art
This organic sculpture brooch by Jana Roberts Benzon has enough interesting curves and twists, not to mention intriguing textures and bright colors, to hold its own without a lot of additional elements. But it is the small floating points that emerge from its interior that make this piece work so well. They work as focal points as well as adding an element of airiness to what could have been a relatively heavy feeling piece. There was already a lot of movement in the edges of the folds but the additional points moving out and away from it really make this piece come alive.
You can see more of Jana’s work on her website and her Flickr photostream as well as checking out her classes on CraftEdu, her own DVDs, and her workshops schedule.
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 Spot to the Side
June 17, 2014
Inspirational Art
Sometimes the surprise found in our work comes incidentally as we create with other intentions. Una-Odd Lynn was fascinated by a collection of moonglow beads and had planned some simple cut pendants in polymer for them but ended up with something just a little different.
“I cut out a hole, not reserving the removed clay, and planned to use a moonglow bead in the middle. Experimenting with a tube to punch out the hole I discovered [the extra clay] would make a nice side bead.” And these sweet little necklaces were born!
Mrs. Lynn’s pieces and ideas are kind of all over the place but that openness to working with whatever suits a mood is often exactly what is needed to allow for new discoveries. Una-Odd blogs about all the various things she does and ponders on her entertaining blog. Jump on over and explore a little yourself.
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.
Life’s Little Surprises
June 16, 2014
Inspirational Art
This past week I had to make an unplanned trip out to Los Angeles to help my family while my father dealt with some health issues. He is doing quite well now and I am feeling good about returning home. What might have been a rather stressed filled and scary week actually turned into something quite wonderful–I had some truly touching moments with both my parents, had a surprise clay day with my niece who came out and played with polymer with me for the first time and then fate lined it up so that I reconnected with two people out here I haven’t seen in 25 years, people who were very important to me back then and look to become very important to me again. What a fantastic and uplifting surprise those reunions were!
There is such a truly joyful beauty in the small, unexpected moments like those I had this past week, just as there are in those small, unexpected elements in what could have been a simple and quiet piece of art. It can take just one small thing to take something from being ‘nice’ to being remarkable. Take this pendant by Anna Fidecka. There would have been nothing wrong with just creating a nice silver bezel for the caned cabochon but that meandering silver cutting down through it adds movement as well as a stronger focal point. It’s a simple addition but it really makes the piece.
Anna hails from Poland where she works with precious metal clay, beads and polymer, mixing them or not as the muse dictates. More of her work can be found on her Flickr pages 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.
One Last Mystery
June 15, 2014
Inspirational Art
We have one last mystery piece for this week to ponder. I think this is a Chris Kapono piece but I couldn’t find the image under any of her sites. This is a great use of combined material and embedding little accents to add secondary focal points that keep the eye moving around the piece.
So can anyone confirm my guess?
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: Varied Embedding
June 13, 2014
Inspirational Art
Here is an example of a piece found on Pinterest, pinned through Tumblr and without attribution. But luckily, it is also an image taken from the artist’s website so looking up the image on Google images brought up the page of Laurie MacAdam and her mixed stone and metal jewelry, which was quite a find! Although this is mostly metal work, she creates with a wide range of lovely colors both through heat and patina and carefully chosen semi-precious stones bezeled and flat soldered and/or embedded into textured and forged metal.
Most of Laurie’s work could be emulated in polymer and certainly has a lot of elements that could be jumping off points for various elements in your own work. Enjoy a little time on her website looking over her lovely pieces.
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.
Ancient and Embedded
June 12, 2014
Inspirational Art
There are a lot of techniques going on in this intriguing pendant from Celie Fago including embedded diamonds that add both accents of color and help form the image of the lizard. Pretty nice effect.
Celie is one of those artists that is not afraid to mix and match anything … techniques, materials or even influences. Just take a lot around her website for more fabulous ideas and mixing it up!
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.
Imperfect Embedding
June 11, 2014
Inspirational Art
Okay … we are still looking for the identities of the first two artists of this week. While we continue that search, why don’t we look at a couple of people I have been able to identify.
This beautiful pendant is by France’s Amarena Bijoux. I don’t know that these jewel like metal foil spots are embedded so much as punched in. The imperfect edges around the metal leaf application goes well with the loose, brushy swath of copper and the overall dark look of industrial decay.
I found this approach a bit unusual for this commonly color enamored artists. Its nice to see the exploration into really different color palettes though. See more of her work on her Flickr pages, on her blog and in her online shop.
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.
Dots in a Field of Blue
June 10, 2014
Inspirational Art
So this pendant has been making the rounds on Pinterest lately. The style looks familiar but my attention is so split right now that I can’t think of who it might be and image searches on Google have not brought anything up. Do you know whose work this is?
I just love the combination of a cracked looking surface with the nicely formed and embedded clay dots. The dots give a bit of contrast with the predominant texture as well as adding contrasting color accents. This makes for a sophisticated yet fun little piece.
As of writing this post up, we still haven’t found the artist for yesterday’s beads. If you didn’t see yesterday’s post, maybe you can jump over there and see if you recognize the artist then let us know. We’ll also take more ideas and thoughts on using Pinterest and sharing images.
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.
