Sunday Serendipity

Are you, like me, one of those folks that just wants everybody to share your joy in creating art and especially your favorite medium? I think my family is pretty tired of hearing about the many wonders of polymer although no one objects to the handmade Christmas gifts. I have, however, gotten one niece and one step-grandchild into it so all my talk has had, at least in part, a desired effect! I just want everyone to experience that same kind of joy that I find in creating with a fascinating medium like polymer.

During this break I’ve been taking from production, I’ve been thinking really hard about how I can best share this joy as well as consider what this community needs and how we can help spread the word about polymer and the benefits of having a creative outlet in general. It wouldn’t really matter to me whether people work in polymer or some other medium, as long as they have the chance to discover how creativity, in whatever form it takes, can enrich their lives. But, since I am so integrated into this community and would like to see it stay vibrant, I’ve been pondering ways to increase our reach and bring in some new blood or at least get other artists interested in using polymer in addition to their primary medium.

To that end, I have been researching and talking to various non-polymer specific outlets to see how we might be able to increase polymer’s exposure. My first successful foray this round was with the Craft Industry Alliance with an article I wrote on the possibilities of polymer clay, their first on the medium, published on their website early this week. You can see it at the link here.

I’m excited about this because polymer has such a potential to add truly unique and inexpensive additions and accents to so many other types of art forms. And you just know that some of those people will be complete converts before all is said and done. I was a sporadic fiber and found objects artist before polymer was put into my hand. Actually, come to think of it, that happened in the very room I’m sitting in right now in Aurora, Colorado, almost exactly 13 years ago. My polymer centric path was nothing I could have envisioned back then, but then, oftentimes, the best things we end up with in our life were not planned.

That’s why I like to encourage serendipity as often as possible. Magazines are a serendipitous source of information in that, although you know you have an interest in the subject, you don’t know what you’re going to get out of that publication until you open it up and flip through. The opening image of this post is of a bracelet by Jill Palumbo who, some 8 years ago, opened The Polymer Arts Winter 2011–Education issue and found my article on a wax impression texturing technique,  shown here with the wax and polymer clay impression made from it.  She fell in love with it. The bracelet shown above is from 2018 using the same basic technique although she has taken it much farther than I have and has made it her signature technique. And that happened by just opening a magazine with no expectations.

Same goes with this blog. You don’t know what I’m going to talk about each week but I hope, on a somewhat regular basis, you find something that gets you thinking and helps nudge you onto a path where you find more and more joy and fulfillment in what you do and create.

Inviting Serendipity

To that end, while I am here in Colorado, embroiled in the fun and frenetic event that is my baby sister’s wedding while visiting with family and friends including the coincidentally present Debbie Crothers and Christi Friesen, all on the one weekend, (and thus my time for research and pulling and prepping photos and all that has been severely limited) I am going to suggest that you consider pushing your creative boundaries a little this coming week by going out and finding serendipitous inspiration around you. Here are a few suggestions on how to do that:

• Play with the medium that you’ve never worked with before. Take a stroll through a local craft store (because that’s always a fun thing anyways) and pick up something unfamiliar that catches your eye and see what you can do with it.
• Go to your local bookstore or newsstand and find a book or magazine on a craft or art form you haven’t worked in and flip through it. If something really catches your eye, buy it and try it.
• If you don’t have time to try a new thing, at least try to photo hunt. Photo hunting requires nothing but looking around for things that you find interesting and taking pictures of them with your phone camera. Aim to take at least three photos a day (although more would be better!) and then when you are next in the studio take a look at the pictures and see if you can integrate textures, forms, lines, colors, or whatever caught your eye, into a practice piece or even into your present work.
• Write about your work. This doesn’t have to be poetic or sound like a museum catalog, just write about how it makes you feel or the concepts behind where your ideas come from. Working visually often means working instinctively and so you may not be identifying what you are doing with your artwork. By writing about it, you can really define and illuminate your approach and why you’re doing it which can give you more focus and success as you move from one project to the next. If you find this helpful, spend 5-10 minutes every day before you sit down to your studio table writing down your thoughts about your artwork as well as what you want to accomplish that day.
• Collaborate! What other artists do you know and admire? Sit down to tea or coffee or have a Skype call with them and see if you can’t come up with something that you both get jazzed about. The conversation should be enlightening and invigorating even if a collaborative project is not the result.

Serendipity … It’s Up to You Now

So, again, my apologies that this post is a bit spare on images but hopefully these suggestions fill your mind with ideas. You can start right now. Turnaround and take a picture of something near you or walk outside and find something to photograph. Call up an artist friend for that cup of coffee and talk of collaboration or head on over to the craft store to find a new and invigorating publication. These are small things, but they could end up changing your entire life. A random discussion with a friend is what brought me to polymer. What moment or event brought you to polymer? There may be another great discovery for you out there—just open the door to your own bit of serendipity.

Today I’m off to spend time with family and friends and then show off my previously adopted state to Debbie Crothers. I will take lots of pictures! Maybe serendipity will drop something amazing into my lap while I’m at it!