Woven Vessel
September 9, 2014
Inspirational Art
The popularity of the extruded cane has led to some wonderful experimentation using the reveal options provided by the nature of the cane. Laying these canes sideways gives you a series of layers to dig down into and expose.
This particular vessel created by Germany’s Vera Kleist Thom has these canes laid out in a weave pattern, but the shaving down of the outer layers gives it a kind of worn stone appearance. So, do we have woven stone? Intriguing. The combination makes for a beautiful, calm visual texture. The colors follow this calm theme by being primarily neutral, but there are a few rich reds and brilliant, ocean blues that accent the weave.
Give yourself a treat and look at the other vessels and jewelry she has created using this technique on her Flickr page. Just beautiful, contemporary pieces.
Carving out and revealing layers is nothing new for Vera, and right now, you can get some of her amazing cut-in bead necklaces and loose beads that we featured here in November of 2013 from her Etsy shop.
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Extruded Fun
September 8, 2014
Inspirational Art
There is just too much fun being had out there with extruded clay methods lately, so let’s take a look at a handful of what is being done and see if we can’t entice you into a bit of extruded play this week!
This first piece by Spain’s Maribel Benito looks to be using the very popular cane blocks build from extruded canes. It’s not that the canes or application here are so unusual, but the fun combination of various sized circles, those delicious candy colors, the gradation of the canes and the well-tended finish make for a really beautiful piece that is both playful and sophisticated. It’s just well done.
I thought I’d go for short chatter today after my long Saturday expose. Let’s just enjoy this beauty today while I go dig up more extruded fun. The best place to find more of Maribel’s work would be on her Facebook page and on her blog.
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Innate Creativity
September 6, 2014
Ponderings
Today, I’m going to get a little chatty. And, I hope you’ll have the patience to read this because it has bearing on what you might get out of this blog as well as on the idea of play.
If you read this blog regularly, then you know I will often aim to break down the reasons why a piece works, what I think the artist might have been doing or the intention behind the choices in color, form, line, etc. This kind of analysis intellectualizes or breaks down what is often an innate, instinctual, and/or playful process. Analysis and playing would seem to be on opposite ends of a creative spectrum, but they aren’t. They are actually two aspects of the process that goes into creating successful art.
In art school you have design concepts drilled into you, and you spend what seems like half your time analyzing and critiquing the work of others based largely on these concepts. You are also, however, pushed to play and experiment, to break down boundaries and take chances by putting yourself and your experiences into your work. What I didn’t really realize until years after art school is that I rarely ever thought about the concepts I had learned. I didn’t need to. They were ingrained in me through all the drilling, through the critical discussions and the regular analysis of other work. The insistence to break boundaries and take chances was, on the other hand, something I was quite conscious of. That seemed odd, but it worked. I could push myself to create fairly successfully without really thinking about why I made the choices I made. I just knew.
If you have been working artistically for a while, you have probably experienced at least a bit of this in the skills and techniques you have learned from constant practice; those things you no longer even think about how to do. Maybe its creating Skinner blends or knowing how to neatly reduce a cane. You’ve done it so many times you can do it without thinking, and your mind and fingers are freed up to ponder and create as your inspiration dictates.
This is why I repeat, rehash and reword the concepts of design over and over in these blogs; not because I want to take the fun and mystery out of creating, but because I want you to know it from hearing and seeing it so often that you never have to think about it. I really hope that hearing these ideas until they are ingrained can help you with your design choices, with finding the solutions to unsatisfactory outcomes, and with freeing you up to express yourself in beautiful, well-balanced and very personal ways, all without consciously considering the concepts. My hope is that all this talk of design just lives there in the background as you create, giving your child-side plenty of room to play and be curious.
So this weekend, I leave you with these thoughts and also encourage you to check out one of our communities consummate players, Deb Crothers who has been going nuts lately with these grunge beads of hers. You can see them develop through the photos on her Flickr site. You may also want to read some of her recent blog posts on why she doesn’t sell her work any more and her thoughts on the importance of play, which is where I saw these luscious square beads you see here. I think you will enjoy her sentiments.
Now its time for me to try and get some creative playtime in. I wish you lots of successful playing this weekend!
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Outside Inspiration: From Quilts to Canes
September 5, 2014
Inspirational Art
Within the 2014 fall issue of The Polymer Arts, in our regular feature, “Color Spotlight” created by Maggie Maggio, we have the amazing work of Switzerland’s Sandra Traschel. The patterning and illusions she creates in polymer canes come in large part from the inspiration and even the templates of various quilters. Although this is covered in the article, Sandra (as well as Maggie and I), thought it would be great to actually see which artists inspired what pieces, so you could really see how the work of other art forms can so beautifully inspire polymer art.
This quilt is an example of color illusion, which Sandra explores at length in her jewelry pieces. You can see the translation to polymer in the pendants below. I would not have thought to use quilting templates for canes, but it’s obvious how beautifully they work out behind a skilled and patient hand.
So, if you have your Fall 2014 issue at hand, go ahead and open to the “Color Spotlight” article and click through to all these great quilters. Can you spot which quilter inspired which piece of Sandra’s jewelry just by looking at the websites? If you don’t have your issue in hand yet, you can just hop over to Sandra’s Flickr pages to make the comparisons. And, of course, spend some time in the galleries of these amazing quilters by clicking their names to link through to their websites.
1. Bracelet Convergence Pattern: inspired by a quilting template by Ricky Tims.
2. Bracelet Hollow Cubes: For this piece, I don’t know who was the original artist. I was inspired by the book: ABC 3-D Tumbling blocks and more by Marci Baker
3. Bracelet Triangle Illusion: Pattern inspired by a quilting template of Carol Bryer Fallert (quilt: illusion)
4. Necklace Diamond Illusion: Pattern inspired by Carol Bryer Fallert (quilt: illusion)
5. Pendant Autumn Flower: Pattern inspired by Jinny Beyer (quilt: Mayflowers pattern)
6. Pendant Op-Art checkerboard: Pattern inspired by Jinny Beyer (quilt: Da Vinci Pattern)
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.
Extruding Beyond the Expected
September 4, 2014
Inspirational Art
Another multi-artist article in the new Fall 2014 issue tracks the growth and experience of six artists that went through the Voila! creativity classes. We were given the opportunity to see what six emerging or accomplished artists developed as they went through an intensive, nearly year-long course that focused solely on developing creativity and personal voice rather than learning techniques and particular skills. The outcomes were quite remarkable. The growth those artists have continued to have is just as, or maybe even more so, remarkable.
Angela Garrod has been making leaps and bounds in her work the last couple years, but until the article came to me, I had not realized where much of this inspiration and push came from. Many of her designs have explored what can be done with extruding, but I have to say some of the pieces she experimented with earlier this year is pushing extruding far beyond what we’ve seen from the rest of the community. I would not have thought the patterning on this neck piece had anything to do with extruding, but now my mind is working furiously to try to surmise how it might have been accomplished. Angela’s creative exploration of technique, as well as design, seems to have been buoyed by her natural instinct to experiment. All with wonderful results.
Take a look at the other recent pieces Angela has been working on her Flickr page where you can see the chronological journey of her work. Be sure to read the article as well and follow the links to each of the artists to see what else they have been up to since their classes. It’s a fascinating story told through the artwork itself.
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.
Pushing Faux Organics
September 2, 2014
Inspirational Art
Another article in the fall issue that could have had a lot more examples in it if we had the room was about playing with faux techniques. The ideas outlined in the article are about emulating something that you find in nature, but adjusting characteristics to create something that doesn’t exist. A number of fantastic artists contributed their versions of this with examples.
Page McNall contributed an example of faux wood. A small faux log to be exact, but that is hardly the end of her beyond-natural faux examples. She is definitely one of those exploratory artists I often talk about, never really settling into one form or style, but does gorgeous work in her variety of approaches. One of her newer explorations that I just love and would have liked to have included are these this faux semi-translucent organics. This is really pushing the idea of natural faux polymer. The pieces look like they could be something in nature, but I’m pretty sure there is nothing quite like the majority of these.
To get a better view of the individual pieces here, as well as her rather fascinating work, visit her Flickr page. And for more ideas on how to play with and push faux techniques, well, see the latest issue of The Polymer Arts!
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.
Time to Play–Fall 2014 issue is here!
August 30, 2014
Inspirational Art
Today is the day … The Fall 2014 issue of The Polymer Arts is out! The theme for this issue is “Time to Play” so we have tons of ideas for increasing your play time, drawing out your ability to let go and play, thoughts on the art of whimsy and humor, ideas for pushing faux effects, creating canes by numbers, creatively naming your work, and tons of other good stuff.
Print issues were sent to the post office for sorting and mailing on Thursday, and this morning, the digital issue was released. This collage gives you a peek at some of the articles you’ll find inside and a Flipbook sampler with many of the articles’ first pages is available on the website if you want a more thorough peek before buying.
Print Subscribers & purchases: Expect your copies to arrive anytime between today and mid-September; arrival times depend on where you live, but the closer to the northwestern US you are, where the issues are printed and mailed from, the sooner you’ll probably see them. International shipments take a minimum of a week and up to 3 weeks, again depending upon your location and mailing services.
Digital Subscribers & purchases: The issue was released digitally at 10am GMT (that’s 5am EST), so you should have a copy in your inbox if you purchased or renewed before Aug 28th. If you have this issue coming, but don’t see it in you inbox, check you spam or junk email folder. Keep in mind, issues are mailed to the email address that you gave us when you made your purchase, or if paying by Paypal, to your Paypal email of record (that’s the one you sign into Paypal with), which may not be this email address since the blog and subscription mailing lists are maintained separately.
If you have any questions about your subscription or order, write us at connect@thepolymerarts.com and we’ll be happy to help you out.
In the meantime, get some playtime in this weekend, be it in the studio or outside, and enjoy child like joy and discovery.
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: Synergistic Enamel
August 29, 2014
Inspirational Art
Early in the week it occurred to me that I hadn’t encouraged anyone to send me items that were NOT polymer, so I’d have something for our outside inspiration Friday post. However, the lovely Donna Greenberg came to my rescue and introduced me to a rather amazing enamel artist by the name of Liz Schock. This is not your typical enamel work, at all. There are a lot of wild texture and lines, as well as a carnival mix of colors in much of Lisa’s work.
I am bringing you one of her calmer pieces, actually, I just kept going back to it. This Seaweed Necklace has the intense intricacy of her other work, but for all the wild lines and uneven edges, there is a serenity in it. The color green, and this particular shade of it, has much to do with that. In addition, there is minimal contrast even with the one blue bead. It is still a bit of a mystery since it has so much rich texture, yet is such a calming piece. It is reminiscent of seaweed peacefully floating underwater.
I am especially fond of pieces that I can’t figure out, whose elements are not themselves able to reveal their effect. It is a synergy of the elements that brings about the mood or ‘read’ of a piece like this. It is also something that can’t be taught, not in the sense of defining concepts and outlining approaches. This takes intuition, being in touch with your own sense and reaction to your work, being open as you create to the emerging art and if the piece says ‘step back’, then you want to keep from over-complicating it. I don’t know that this is true for Liz with this piece, but I can imagine, with all the color and contrast in the rest of her work, that it might have been just such an experience that had her pull back from some of her more raucous tendencies.
I would really encourage you to see what I mean. She has a website that was working the other day, but seems to be offline at the time I am writing this. Try going to her website and/or her Facebook page to see what she does with her enamel work and art jewelry and let the idea of how the work presents itself. You may love some of it, you may really dislike a few pieces, but the fact is that with work like this, you will have a reaction of some sort. Isn’t that what we all want our work to do in the end?
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.
Layers of Form and Texture
August 27, 2014
Inspirational Art
Today’s reader’s choice comes to you thanks to the talented Randee Ketzel who kindly sends me cool stuff on regular basis. This piece by Olga Ledneva caught her attention due to the layering and the perfectly applied application and juxtaposition of elements.
Yesterday, we got started talking about how the impact of texture can be enhanced by form, but it can be taken one or two steps further by adding lines and contrast to the mix. These forms are created by lines, both curved and straight, which, along with color value, provides dynamic contrast in what is a fairly well controlled composition.
The meticulous finish and balance of elements is key in the work Olga does. See more of her pieces on her Flickr page.
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.
Are you familiar with something known as the flow state? This is that space you get in where you are lost in your own little world because you are so wrapped up in what you are doing. It happens quite commonly when people are working on creative projects and it’s a really good thing for you, both because it dissipates stress and because it increases your level of “feel-good” chemicals like serotonin and dopamine. It’s also defined as an “optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best.” Now, who wouldn’t want that?
I bring this up because I want to talk about mosaics. I think a lot of people look at all those tiny pieces and think, “That looks like a ton of work!” And, yeah, there might be a lot of steps to putting a mosaic together, but the technique is also one that really gets you deep into a flow state. It can be kind of like doodling but with little pieces.
It would not be a hard thing to start on. Most of us have access to tons of tiny pieces, either through leftover canes, unused polymer sheets, or failed projects we haven’t had the heart to toss out. Just slice up those canes, cut up those sheets, and/or start chopping up those cured elements and you have all you need to start creating mosaics. Of course, you can make pieces specifically for mosaics from fresh clay, too!
Mosaics have been on my mind these last couple weeks because, while working on the latest book, Polymer Journeys 2019, it became quite apparent that one of the bigger trends making a splash right now is polymer mosaics and so I thought we ought to take a closer look at this not so new but definitely interesting and flexible technique. (By the way, today is the last day to get the Pre-order Sale pricing on Polymer Journeys 2019! Go to the website to get it at 30% off the cover!)
Mind you, being the insanely creative and exploratory artisans and crafters that they are, polymer enthusiasts aren’t just slapping together any old standard expectation of a mosaic. They are mixing mediums, trying out every shape in the book, using three-dimensional forms, and generally just pushing the boundaries of what the mosaic technique is. Gotta love polymer crafters!
So, let’s take a look at what some people are doing as of late and we’ll end with suggestions for getting into the mosaic flow yourself.
Different Kinds of Bits & Pieces
One of the folks who, at least initially, takes a classic approach to the art form of mosaics but certainly adds her own flavor to it, is Christi Friesen. She cuts out squares of polymer, lays a base to adhere them to and then arranges the pieces in pleasing and energetic patterns. But of course, Christi can’t leave well enough alone — she has to add bling and embellishments of all kinds! She’s been mixing in glass, wire, charms, beads, and probably a bunch of other things I will never be able to identify, to create her whimsical tiles, vessels and jewelry. Can’t you just sense the depth of the flow state she must have been in creating this beautiful maelstrom?
You could say that Claire Fairweather is classically inspired too, but her work has a twist to it. That twist is a commitment to circles used to create these wonderful images of graduated color and varied texture. Using round elements instead of squares and straight-sided shapes that join neatly together, leaves more open space but it’s one that has a fairly regular rhythm that flows in and out of the carefully placed circles. This gives the imagery more orderliness and a softer look as you can see in the many sides of her mosaic globe below. (Be sure to jump over to her blog to get the rundown on what each side is showing.)
Keep in mind that a mosaic piece does not have to be all mosaic. Large swaths can be made up of other types of polymer elements such as textured, silkscreen, impressed, or hand tooled layers or forms. A lot of Susan Crocenzi’s work, especially earlier in this decade, consist of entire halves of her pieces being a kind of polymer landscape, surrounded by glass mosaics or a mix of mosaic mediums. Here is just one example below but you can find more on her website too.
For all of you mad caners out there, here is an example of how beautifully energetic a piece can be just by arranging thick cane slices on a simple form. This bib necklace is a yet-to-be-hung creation by Ivy Niles, who makes some of the most impressive canes. You can see how much more impressive they are when working together in this off-center mandala type pattern.
If you really like the idea of doing mosaics don’t relegate your sources of inspiration to the work of polymer artist’s, as unique as they may be. Take a look at what glass and tile mosaic artists are doing these days as well (just type “mosaic art” into your favorite browser or an image-centric site, like Pinterest or Instagram) if for no other reason than there is some amazing and gorgeous work out there to enjoy. Here is a gorgeous piece by Francis Green in what seems to be a rare piece of wall art. This woman will mosaic anything she can get her hands on! She kinda reminds me of some unbridled polymer artist with their canes. Just take a look at her website.
The How-Tos of Mosaics
So, are you itching to try some mosaics now? Here are a few places you could start:
- If you want to start with something classic, even, and orderly, check out this straight-forward mosaic tile tutorial by Korrina Robinson on her blog.
- Prefer a more open and visually textural approach that is flexible enough to use any type of clay sheets or even canes? Take a look at this mosaic vase by Kathy Koontz on the Sculpey website.
- If you’re ready to really dive in, might I suggest you invest in this great tutorial on micromosaics and faux glass by Pavla Čepelíková. The opening image of this post shows examples of some of the things she’ll teach you to make in this downloadable PDF.
- If you want to use mosaic as a way to diminish your pile of scrap clay and cured bits, take a look at Christi Friesen’s mosaic video tutorial here. You can also have fun creating mosaics Antoni Gaudi style on an unusually formed box with Christi in the Polymer Art Projects – Organic book (go to our website to get your copy!)
- And if that’s not enough, Christi sells mosaic kits on her website where you can also find tons of other embellishments and bobbles to assist in your mosaic flow. Just click here!
- I even have some exciting mosaics for you to look forward to too … We just found out that Staedtler/Fimo is going to sponsor Ann and Karen Mitchell, the Masters of liquid polymer clay, to create a mini mosaic tutorial for the next issue of The Polymer Studio magazine. This is a changeup to Karen’s tiny micromosaic technique published in The Polymer Arts back in the Fall of 2015.
Whew! I got into a flow a bit there myself writing excitedly about all this fun stuff. I hope you’ll give mosaics a try if you have not already, or at least give yourself some time to just get lost in your craft today. It’s good for the brain and the soul and you never know what will come of it later in your creative journey!
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I know I just featured Katie Way in February, but this is such a great example of taking a technique and making it your own that I didn’t want to pass by this opportunity. This seemed particularly apropos after an incident came up a week or so ago that I was consulted about involving a student submitting something to a contest that they created either in a class or based on a class. The problem was not in taking something that was learned in a class and creating from that knowledge but using the design choices that the teaching artist used. So, let’s just review what that means. In a way, it’s very simple – you can replicate technique, but you cannot use the design decisions of another artist.
I think part of the issue is that there is some confusion as to what’s is technique and what is design, so let me try to define that.
Technique is how you manipulate the material including how you apply texture, the process of forming/sculpting, the mixing or application of color treatments, the creation of mechanisms or use of materials for constructing the piece, etc. In other words, it’s about the process of creating.
Design is about the specific choices you make about how something is going to look. So, your choices about the type of texture (not how you apply it), the shapes you create (but not how you create them), the colors you choose (but not the source of the color), and the arrangement of your construction (but not the mechanisms used to put pieces together), are all design choices. If the majority of your choices are based on someone else’s examples, then you’re in danger of copying their design. Changing the color or shape is simply not enough, nor is it fair to the artist that inspired you and, equally so, it’s not fair to you and your creative growth to skip the exploration of what a piece could be by not making the design decisions yourself.
In the piece we see here, Katie Way took a class with Alice Stroppel and made a piece that is uniquely her own. You can see the influence of both artists in this work. The big, bold cane work shows Alice’s influence, but the color choices and all those bulls-eye circles are absolutely Katie. I would’ve known this was Katie’s right away, but it would’ve taken me a few moments to realize where her change in technique came from if she hadn’t made note of her influencer. And that’s really how it should be.
You can absolutely copy the work of the teaching artist in class as a way to learn. Most of them do prefer that. But when you go home, don’t make that same basic piece ever again. Have enough confidence and belief in your artistic self to work out your own designs. It is far more fulfilling to create from your own sense of aesthetic and ideas than to simply be successful with someone else’s design.
Okay, getting off my soapbox now. If you’re intrigued by Alice’s cane mapping class, go to her website to check out where she will be teaching next. And if you’ve somehow missed Katie’s work, check out her Etsy shop and her Instagram page.
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I spent a lot of time looking for differently constructed clocks in polymer and couldn’t find much that really illustrated the point I was hoping to make. What I wanted was to show that a clock does not have to be on a flat surface. It can be made of many parts, attached or not, and fully dimensional. As long as you have something that can house or hide the clock mechanism while holding out the hands, the rest is wide open. You can have the hour markers designated by any form and attach them with sticks or wire or be free floating–whatever suits the piece and your inclination.
These two examples are commercial designs rather than polymer art but I think they give you the basics of this idea of moving beyond the flat clock face. Not only do these kinds of clocks make for really interesting wall pieces, they give you the freedom to use pieces you may already have such as large hollow beads, faux stones, unhung pendants, small figurines, flowers, etc.
As a gift, giving a clock that has separate pieces might be best attached to something that can be hung as one piece, like a backing of Plexiglas or painted plywood. Or include instructions for a template to mark on the wall where each piece goes. There is little to no construction to deal with but you will have to make concessions in the design for how the individual pieces will be hung. Alternately, go for a design where the elements are attached like the flowers you see here.
The sky is the limit with these kinds of designs. For more ideas, try searching “DIY clocks,” which was the keyword set that brought me to these two pieces. I hope these sparks some ideas and I look forward to seeing inventive clock designs this month!
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In my search for clock inspiration, I veered a bit off the polymer path, but then again, I kept running into pieces that I thought were polymer but were not. Of course, pieces like this splendid celestial clock by Natalya Polekh could be created in a very similar fashion with polymer. Large textured sheets and fun with alcohol inks and mica powders could produce similarly stunning results so I took a closer look.
Natalya looks to be a well-known mixed media artist in Eastern Europe and Russia and when I say mixed, I mean all kinds of things. Her primary materials look to be various types of acrylic paint, dimensional and pearling paints, 3D gel, embossing paste, and glass and metal accents of different types. She works in texture, mosaics and layered media that is applied in such a way that knowing the materials is rather superfluous. She creates a beautiful complexity of texture and motif with shine and shimmer applied in abundance but always in a tasteful and often intriguing manner.
She does much more than clocks although she has done quite few of them. Take a look at her shop for more clock and textural ideas as well as very well priced tutorials on how she creates this work. Her VK.com page has more images.
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A lot of the peek-a-boo designs you see peer in at just one contrasting surface although there are a few out there who add in a little charm or an additional focal point. But I really like what Czech Republic’s Jitka Petrů did with this opening in her pendant’s surface.
The many overlapping layers look like they are moving back, one depth at a time and seem like we will soon see the inner surface although it stops at just giving us the tiniest of peeks. But that effect really draws your eye in. When you pull back, it even has a bit of an optical motion effect, in part because of the angling of the layers but also because of the very slight change in color value and hue which makes for a gradual transition to the center.
Jitka plays around with this peek into layers in a number of ways as you can see in her shop here.
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Since we started out this week with a spooky something or other peeking out at us, I thought I’d try to make a theme of it and the idea of peeking into things is always intriguing. Spaces that allow us to look into things beyond is like the revealing of a tiny mystery, a look into a place that we might otherwise be shut off from. When this is part of a design, I think it automatically will draw the eye. Whether you can keep a viewer looking is up to the rest of your design.
The idea of a partly revealed letter that Samantha Burroughs chose for this beautifully textured pendant is certainly alluring. Who doesn’t get a little bit of thrill from the possibility of seeing the inner thoughts of another person? We are also very drawn to text in general as our brain wants to immediately read and decipher it so it was a good choice for the interior content of the holes here. It also creates a contrasting texture to the organic surface of the piece.
Samantha has honed her skills in a variety of established techniques and looks to be fully exploring quite a few of them. You can find her work on Etsy.
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Being that tomorrow is Halloween, I could not help but get in one last spooky bit of polymer creativity. The thing that makes something truly scary is the stuff you can’t see, or so I have always felt. The bogeyman under the bed, the creature in the closet, the shape of some beast in the bushes … just the hint that something is there allows our imagination to run wild. And in the dark and the shadows, our imagination comes up with some pretty scary stuff!
So, seeing the pair of eyes staring out from the forest in this polymer illustration by Korrina Robinson, what are you thinking is in there? You know I was thinking those eyes need to be glow in the dark and then I would so want this to be a light switch plate because how freaky would that be in a shadowy room to have to reach into that to get the light on and banish the very fears it invokes? Can you hear your inner voice saying, “Don’t do it! You’ve seen this seen in the movies and someone always loses a hand!”
Okay … enough with trying to spook you all. Especially since I think I am very much spooking myself in the process. But isn’t it neat how our imaginations can add so much to what we look at? And isn’t it great that polymer clay allows us to create any such thing our imagination comes up with?
For those of you who celebrate this holiday in which we face and often embrace our fears, have a very safe and happy Halloween.
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I was going to start off a week of spooky ghoulishness but I have to delay that for one more post as I wanted to take the opportunity to share a beautiful piece recently created by the ever-surprising Beth Petricoin. The glass vessel you see here, accompanied by a similarly styled neckpiece was part of an entry for a decorated table contest in a local town. I choose this image so you could see the work but it is best displayed in a darker setting when the side-sitting vessel and the necklace both are lit up by hidden LED lights.
Beth did not win the contest which was a disappointment for her but if originality and hard work had been what they were primarily grading on, it would have been an easy winner I think. But as she says in her post, it is easier to have your work appreciated by fellow artisans and this, unfortunately, was not really an art contest. But I thought we all could sure show our appreciation for the beautifully applied and finished work as well as the ingenuity of the design, especially in regards to its function as an eye-catching table centerpiece.
I won’t go on too long about this as Beth has written at length about the event and the piece. I do hope it gets a few creative wheels turning with some pondering on larger polymer pieces and maybe a few of you will now want to keep an eye out for more unique shapes for polymer-covered decor. Do jump over to her blog to see the lit up images and to read about how she created these beauties.
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Last week I had the very fortunate opportunity to spend a couple days chatting and exploring Los Angeles with Christi Friesen and one of my oldest polymer pals, Debbie Crothers. We definitely did more talking than anything else and one of the subjects that kept coming up was exploration. Exploration of a technique or of a design element in your work can reveal much about what you personally prefer to do in your work not just what the technique or element offers.
One great way to explore is to make a lot of elements using the same technique or the same design element. In this bold neckpiece by Hélène JeanClaude there are several variations on the dot. The dot as a colored accent, as repetition defining the structure of a visual pattern, and as negative space are joined together, linked by that same color of blue and the coppery brown. The curve of the shapes, as well as the colors and the dots themselves, create a cohesive whole of these three very different explorations of the way a dot can be used.
Hélène’s work often appears to be an exploration of a particular design element or perhaps she is simply not satisfied with an element being presented in just one way. Regardless, it presents a high level of sophistication and energy to her tribal-leaning aesthetic. You can explore the fruits of her explorations on her Flickr photostream and here on her blog.
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