Black and White Chaos
June 6, 2016
Inspirational Art
I challenged you all on my last post to create something without color. For some people, this is not a problem, for others, this would feel like a serious handicap. Years ago I would have thought Laura Schiller, a member of my local guild in the Denver area, the Mile Hi Polymer Clay Guild (my apologies for being a rather absent member!), would have had trouble leaving color behind. Her work has always been a riot of color. But then out of the blue, she started creating these zentagle-like clay pieces with nothing but black and white. Do you see what I mean about how other design elements become so important when you leave color behind?
Yes, this is a little chaotic. Okay, a lot chaotic, but art doesn’t have restrictions on subject matter or style. And with something like this, it might be that the process is the more important aspect. Can you imagine how lost in your work you must be to do something so complex and busy? That’s not a bad place to be.
If you are up for a riot of color and chaos, and like eggs–the decorated kind which is Laura’s distinguishing form of decorative art–jump over to her Flickr pages. It will certainly brighten up your Monday!
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Let go and get lost in your work. Don’t plan or think about it. Pull out 2-3 colors of clay and just play. Layout a sheet as a base or a vase or something to just add things to and see where it takes you.
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Things That Break (And the Release date for the Summer issue!)
June 4, 2016
Inspirational Art
Business first … for all you patient people who have been asking about the Summer issue, we finally know the day of its release. June 11th! This is a Saturday, so I will try to get everything set so the digital version is ready for an early morning release (US side) which should be in time for afternoon tea across the pond. That is also the first possible day anyone might receive a print copy, so that is when you can start watching your mailboxes. My apologies that it ran so late this quarter. It will be likewise a little later in the Fall (which was actually planned), but we will keep you in the know! Pre-orders are ready for you early birds who like to get it one great issue at a time, and of course, subscriptions are available as well at www.thepolymerarts.com
Now, onto wrapping up my week of imperfections as beauty. And what a stunning piece we have! I have probably featured Sonya Girodan a bit heavily over the past year, but this woman is so intensely prolific. She has been whipping out a ton of work this last year or so and they have all been such fascinating pieces. This one just stopped me cold, in a good way. There is something a bit frightening about this, yet the atmosphere and condition feels familiar and close to home. I don’t like to imagine that anyone feels broken, but I think most of us go through this feeling at some time or another. I think it is more common among artists who tend to feel deeply, and so, for all the passion and strength they do have, there is a frailty when hit in just the right spot.
The lack of color paired with the rough edges does more to give this a sense of that frailty than any combination of color could ever do. The choice of texture, the gray and not-quite-white, and the sonorous eyes here combine to make a intensely arresting piece. Not that this is her only one. Take a quick stroll through her recent work on her Flickr photostream and you’ll see what I mean!
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Make a piece with no color. Chose black or white, gray or ecru, or a combination. You will need to depend on texture, form, imagery, proportion, line, etc. … but it will show you how important these aspects are to good design. Don’t be surprised if you thoroughly impress yourself.
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Subtle Contrast
June 2, 2016
Inspirational Art
I’m sorry this blog is getting out a day late. Did you miss it? I really try not to do that, but it’s been a challenging week hence my being drawn to things that are a little off from what one might expect. I would use the word blemished except that I find this kind of work so lovely. This piece looks a lot like things I have been working on this past year, however, its creator Tatiana Lipatova, is in Russia. So, I know we haven’t exchanged notes, but then other people have been working with this kind of creeping texture on their pieces.
This necklace uses a subtle contrast with a shiny set of hollow beads–donut beads, of sorts, although off center and squared off–and unusual leather wrappings as well as this calcification-like texture. It looks like the texture was added from a treated sheet, one that was hand tooled, unless she has a stamp like this and she did a Sutton slice kind of thing. Regardless, the texture ties in the cleanness of the smooth bead with the roughness of the leather and other textured beads here. It doesn’t hurt that this is a color palette I am often drawn to use myself. Warm metals have such a sense of life to them, don’t they.
It was a challenge to find Tatiana, very much buried in her world in St. Petersburg, I think. But she has some really lovely pieces, most not going the way of faux decay either. Although it’s the European version of Facebook, no matter where you are in the world, you should still be able to browse her photos here. Do take the time to scroll down a ways as you browse. Her style keeps changing and beautiful little treasures keep popping up for you to admire.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Take two very different styles, textures, materials, or colors and create a third element that you feel can tie them together. Design or create a new piece from this triad of subtle contrast.
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Stitching it All Together
May 30, 2016
Inspirational Art
Some days we are drawn to things primarily because they seem to reflect our state of mind, our emotions, or the thoughts that are taking up the majority of our time. I think that is the case today. So, what does this pendant have to say about where my thoughts are at?
We are wrapping up the Summer issue which has been taking far longer than usual to get all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted. When things do not go as planned, you find ways and tear things down and put them back together until they fit and then you hope you did a good job and that it will all hold. That’s been my past week so it’s no wonder I am drawn to a mosaic piece with what looks like random stitching.
This pendant by Tanya Mayorova has some gorgeous textures and colors and once you stop thinking about the metal wire stitching, you can just get lost in what each little square encompasses. This is also a bit like my mind right now. Lots of things going on, in their separate little boxes in my brain, each with their draw and their importance. I don’t know if these were all scrap pieces or if any were particularly made for this but it’s a great idea to put together pieces of your other work into one. The piece would represent that set of work, where your color palettes lean, and what textures and techniques you have been working on. It would be a three dimensional snap shot of your recent work.
More beautifully stitched together polymer can be found on Tanya’s Flickr photostream, her Live Journal pages, and her Live Master shop
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Create the conglomerate piece, a snapshot of your recent work, as described above, in whatever form most appeals to you.
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Swirling Density
May 27, 2016
Inspirational Art
A denseness of elements that forms a texture can obviously be quite beautiful in a random pattern. The randomness gives it a bit of frenetic energy but that doesn’t mean a dense collection of elements can’t be beautiful and energetic when well-organized.
This brooch is one such example. Not only are the elements strictly organized, but they are all organized in the exact same way, with a circular motion lined up next to other lines of beads also following the same swirling motion. This emphasizes the energy of each line. As you know, lines, especially those with unfailing direction, can create a feeling of movement which is where the energy comes from. So as you can see, multiplying lines that are already energized by the sense of motion makes for some very dramatic energy.
The South African cooperative company, Beloved Bead, is credited with this creation, although Anna Richerby looks to be the designer and primary force behind the group of 12 women creating these gorgeous beaded works. There are dozens of variations of this brooch on their website along with many other beautifully designed beaded adornments. The company, collectively owned by the twelve women, also has a strong sense of purpose in both promoting bead art as well as “a keen interest in economic justice” which is represented by the way the company is slowly turning over ownership to all 12 participating women. It’s an interesting idea. You can read more about what Anna is doing with her group on their website and on her blog.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Organize your elements in strong directional lines. These can be beads or marks or the way can slices are laid out. Try to create an intentional level of energy. If you would like a sophisticated but strong energy, straight horizontal or slightly curved lines will work well while meandering lines will convey a more relaxed energy and diagonal will be strong and highly directional. Every line has a specific type of energy, so play around with this to find what you like.
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Dense Joy
May 25, 2016
Inspirational Art
I guess we are moving from the garden theme to more of a density of texture theme, because what I found for you today, although representative of what you might find in a garden, has me thinking a lot about the crowding of elements. We have all heard that too much of a good thing is bad, but that is hardly true across the board. I have always thought it was more about knowing when to stop, which might not sound so different of an idea, but I think it is the defining point. Eating an entire extra large pizza is too much of a good thing for most of us, but I have a roommate who is too thin and has a doctor constantly begging him to eat more. I have low blood pressure issues so my doctor pushes me to go overboard on salt. Too much is completely relative and comes down to what you need.
In art, the place where you stop putting too much on is going to be determined by the effect you are after. If you want to make something showy then bling it up, but if you want quiet and serene go minimal. In the case of our art today, created by Alice of Liska Flowers on Livemaster, simple, quilling-like forms are densely packed in to create texture and to give this bird a joyfully colorful look. The swirls and whorls give off the impression that the bird will flit off into some aerial acrobatics any moment. Alice really pushes this density of forms, and for pieces like this, the place at which to stop is when the space is completely full!
Alice creates all kinds of creatures with this approach as well as creating polymer flowers. I believe she creates, at least in part, with a Japanese version of Ultralight. See for yourself by flitting off to her Livemaster pages.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Create something extremely simple and minimalistic or something intensely busy. I suggest choosing the extreme that is least like what you usually do.
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Hanging Gardens
May 23, 2016
Inspirational Art
When the Summer 2016 cover of the magazine came out on Wednesday, I interrupted my week of garden goodies to share it with you, but I hope you will put up with one more garden and a couple other earthy treasures this week.
Here is another wearable garden for the desert or xeriscape lover. This was created by Ukraine’s Darya Tarasenko. The wonderful denseness of the texture from the mini clay succulents makes the fact that they are recreations of real plants rather secondary. Or more precisely, the unusual textures is what is most attractive, then you get to looking at the variety of plants and the subtle colors changes and find yourself just smiling. Well, at least that is how it was for me. Now, how did she create that dusty, matte surface so characteristic of succulents? Hmm.
She does these hanging gardens in several variations, creating each one as a custom piece when they are ordered through her Etsy store. She has others with more purple and with different shapes. She lists her primarily sculptural pieces on Etsy and posts them to Instagram and Facebook.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Create texture from variation. Identify something you like to do as part of creating your art … certain marks on the clay, certain types of small beads, a favorite cane … and recreate it. Not just a few times but 20 or 30 or more times. Each time you make that mark or roll that bead, change it just a little so it is still similar but unlike any of the ones you made before. With a favorite mark, you can make it deeper, long, wider, use a different tool, etc. A bead could have a slightly different form, the bead holes could go through them in a different direction, the color/texture/treatment of its surface could be different, etc. Make these variations, then create a piece including as many of them as you can.
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An Idyllic Shell
May 20, 2016
Inspirational Art
Ok, back to looking at the ground for inspiration. I’m finding a lot of fascinating and miniature gardens, but this one is in an unusual vessel, as well. The use of a snail-shell very much matches the idea of a garden, so it seems natural for it to be a tiny garden’s home but … it IS actually a snail-shell. Talk about tiny! I love the little lily pads and the lushness of the greenery. I would love to grab a nap by that little pond.
This beautiful little creation is the work of Germany’s SpankTB. Spank is a female artist, but that is all I could divine from her pages. She is a master of the beautifully tiny in polymer as well as working in illustration. She says something about having created other gardens, but this is all I could find. I am in a bit of a rush today with much to do still to get the Summer issue off to the printer, so if you want to investigate her gallery on Deviant Art or the ones on her website, or even rummage through her photos on Facebook, you are welcome to send me more links and put them in the comments as short cuts for others to enjoy.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Find two things on your work table, in your supply bins or in that box of incomplete or failed experiments, things that you would not normally put together, and start thinking about what they have in common. If you find that theme or form or concept that connects them, start thinking about how you could represent that in polymer. A snail and a garden pond are connected by being things that might be found at the same place. What can you create that encompasses this new connection you found at your work table?
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Summer 2016 issue Cover … Movement!
May 18, 2016
Inspirational Art, The Polymer Arts magazine news
We interrupt this week’s looking at the ground for inspiration to being you the latest cover of The Polymer Arts magazine!
This issue is not out yet, and although we would usually get this out to you by the end of May, it looks like it will be the first week of June, but we are moving along as quickly as we can while still ensuring you have wonderful quality content and beautiful pages to enjoy.
So, what do we have coming up for you in a few short weeks? Some truly energizing articles! As you can see, the theme is Movement, so we have really fun and dynamic articles for you including …
… Randee Ketzel sharing her beautiful new faux bakelite in a flowing bracelet design.
… Lisa Pavelka shares secrets on using illusion and juxtaposition for dynamic and vibrant color.
… Loretta Lam gets you thinking about how to create visual movement in your compositions.
… I’m sharing a mulit-piece kinetic earring and pendant tutorial set as well as a tutorial on creating balanced mobiles.
… my staff is going to give you some ideas on creating dangles as well as putting together truly wonderful PDF tutorials to sell.
… Shannon Tabor talks us through looking at the big picture to move your business forward.
… Tory Hughes has a fascinating discussion with long time polymer supporter Robert Liu of Ornament magazine.
… Anke Humpert has dug up secrets and plans in her interview with the amazing Georg Dinkel.
… and much more! Sheesh. I need to catch my breath!
While I’m catching my breath and polishing your next issue, enjoy this cover with this intense wall piece by Bonnie Bishoff and J.M Syron. It’s mesmerizing and wholly moving besides being completely enthralling just trying to figure out how it was made. If you need to get your subscription up to date, you can do so on the website at www.thepolymerarts.com/Subscribe.html. I apologize, we don’t have single issue pre-sales yet, but I hope to have the site updated by next week so we can do that.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Pick up an old copy of The Polymer Arts (or any craft magazine or book) and spend some time with it on your work break, over coffee, or to wind down tonight. Our old magazines and books are a treasure trove of inspiration. Find something you had wanted to try or find yourself wanting to try now, and do it. Make a goal of attempting of accomplishing a new technique, form, or approach by this weekend, no matter how busy you are.
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The art jewelry at these events is also a big draw. There is nothing quite like seeing masterful polymer work in person.
Here is a gorgeous piece by Bonnie Bishoff. She wore it to the final gala event and I just could not stop looking at the delicate forms and sunset-like colors. The picture (and the poor lighting in these places) doesn’t quite do it justice.
Another bonus to coming to these events is the local color. In this case, Sherman Oberson, a board member of the IPCA and a local Pennsylvania resident, treated a small handful of us to a tour of his insanely packed and ever-entertaining collection of flea market and thrift store finds. We did this, in part, to honor Nan Roche whose birthday it was. A huge collector of the curious and visually enticing herself, it was a perfect birthday outing for her and an immensely entertaining evening for those of us who got to tag along.
Poke around on Instagram and Facebook for more on Sherman’s place and other Synergy events.
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Exploring technique and design doesn’t ever end, or at least I don’t think it should. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been working with a material, there is always more to learn. Barbara McGuire is a true and long standing polymer pioneer who may often return to signature techniques but she keeps expanding on what she has done, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes in big leaps.
This collection of beads is one of her subtler explorations. Barbara has been making face canes for ages but she keeps changing up what she does with them. The angelic looking collection here gets its ethereal feel from the use of translucent wings and background cane slices. Past variations were commonly surrounded by opaque slices and balanced or radial backgrounds. The more freeform application here adds to the otherworldly feel of these little angels.
Barbara posts most of her recent work on her Facebook page while her products and news can usually be found on her website.
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Looking over a collection of work can tell you quite a bit about an artist and what intrigues them. The posts this week will give us a chance to consider, in a more complete and varied way, what an artist might be doing or be after in particular types of work.
Carole Monahan-Kampfe recently posted some rather intriguing pieces in what she refers to as her Steampunk collection but instead of jewelry, it looks like we are seeing a lot of ornaments. We are looking at Swellegant treatments (click the ad link below for more on this fascinating stuff) which make for some very yummy textures but the various shapes and variation on an ornament is what is most captivating about this work.
Although she is calling it steampunk and the influence of that aesthetic is there, many of the common motifs are, gratefully, missing and we can enjoy the exploration of the surface treatment and the manipulation of the ornament forms. I love the negative space in the ones with the floating centers and then those forms that are folding in on themselves which she calls Infinity Orbs. No standard ornament forms here either. Carole actually looks to be taking not the motifs and objects from the Steampunk arena but rather the inventive nature it is supposed to be representative of. Regardless, the choice of shapes and decorative touches are beautiful and more so in a collection like this where the various take on the elements and forms can be compared and contrasted.
The orbs at least, she lists as being made with Makin’s clay which is an air dry clay, rather than polymer but this could all be done with polymer as well of course. Carole just likes to try all kinds of things out as you can see on her Flickr photostream–another method of looking at an artist’s collection of work and over time at that. In this collection though, she seems to have really hit her stride and I hope she keeps playing with these ideas.
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Another way to push the disk element in strung jewelry design is to create designs on those inside surfaces. This might push you to design the disks in such a way as to open up space between them so that the work on the inside could be seen. That might present a bit of a challenge but it will likely present some interesting options for added accents and forms.
Margit Bohmer did just that. Her solution to show off the intricate and highly colorful faces of her disks was to slightly dome them and have them stacked in pairs with the concave sides in, allowing an angled view to all the beautiful color and textures she worked into them. It looks like quite a bit of work too. I just love seeing this kind of dedication and commitment to a piece. Each bead face is different and could stand on its own but all together, they create an engrossing piece that will probably take the owner years to become familiar with all its varied surfaces.
A riot of color and texture is a signature of Margit’s and she never leaves us wanting for more of either. See her latest work on her Flickr photostream.
Weekly Inspiration Challenge: Choose a basic or commonly used design and push it. By sketching, planning, or just playing with your materials, change the form or the way this basic design is constructed as far as you can until you come up with something that intrigues and excites you then create your own original work from the ideas you came up with.
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Let’s move on from the ‘ordinary’ disk necklace and really push what these could be. First of all, who says they need to be round? Or strung on their center sitting neatly one on top of the other? Well, no one, that’s who.
Silvia Ortiz de la Torre goes completely off the disk reservation by squaring off the standard disk necklace element and taking full control of their positioning. This necklace is getting so far from a disk that I bet some of you are thinking it’s not a disk necklace at all. And maybe not but the stacking and repetition of form is the same and this is a good example of where an idea might start with some common or basic design and really veer off in very exciting directions, ending in a place barely recognizable from where it started. I don’t know that Silvia started with the idea of disks but she could have. And so can you start from a well used (or over-used) form or basic design and end up somewhere quite different. The thing is, it would have been hard to get to that cool and very original design without that common or basic starting point.
This piece is several years old but Silvia still loves disks and stacking but she is taking things in a very different direction these days. See how she has journeyed from pieces like this to her big intricate disks display in her Flickr photostream and her Etsy shop.
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Disc beads are fantastic for the complexity they can create just by sheer numbers. They also pull the design away from any one bead and put the focus on how they work together. Employing Skinner blends to create the series of well-arranged colors on this necklace, Spain’s Carmen Morente del Monte, develops a rather striking look with the common stacked disk necklace design as the basis for her composition.
It is not that we haven’t seen quite a few Skinner disc arrangements but this one is rather intriguing with its wide array of colors that still somehow conveys a sense of quiet coherence. I believe that is primarily due to the muted, natural tone of the colors. Their thick spacers subtly echo the surrounding color while their variations trail off to long stacks of warm grays. I think the choice of gray rather than black or white or simply more of the colorful blends for the back half of the bead string is actually what makes this piece work so well. The gray creates a kind of neutral background for the colors to contrast with but the contrast is a gentle one which is also echoed at points in the front beads where the blends go to gray.
I was just having a conversation this weekend about how people steer away from anything well used believing their work won’t be appreciated unless it’s wholly original but how far from the truth that is. Doing something really, really well, even when it has elements seen many times before, is a far bigger and more difficult accomplishment than striving for something purely original. I think this necklace is just such an example.
You can find more of Carmen’s well thought out pieces in her Etsy shop and her Pinterest boards.
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To round out this week’s quick focus on beads, I thought I’d share focal beads in another medium that is very well-known for them–glass.
Glass artists have some very particular and, literally, inflexible limitations and yet they create these extremely intricate and amazing beads. They do get to work with super clear transparency–a characteristic of their medium that they use to great advantage–which is something that is difficult to achieve in polymer, but their forms and patterns are something that, I think, could be a gold mine of inspiration and a jumping off point for ideas in polymer that go beyond the basic and common beads seen in polymer.
Here are just four examples of the intricacy and beauty in glass bead making today. Starting from top left is a bead created by Leah Nietz, top right is Lisa Fletcher, bottom left is Andrea Guarino, and bottom right is Ikuyo Yamanaka. You can click on each artist’s name to reach their shop or website to look further into what they create. You can also immerse yourself in glass focal beads by putting that very phrase into a Pinterest, Google Images, Etsy, Flickr, or even Instagram.
Weekly Inspiration Challenge: Choose your favorite image posting service, such as those just listed above, and enjoy the art and inspiration that comes up when you search for “focal beads”. Choose a couple of images and try to determine what you like best about the bead or beads and then figure out how to recreate those characteristics in polymer. Hopefully that leads you to some original and very fulfilling polymer bead explorations.
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How about just a little bead beauty from the consistently wonderful Sarah Shriver today while I amble down the road?
Six canes constructed into a cube that is both turned on its side and has had its corner’s tweaked makes for a beautiful simple bead design. Just those two changes to the upright and steady cube has created movement due to its relative instability, facing the world with but one point down, and direction since the slight sweep of the sides slides our eye out to the point of the cube corners and beyond. And let’s not forget the lovely lines of the canes themselves that add to both the movement and directing of the viewers eyes beyond the constrains of the cube.
Apparently, Sarah will be teaching this Celtic cane on the Alaska Polymer Clay Cruise, the “Clayditarod” coming up next month. I was not able to discern if spaces are left for what is certain to be an amazing polymer adventure but you can check out the details and query as needed on the cruise website here. And for more splendid Sarah Shriver work, jump over to her website here.
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This will be a simple, and hopefully simply delightful, week as I am traveling or in the midst of preparing to travel and will have to be brief. But I have had the idea of the ‘bead’ on my mind. That sounds pretty basic, I know, but for art jewelry, the bead–be it a simple, plain spacer or an extravagant focal piece–is the most common single element created and thus, has a pretty highly esteemed place in the world of adornment. So let’s take a closer look at some very well-considered and lovingly created beads.
These beauties are cane constructed by the ever clever Ivy Niles of iKandi Clay. Canes takes their place on center stage as well as energetically running around the circumference for an intricate and rather mesmerizing look.
If you are partial to either a well-done cane or intricate, take a break to look through Ivy’s her Etsy shop and her website.
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