Enticing and Entertaining
August 23, 2017
Inspirational Art, Polymer community news
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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A Choir of Angels
June 22, 2017
Inspirational Art
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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Body of Work
June 20, 2017
Inspirational Art
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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Working on the Inside
June 17, 2017
Inspirational Art
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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The Disk Cubed
June 15, 2017
Inspirational Art
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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Disk Arrangements
June 13, 2017
Inspirational Art
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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The Many Faces of Glass Beads
June 10, 2017
Inspirational Art
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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A Bead Cubed
June 8, 2017
Inspirational Art
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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Bead Break
June 6, 2017
Inspirational Art
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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Let us allow Jon Stuart Anderson’s cover piece dictate the theme this week … animals full of color and pattern. Although, unlike Jon’s bull on the cover of the upcoming Summer 2017 issue (due out end of May) is a three-dimensional sculpture, this piece is a wall mosaic by Mary Anne Loveless who just so happens to be gracing our pages as well in the gallery section of that same issue.
Even though this is a two-dimensional approach to using canes to create the shape and flow of an animal’s likeness, the mind-set is probably not dissimilar when the artists sit down to work out where the canes will go. What canes and where would they best serve the image of this animal they want to convey? Mary Anne is using mosaic and pointillism to create the form of the seahorse here while Jon uses a three-dimensional form. Does seem pretty different from that aspect but the patterns are what form the details of these animals in both cases.
I really enjoy picking out the individual canes in both cases. I am enthralled by Mary Anne’s choice of color juxtaposition in this. The aqua next to the reds and the beige and peach being the color the blues fade off to like in the chest area. It’s just beautiful.
Mary Anne really likes seahorses, as you will find upon opening her Flickr page which as of this post, is pretty much all seahorses. But she also likes fish and flowers and faeries! But mostly she loves, and is very good at, pattern and color which you can see in full evidence on her Flickr pages and her Etsy shop.
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Today, I just want to share the newest cover of The Polymer Arts. We are so very lucky to have Jon Stuart Anderson gracing the cover with a wonderful close up of his Raging Bull sculpture. The article on Jon’s art and life is alone worth getting this issue for.
Jon had previously not talked much about his work and yet it is absolutely unforgettable. His process, his thoughts on creating, on color, and on living as an artist are from the heart and he minces no words. The interview conducted, and article written by, the equally amazing Ron Lehocky was a dream for us. Ron had so much material, there really could have been a book. Ron was just the person to pull from Jon the stories and details that allow us a rich and colorful glimpse of the man and his work like we’ve never seen it before. I am so thrilled about this issue. Can you tell?
The whole Summer 2017- Color issue will be a great reference for color exploration now and in the future with the talent and knowledge of some of our best artists including Tracy Holmes, Christine Dumont, Lindly Haunani, Meg Newberg, and Anke Humpert, along with Ron and Jon. Here’s some of the articles you can look forward to:
- Color Theory – Simplified!
- Creating Relatable Color Palettes
- Fixing our Brains’ Flawed Color Perception
- The Wild & Colorful World of Jon Anderson
- Dramatic Color Blends for Canes
- Painting with Polymer clay
- Color Guided Necklace Designs
- Re-Thinking Your Artistic Identity
- Funding a Guild or Group
- Color Spotlight on Christine Dumont
- New Ways with the New Liquid Clays
… and much more!
Don’t miss out on this essential issue. Be sure your subscription is up to date by going to your account page or start your new subscription. It’s easy … just click here!
If you are jonesing to see more of Jon’s work or want to purchase his work, you can find it on his website.
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While doing my research this week on Russian polymer, I finally got to see what their polymer magazine looks like. I knew there was one out there but it’s really hard to search for “Russian Polymer Clay magazine” when you don’t have the corresponding keys to type Полимерная глина on your keyboard. The title you see says “Polymer Clay” and in the pink says “in Russia”, at least that is what Google told me. But it took me a while to figure that out since I couldn’t copy it from the image. In other words, there are barriers to us seeing the full range of what the world is doing in polymer because language can get in the way. But some of us are determined … or just plain obsessed with seeing everything people are doing with this wonderful medium!
This cover piece is by Maria Vidova. I feel pretty sure it is not 100% polymer clay but I can’t read it to find out–not yet at least. It is a beautifully laid out piece with the green of the succulents being repeated in the green stones. With both plant and gems being important focal points, having the same green color presents the plants and stones as equally precious objects of beauty, which I have to agree with.
Those succulents look perfectly real, don’t they? Well, their perfection comes from silicone molds and she uses liquid polymer to give it that partially translucent look. The molds look to be of her making and she sells them on her Creative Molds website. You’ll need Google Translate to navigate (if you use the Chrome browser, it usually does this automatically for you) or you can write them for instructions at info@creative-molds.ru.
Now, how about getting our hands on a copy of this beautifully presented magazine? Well, I’m going to! And since they do have this available in a digital format, all of us non-Russian speaking folks should be able to copy out the text and get some kind of translation on Google. But you know you want it for the art, even if it will be a bit more challenging to read.
You can get issues of Polymer Clay in Russia in digital or print on the polymerclay-guild-ru site.
Weekly Inspiration Challenge: Find work from a region of the world you are not familiar with–and it doesn’t have to be polymer, it could be any medium–and pick out the elements that you like as a source of inspiration for a new piece. Don’t copy what you see; just take the time to determine what makes it work and why you like it then take that knowledge and create an inspired piece of your own.
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So, what else are our Russian colleagues up to besides quilting large polymer maps of their country? A lot actually. I got rather lost, pulling on the little threads I found when I went in search of more on the Russian blanket project. There is so much lovely work out there but in the end, I spent so much time on Anastasia Astafieva‘s blog, Handmadeblog.ru, that I just had to share some of her work.
Anastasia works polymer in a number of ways–from jewelry to decor to figurines and dolls–but I was particularly taken by her work in polymer soutache. Just look at all the detail in this soutche’d purse. The color palette has a reserved energy that keeps the whole thing from feeling like its going overboard between the intricate whorls and the large glass ‘gems’. Just that touch of brown clay and the tan beads brings the lovely variations of blues and cyans a little contrast and allows us to see the soutache in defined sections.
She’s made quite a few of these purses along with coordinating necklaces and even some earrings. You can see her collection which she calls “Sutazhnuyu” (Google pronounces it in Russian as “sue-tash-nah” … cool sounding word!) on this blog post.
Anastasia does more than just blog about her work. She reports on events and even did a video documentary on what she is calling the “grandmother” of polymer, Kathe Kruse (it shows up as Keti Kruze on the translation) a famous German dollmaker whose company looks to have used polymer back in the late 50s and early 60s to make dolls. She even has a photo of what is probably one of the very first polymer clay kits. You can find that post and video here. Now if Google can only figure out how to translate audio on the fly!
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Russia is in the news a lot lately, especially out here in the States, but the conversation is not often a positive one, which can leave us with a rather uneven view of things. Personally, I think Russia is an amazingly beautiful place and I have so enjoyed the people I have met from there. My parents spent some time traveling through the country in the 90s and the photos and stories they brought home were so wonderful and memorable.
Their artistic heritage and rich culture translates beautifully to modern materials like polymer but it is not easy to find a good range of the work being done in Russia since on the internet, the difference in language keeps their pieces, listed on Russian sites and with Russian text, from popping up on English searches. So this week, we’re going to take a look at Russian polymer work in a teeny tiny effort to rectify this.
The idea for the theme this week came from the IPCA‘s most recent International Polymer Clay publication, a digital publication sent to members every other month. When I saw this wall piece, referred to in the brief article’s title as a Russian Blanket, I just thought it would be a shame not to get this out to more people. This community project, coordinated by Svetlana Taratunina had 362 polymer participants contribute work for the completely polymer quilted map of Russia. The piece is going on tour in the country right now although no schedule was mentioned.
If you are a member of the IPCA, you should have this publication in your inbox right now (or check your spam folder). If you’re not a member, considering supporting our community’s central organization with a membership and you’ll be getting this little treasure of a publication in your inbox every other month.
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Today, let’s look at when cute works. Because cute stuff is, of course, a legitimate form of art which, like any contemporary or statement piece, still needs to follow basic design guidelines, along with that touch of artistic inspiration, to work well.
This adorable cane covered pup, fighting the chill of a spring morning on a distant northern European coastline with a little neck muffler, has been in my queue for some time. It was created by France’s Isabelle Chatelain. I don’t know what I had in mind when I grabbed it and even after looking it over, mostly what I can say is that it just makes me smile.
It does work design wise though. There is a limited hue palette made up of various greens and a splash of orange and the eye and button have you playing a bit of eye tennis as you glance back and forth between these two obvious focal points but you’ll still stop to admire the patterns and the overall ‘cuteness’ of this guy with his little neckerchief. Isabelle has a whole set of these guys on her Flickr page but this one, by far works the best. Why is that?
I think it’s very, very simple. The button. The button is a darkest point against the lightest background which creates the most contrast aside from the eye. That makes it the primary focal point and gives us a very calm but certain spot to rest between checking out all the pattern. Is there anything else that you think really makes this one work so well? I have a couple other thoughts but I’d love to her yours!
Weekly Inspiration Challenge: Go back to basics. Create something without worrying about pushing the design. Chose classic color combinations you enjoy, basic shapes, and easy finishes you find attractive. Don’t reference anyone else’s work though and don’t worry about what others might think. Follow your own whim on this classic creative road.
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I have another bit of design contemplation for you today, this time in terms of color and finish.
This necklace, created by Svetlana Parenkova, as you can see by the watermark, has a lot of attractive details, things that on their own might draw the eye. The metallic shimmer of the shield like disks are a primary draw–human beings do like their sparkle and shine. The texture aids the shine by causing more varied reflection with dark contrast in the shadows of the texture. The blue and orange (copper in this case) is a classic color combination that has been enjoyed through the ages. The graduated size of the disks are also a classic necklace composition.
So with all these classic and long used elements, what makes this necklace stand out? Or perhaps you don’t think it stands out that much. If so, why not?
For my two cents, I think the bold size and clean finish certainly helps to carry it but perhaps it comes down to the centered notch in the sides of what would have been a background disk if it was not cut like two emerging fans. This cut-away creates a space for the pieces to nudge up close to one another, for a more united front. The lack of spacing matches the sense of strength that shield like objects convey as well as working well with the bold size of the elements. What do you think?
This strong and bold look is fairly common in Svetlana’s work as you can witness on her Flickr and Livemaster pages.
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I very much enjoyed the comments and the interaction of last week. Maybe we’ll do that once a week or every other. Getting you to think about art is definitely one of my high goals!
So let’s ponder a few together this week. I find it curious that some pieces, even though very much like other pieces we see, will just strike you as working so much better than similar work. Like this set by Cécile Bouesnard. It is quietly striking although the shape is a common one these days and the composition of shape and focal point is what one might expect. But the coloring and the marks keep it from becoming just ordinary. So why is that?
Success is not always easy to define, primarily because the success of a piece is really due to the sum of its parts. Key elements will often shine but if everything else didn’t work with it or support it as needed, those key elements would not have the same impact. So what is it here that is working? I think everything supports the overall feel. The soft shift of a rich green to that mellow yellow and the lime green snuck into the middle of it (did you even notice it was there?) gives the surface a glowing effect. The softness of the coloring contrasts with the perfectly trimmed shapes but those black marks, like the careless placement of a messy bottle contrasts with both the soft coloring and the clean shapes. These subtle but consistent contrasts make for an interesting and fulfilling piece to look upon.
That is my take on why this works. If you have other ideas, please add them to the comment section at the end of this post. In the meantime, you can see what else Cécile created with a similar combination of elements in varied compositions and colors on this post of her blog.
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I am going to leave you with this colorful piece today. It is a type of mosaic, one could say so it fits the theme but I chose it primarily because the colors felt right, matching the riot of emotion that this day holds for my family and I as we lay my father to rest. We celebrate life today though, rather than mourn it. That’s just how we roll.
Amy Eisenfeld Genser, on the other hand rolls paper. That is what you see here–the cross sections of many rolled piece of colored paper. It could easily be a polymer cane application though, don’t you think? Well, here are some questions to ponder over. Leave your thoughts in the comment section if you have a moment.
What emotions or reactions do you have to this piece? Are you drawn to the texture and composition as much or even more than to the color, which likely grabs you first? What design element or design related terms comes to mind first when you ask yourself why this works so well or why it doesn’t if you don’t think much of it?
If you enjoy this piece, you will probably enjoy getting lost in Amy’s website where she has work in her gallery from the last dozen or so years.
Weekly Inspiration Challenge: This week, take a critical but very forgiving eye into your studio or to the photos of your work and look at some older pieces of yours. Find the ones you think were really good and ask yourself why the pieces work so well? Just focus on the good stuff today, your successes and the work that makes you happy. Then create or enjoy your weekend as you need to.
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