by Cynthia Tinapple on August 19, 2010 · 8 comments
The armature for Christi Friesen’s latest wrap vessels may make you smile. She uses a ball of wet toilet paper!
Christi reveals that, “The technique is simply to take some toilet paper, get it wet, wad it into a ball and wring out the excess water. Wrap the clay around the ball and sculpt! The paper provides firmness to work against so you’re not poking through the vessel when you try to add details. Once the vessel is baked, just submerge the pot in water until the toilet paper gets all dissolvey. Then pull it out. It’s fun.”
Her new vessels will be in the next issue of American Style magazine and her annual eBay sale is happening this week.
by Cynthia Tinapple on August 18, 2010 · 4 comments
Julie Eakes is pushing the boundaries of extrusion-based mosaics again. This time she used a looser palette and a more stylized image as her starting point. Would the image still be discernable?
This is the small version of the finished cane. I’m partial to the dimensional original cane. Mixing the palette for one of these works is an arduous dance between Photoshop and the pasta machine. She created 2,000 color samples on the computer to arrive at her last palette. No small feat! Read her story here.
P.S.
The cable guy appeared and we’re back in business. Heaven!
by Cynthia Tinapple on August 17, 2010 · 6 comments
Yep, LaLa Ortiz used polymer to create this faux bicycle chain bracelet. Lighter and less oily than the real version, don’t you think? There are better pictures here.
It’s a clever chain design which LaLa promises to upload to her Web site. She’d been thinking about the bracelet for a couple of years and it came to fruition at this year’s Polypalooza at Lake Tahoe. Clever biker girl.
Cable woes
Our wires got crossed or the squirrels chewed them or some such disaster has upset our household. Worse than not having internet is listening to my husband mourn the loss of his tv. If I’m slow to respond to email or a bit sloppy with my coding, you’ll know why. Waitin’ for the cable guy.
Leslie Blackford is breathing a sigh of relief as she finishes her first major batch of orders for galleries. The tagline for her “carnies” series is “Damn everything but the circus.” The theme continues through the sculptures to her imaginative packaging.
Pendant cords travel up through the top of her boxes through a slit that holds each pendant in place. Stacked together they form an impromptu fun house display of her sideshow characters. Her catalog is printed as a circus flier.
Leslie’s companion packaging and promotions amplify the impact of her intensely personal and engaging work, an edgy combination of dark and whimsical.
Leslie’s theme is based on an e. e. cummings quote that may resonate with you on a Monday, “…damn everything that is grim, dull, motionless, unrisking, inward turning, damn everything that won’t get into the circle, that won’t enjoy, that won’t throw its heart into the tension, surprise, fear and delight of the circus, the round world, the full existence.“
