Canada’s Rachel Gourley designed these polymer Doodles to be seen in an outdoor landscape where they pose the question,
“Are they real or are they not”
In her November-December exhibit sponsored by the Craft Council of BC, her creations have been brought in from the wild to be tamed and confined.
See both the wild and tamed versions of Rachel’s polymer vegetation on her website and read the Craft Council interview and exhibit information here.
Speaking of sinewy and curvy (see yesterday’s post), take a look at Ontario’s Helen Breil and her new wrapped polymer cuff.
She’ll be building this bracelet step-by-step on Craftcast in January. Pan pastels, mica powders and zippers are some of the key ingredients in this intriguing design.
Helen’s earned a reputation for manipulating simple geometric shapes into surprisingly striking and wearable jewelry. See samples on her site and on Flickr, Pinterest, and Facebook.
Donna Kato’s new curvy, shiny, sleek bangle bracelets express her move toward minimalist designs.
She’s been looking at her older work loaded with textures, patterns and colors and asking herself, “Is it me? Is it me today?” Just because polymer can be complex doesn’t mean it has to be. Smooth and subtle and polished to a high shine is where she is now.
Here you see the top and bottom of the bangle. See shots from other angles on Donna’s Facebook pages
Back in September Ford/Forlano hinted that they were experimenting with color extremes, brights and metallic surfaces for a new group of tube necklaces. They’ve just released photos of these new works that were produced for the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show this month.
You can see how these brightly lined tubes and glowing metallic surfaces combined into stunning neckwear that gradually increases in size until it joins at the clasp. Some of the new pieces include enamel with polymer and silver.
Take a look at Steve and Dave’s fall collection on their Facebook page.
Other polymer artists listed in the Philly show catalog include Emily Squires Levine and Kathleen Dustin.
Abell is a loudmouthed, forgetful brawler. He can’t remember much because there’s nothing in his head. “That’s where you come in,” says artist Jason Simpson, “Pens, pennies, pebbles or petunias–whatever you want.”
Jason creates these custom polymer sculptures in his Mongrel Labs in Vancouver, BC.. “My shop is inhabited by things that come out of my brain, through my fingers and into the Sculpey,” he says.
You get a better idea of his process from the photos on Instagram.
You may not share Jason’s love of hard-bitten characters but his skill and his passion reach out and grab you.“This is my art. I think it, make it, sell it. In between, I live it, dream it, love it, can’t wait to finish it, always hate to see it go,” Jason admits.
The internet connection at our rental has slowed to a trickle which I’m taking as a sign that I should keep take a vacation day. See you on Monday!
It was tempting to try the other shiny techniques that others are playing with as I sat making stupid stripes out of a palette that I was less and less sure of.
I wanted to finish a project so I persisted on my own path. Plodding forward on your own unexciting path often pays off. I was surprised when those stupid stripes lined up into a pleasing pattern on this walnut bowl (turned by Blair).
I added a few dots for visual surprise. And I have enough scrap to turn into a 4″ tile for FIMO’s 50 Anniversary project. Win/win!
You can see the influence of Judy Belcher’s knitting technique in this necklace by Blanka Prochazkova from the Czech Republic. The layers and fuzzy, bumpy textures make it hard to read as polymer but it is. The colors give it a wintry ethnic feel.
Read the whole story (lots of comments stacking up) on Blanka’s Facebook page along with more examples of outstanding work. Thanks to Lindly Haunani for the link that I would have otherwise missed.
What do you do with your scraps? All the girls at my work table are scrappy girls. Reuse, recycle is certainly a theme for polymer artists. Often those recycled scraps of pattern provide buried treasure.
Laurel Swetnam keeps a record of her patterns neatly displayed in plastic pocket pages. That way she can look back over her color choices and unexpected discoveries and try them again. Here are the recycled experiments of Laurel, Laurel 2, Laurel 3, and Dayle.
Smash your leftovers into a big block, slice into pieces, recombine with a solid color between layers and see what happens. Check the tutorials of Alice Stroppel and Angela Bahrenholtz (and I know there are others) if you need more instruction.
Recycling patterns and stretching them into new combinations provides some of our most serendipitous and pleasing pieces.(Finished pieces are in the oven so you’ll have to wait to see.)
This polymer wrist corsage from Greece’s Anarina looks festive and fallish on my California laptop. The bangles are crudely formed with childlike exuberance. Anarina throws caution to the wind and makes what she likes. Maybe that’s our signal for this week. Can you throw caution to the wind and make what feels good to you?
Here’s more of her work on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram
