Barbara Nalepa (Barmisal) pretty much captures how we feel here in the US on the day before Thanksgiving.
How to shove working, shopping, and cooking into one short day?
A few scraps of black and white canes express our potato-mashing, turkey-basting, table-setting exasperation.
Eventually, we’ll take a breath, sit down and remember how thankful we are for this wild and crazy life. Happy Thanksgiving!
Here’s a color palette that will lift your spirits from Virginia’s Cinthya Cuba de Zabal (NinaZabal). The collage of eye-popping colors and patterns simply buzz against each other.
You’ll find these online next week at the American Craft Council’s Southeast Craft Week September 20-26.
Dotted hills pull you into Minneapolis Chris Baird’s (BairdPlayWorks) latest fantasy wall piece about Miss Strange and her open bag as she journeys up through the hills.
The caption reads, “Dear Miss Strange: Will you come up here on the sixth of September and stay until the sixteenth? It would give us all the greatest pleasure.”
Chris is returning to a style she used to create in wood and trying it in polymer.
“I could never wear these,” is what you’re telling yourself, right? I’ve been adding progressively larger earrings to my stash to get over my fear of being too old, too short, too whatever.
And you know what? I’m getting comfy with in-your-face, I’m an artist, deal-with-it earrings.
These colorful collages from Poland’s Gosia (Malgorzata Wawrzynczak at Moiko) are my current favorites. She’s in the silkscreen biz so I’m guessing that’s part of her process. Are they bits of collaged silkscreened veneers or are they canes? Who knows?
Earrings that don’t match? Really? Yes, really. It’s a thing and it won’t hurt you to try it. It’s time to (carefully, gently) drag our scaredy-cat selves out of the house and into the roaring 2020s.
This 10″ shallow bowl from Denmark’s Debbie Kronsted (Kronsted Design) is all polymer. Skinner blends with touches of metal leaf are collaged to create the inside of the bowl. She extruded leftovers into strings that cover the back in a coil.
Kronsted & Sommer Gallery in historic Copenhagen is filled with polymer vessels, lamps, bowls, jewelry, and art for the home as well as other gift items. Shop the gallery online here.
“It has to be a long time ago when we had such a winter with low temperature and so much snow. Of course, I went out for frosty photos and frosty hands and feet,” says Germany’s Meike Lucia Friemel (MeikeLucia) who is both a metalworker and polymer artist.
“I like the difference between “slow” metalwork and “fast” clay work,” she says. Polymer gives her the possibility of neverending color.
See how Meike brought the wintery weather into these bangles. They may make you shiver here on Facebook and Flickr.
North Carolina’s Kathryn Reid (PendulumStudios) tiptoes up to Valentine’s Day with these carefree heart pendants.
She gleefully sprinkles mini-beads on the surfaces of her modern collaged cutout hearts. The designs are random and carefree. Perfect love tokens.
The last time Kathryn was on PCD was 2009! Welcome back! Here she is on Facebook and Flickr.
Before the leaves fall and the lawn turns white with frost, let’s breathe in some autumn colors from Ireland’s Liga Valge. Sometimes scraps tell a story of their own.
Halloween will collide with voting this week. A real mishmash. It’s hard to focus. Let me know if you create something inspired.
UK’s Dayl Jones (Planet Isis) slides into the end of her 100-day challenge with this collaged veneer two-sided home run.
The soft watery colors of the oval pendant are impressive but she tops it off by repeating the colors in the polymer tubes and thin-sliced beads on the cord. Now it all hangs together with panache.
It’s those little touches that bump Dayle’s pendant up a notch.
These “Broken Hearts: Keeping a Safe Distance” brought tears to my eyes. They’re from Kansas’ Carol Beal (BeadUnsupervised).
The hearts are certainly wonky and broken but they’re also joyful and celebratory. Carol says she made them for some new neighbors.
The hearts have a crazy quilt vibe. Such a vibrant collage of scraps!
More of her art on Facebook.
