by Laurie Prophater on November 24, 2011 · 5 comments
When Karen Lorene, the owner of Facere Jewelry Art Gallery, was approaching this milestone birthday, she decided to throw a party for herself. She had ”…the idea of inviting seventy artists to each pick a year during my lifetime and make a piece of jewelry based on that year. Some pieces have made us double over in laughter and a couple are so moving they make me choke up even to talk about them.”
Follow this link to Celebrating 70. You will recognize several artists from the polymer world and some others may inspire you take the what if road to a new design. I will be featuring many of the non-polymer artists on ornamentalelements.com in the future posts.
guest post by Laurie Prophater
Rather that looking at classic images, this time I searched my family tree for inspiration for a polymer face cane. I never knew my maternal grandmother but I cherished a pin that captured her beauty as a young girl. I decided to recreate that image in my latest mosaic cane.
The cane, which I built from extruded squares in six sections, measured 5″ x 7″ x 1-1/2″. Read more about it in the post, Grand mama, what big eyes you have!, on my blog.
guest post from Julie Eakes
by Cynthia Tinapple on November 10, 2011 · 7 comments
Susan Crocenzi mixes polymer clay elements with her unglazed porcelain, tempered glass, glass and mirror mosaics as in this 8×10″ Architecture Healer (Hundtertwasser).
Artists can match polymer to the color, texture, shape, and thickness of other tesserae without the need of a kiln. Recently Susan’s been teaching mixed media classes that focus on integrating polymer into traditional mosaics.
“Mosaic art offers the sweet possibility that the random, disparate bits-and-pieces of our lives can yield peace, beauty, and meaning,” she explains. Read about Susan’s classes and study her glittering works on her site and her Facebook page.
by Cynthia Tinapple on September 23, 2011 · 10 comments
Laurie Mika has taken color to opulence and beyond! She’s piled on the layers of polymer, stamps, paints, metallics, inks and jewels to achieve a whole new level of splendor. This mosaic was inspired by the Indian sari trims Laurie found on her recent trip to Sydney.
When you examine the large version of this snippet from a piece for her Petaluma, CA, Wild About Tile class, it’s hard to know where to look first. Explosions of color detonate in medallions and fire across borders.
Laurie snapped this picture with her phone on the way to the airport and posted it to Facebook where it was met with an immediate uproar of applause. (Randee Ketzel first alerted me to the ruckus.)
Don’t you wish you were in her class? Have a splendid weekend.
