Czech Republic’s Pavla Cepelikova (SaffronAddict) has taken liberties with her version of the Columbine flowers (at the top right of the photo).
The long tubes drape down and flare to reveal secret colors as they open at the bottom. Pavla likes these bell shapes in her garden and polymer will allow her to wear them on her ears.
What inspiration is blooming in your garden?
A splash of red from Ohio’s Pat Bolgar (AccessoryArt) rounds out the week.
Pat perches a tight bunch of delicate pods on silver circles. Their balance and fine details make them a perfect lead in to Valentine’s Day.
Let the reds and the hearts begin! Here’s Pat’s work on Instagram.
How did we get to Friday already? We’ll parse the developments that rocked the polymer world over at StudioMojo tomorrow morning. Join us!
Janis, Jimi, Jim, Prince, the Hotel California, the Grateful Dead on hollow pods!
Perhaps Donna Kato’s beads are a strange choice for Christmas Eve but a it’s a tip of the hat and a nudge for my hippie husband.
These are compelling class samples from Donna’s half-day class at the Atlantic Clay Escape next October 6-10. Plan ahead! Put this class under your tree!
What are we looking at here from Moscow’s Juliya Laukhina? The translation isn’t helping much so let’s go with what our eyes tell us.
Juliya has loved repetition and detail in her round beads for years. But these pods take her obsessions in new and organic directions. She adds a variety of curvy forms, spikey balls, and lacey layers. What prompted this great change?
Go to her Instagram to examine each of these pods up close.
How do I know spring has sprung? There are delicious colors all over including this pod from Australia’s Tracy Feldwick (Mimosa Muse on IG and Twitter)
But wait, March isn’t Spring in Australia! Ah, this was posted several months ago. That explains.
She mixes patterns inside and out. Her stamen are gaining color as they grow. Spectacular.
Since riotous colors have emerged as this week’s theme, we’ll revisit beads that New York’s Doreen Gay Kassel made for a swap.
After the swap, Doreen created another batch of pods, ruffles, and berries and combined them into this sumptuous necklace. She builds the beads from white clay shapes and then with an illustrator’s practiced eye, paints each one in beautiful colors.
The riot of color and shapes becomes a party necklace that will make heads turn.
Why do Sarah Shriver’s new Hairy Pods (at another point she calls them rubber chickens) make us smile? Those bushy tops look unmanageable. Does one wear the pods or are they simply meant to delight the eye? The colors and patterns are tribal and muted yet unquestionably hers.
Don’t you imagine that Sarah has an explanation and joke to accompany these smile-eliciting objects? Sometimes it’s just as well that we don’t understand a piece. Better to just smile and enjoy their beauty.
Get more clues about what Sarah’s thinking on her Instagram.
Doreen Gay Kassel adds pendants to her usual repertoire of uncommon characters and pods.
Feels like a shift and a change that we’ll keep an eye on. Same unmistakeable colors with a nod to jewelry (and perhaps french fries).
France’s Sonya Girodon enjoyed departing from her usual path and traveling into the woods.
The result is these polymer thistles, burrs or alien pods created especially for the upcoming Into the Forest exhibit in Valley Forge during Synergy4 and in Pittsburgh next November.
How are you coming with your contribution to this big show? The deadline is April 4.
Sonya’s having a banner year. Just look at all the breakthroughs and game-changers that she’s come up with on her Facebook and Flickr.
As long as we’re looking at our to-do lists, have you registered for Synergy4? Can’t attend? No worries. Even if you can’t go, enter your artwork in the IPCA Awards competition and you’ll be there in spirit. The awards online entry isn’t showing up on the new IPCA site but I’m sure it will be activated soon.
Sonya shows us how to stretch our creative muscles and try out new ideas in 2017.
Washington silversmith Sarah Wilbanks says that the jewelry in her current show contains the most polymer she’s ever used in her pieces. The backs of the silver bezels on her necklace of pods are as interesting as the polymer fronts.
Two other features kept me prowling through her Etsy, Facebook, and Pinterest pages — her series of carved translucent pieces (she documents her process in photos) and the title of her current show at Water Works Gallery in the San Juan Islands.
Called Mentoring as Art, the show highlights the artists who have studied in Micki Lipp’s studio over 27 years. It explores the role of mentor and mentee in the hopes of creating a new generation of mentors. What a smart idea!
