Perhaps our Japanese readers can help me out. This link to the "Polymer Clay Academy" shows some artists with style and promise. I particularly like the delicate works in this artist's gallery. And it looks like there's a whole course of study devoted to our art and craft.
The works run the gamut of jewelry to sculpture to illustration and the styles vary widely. Susan Rose sent the link along…she was challenged by having to translate as well.
Melanie West ,
Those fried eggs are fantastic! I sure wish I could read Japanese.
Did you notice that even in Japan, woman pc artists out number men? (At least if you use the ratio of the PC Academy web site.)
Barbara Forbes-Lyons ,
If you run the pages through the translate feature on Google, you can get a better idea of what is going on at their Academy. However, don’t have anything in your mouth the first time you read about the ‘polymer cray’. And yes, I’m not joking.
Liz ,
Thank you for an excellent link. Some really amazing work going on there. Liz
Susan Lomuto Rose ,
It looks like the artist that goes under the name “Rie Designs” has written a polymer clay book (the one who did the egg-like design). If you have access to one of the large Japanese book stores, they will order it for you. I’m going to print out the page and bring it to the one we have here in town – I’ll keep you posted! If you meander through the pages of the website long enough you will find pictures of several pages from that book. Interesting stuff…
Yoshiko ,
1. Amazon.co.jp ships Japanese books to addresses outside of Japan and they provide customer service in English. (I checked with them a couple of years ago but never placed an order.) Shipping is not cheap but you might want to compare with ordering from local Japanese book stores.
2. Interesting. They (the Polymer Clay Academy) offer courses that end in “certification” and once certified you can become their instructor. These courses sound serious. The millefiori course, for example, consists of 12 4-hour classes and costs almost $1000 including instruction, material, and certification fee.
Ruth ,
I have a book by Rie Nagumo called “enlightened polymer clay” and it contains many of those designs. I am pretty sure I bought it through Amazon UK a year ago. (It is in english!)