Spring Cleaning Tidbits

Feels like time for polymer clay spring cleaning. Here’s a list of all the notices, fun links and loose ends that have been building up over the past couple of weeks:

A Russian tutorial of running shoes from Ehidna that appeals to the kid in me
Step by Step Beads (look at the free Christi Friesen download) is hungry for good polymer clay projects for the magazine. Check out the writer’s guidelines and contact editor-in-chief Leslie Rogalski.
Ronna Weltman (new pictures on her site) is doing an article about cool tools. Send her a note about your favorites.
Victoria Hughes is offering a special on her DVDs and she’s including handmade polymer samples with her books. More on this and other class news on her site. And have you heard her interview on craftcast?
The painted polymer clay pendants pictured above look like spring. They’re from England’s Eva Soehjar (guessing at the last name). Thanks to Judy Dunn and Melanie West for the link. See how Melanie’s bangles have evolved.

Ponsawan Sila’s daughter was in a bad auto accident. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

Blackford pieces quirky, intense

Leslie Blackford’s polymer clay art is quirky and powerful in its personal intensity. Most artists work hard for the kind of unselfconsciousness that flows easily from Leslie.

Currently her day job keeps her out of the studio, a difficult circumstance for someone so dependent on art to communicate.

Her “Pain of Words” sculpture in the Synergy gallery (pictured at left) was particularly poignant. She also had a silly, delightful collection of jewelry like these jellyfish and an assortment of strange creatures made from pods and twigs found around her rural Kentucky home.

Take a look at works in her Deviant gallery. Or if you’re curious, check all the posts we’ve done on her over the past three years.