Polymer and laughter

Meredith Arnold's polymer project bracelet

Who better than mixed media comedian/artist Meredith Arnold to round out our week? Meredith will play with just about any materials and she usually manages to sneak a bit of polymer (and lots of laughter) into all her work.

Click through her site to see how she integrates polymer with fiber, metal, books and more. This bracelet is the project for her upcoming class with the Puget Sound Bead Festival folks. Students play with foils, powders, paints, shapes and colors and walk out with this bracelet and a smile. Have a cheery weekend.

Carren’s new site

Art historian Rachel Carren is most comfortable as an art writer and contributor of critical commentary. She’s also been quietly working in her polymer studio since 1999. Rachel spent several years refining the air-filled polymer pillow construction she used on these segmented brooches. The surfaces are elegantly screened and the segments are fitted together on a clay base.

Artists friends have nudged and nagged Rachel to promote her own work and her lovely new site is worth the wait.

She’s still writing about polymer on the PolymerArtArchive, promoting polymer art to museum curators, helping out with the RAM project, and curating a Lark book on Polymer Masters that’s due out next spring. Elise Winters tipped us off to Rachel’s new site.

Slutsky’s circles stack up

Simple designs like these polymer disks from Israel’s Victoria Slutsky (visart-dali) stack up to sweet simple pendants.

Graduated circles of textured clay in muted shades are accented with pigment powders and topped off with a glass bead. How effective simplicity can be! See Victoria’s new collection on her Etsy site and her Flickr page.

Edison/Abensour’s splash of color

Edison/Abensour's fantaswirl polymer pendant

The colors of PurpleCactusStudios perk me up on a dreary day. The Charlotte, NC duo of Amber Edison and Laurence Abensour are probably best known for their murals and faux finishing (as seen on HGTV).

Their painting business explains the love of color that spills over into their polymer clay pendants and beads made from extruded slices that are flattened into patterns or piled onto shapes.

Need a shot of color? Check out their Flickr photos and their Etsy shop.

Blackburn’s bangles

This new page of bangles and necklaces from London’s Carol Blackburn shows lively and colorful designs that are finished to satiny perfection. The closeups of her mobius/color blended strips are inspiring.

Carol’s techniques are thoroughly explained in her Making Polymer Clay Beads book which has been translated into English, French, German and Italian. Her work serves as a gentle Monday reminder about the importance of finishing.

Vivacious Veruschka

Veruschka (Vee) Stevens is not shy. You can tell that by the exuberance of her work and the energy emanating from her site and her diva jewelry.

“I create custom couture pieces and sets exclusively for my clients, based on whatever their inspiration might be and never repeat a design,” she says.

An IT professional, Vee grew up in Germany, Bolivia and South America. She set up her polymer business in Philadelphia a year ago.

The butterfly necklace at the left reflects the metamorphosis metaphor and is meant to remind the wearer that she is a beautiful, changing creature too. Vee is new to us so wander through her site and her Flickr pages and have a beautiful weekend.

Campbell’s Poly Fiber Masking

Inspired by the Synergy conference, Heather Campbell was prompted to test out some new ideas. Heather’s works are usually quite large and adhering polymer to slick surfaces is often a challenge.

“Polymer will stick to most anything, but I have found especially with larger surfaces that the clay if bumped or jarred will pop off or over time will shrink off the surface and then has to be glued back on. Here I am combining liquid clay with fabric or paper fibers to create a very durable background to then adhere the polymer components,” Heather explains.

The big photo on her site helps you see the fiber base onto which she’s added polymer embellishment.

The combination of the fibers and clay complement each other beautifully and present new textures and depth. She’s calling the method “Poly Fiber Masking” and she says she’ll get back to us later with more explanation of the technique.

Polymer accumulation

Rachel Rader's blue lagoon mixed media bracelet

Fancy Gallery’s “Accumulation” exhibit features Seattle-based emerging jewelry artists who break the mold of what is expected. Rachel Rader and Dixie Darling both mix their media into magpie-like nests of beads and use polymer clay shapes to supplement color and vary shapes.

Dixie Darling's embroidered polymer and fiber pendant

Says Dixie Darling, “I take pleasure in the process of figuring out new techniques and translating them into a language of my own.” She sorts and arranges her finds, “…in order to stitch together the past and the present into these objects of my fictional world of beauty and borderline kitsch.” She embroidered and assembled the pendant at the right.

Influenced by The Little Mermaid, Rachel Rader’s pieces are heavily encrusted with jewels and drip with sea life from her fanciful Mermaid Empire. Her Blue Lagoon bracelet is shown here.

Easy spring polymer

Thanks for making my job easy. I just scroll down the link list and see what’s arrived. Easy-peezy.

UK’s Pippa Chandler made the articulated polymer leaf necklace at the left after studying her daughter’s cloisonne fish pendant.

Rebecca Geoffrey's metal clay and polymer fern

The Netherland’s Els van Haasen (beadelz) created this retro volcano pendant and given the volcano in the news, it seemed only right to show it off.

A silver and polymer fern necklace from Rebecca Geoffrey is part of her newest line and a perfect look for spring. I’m off to pull weeds!

Boston Baked Beads

Scanning through the list of readers’ links has been a treat, a breath of fresh air that’s perfect for Monday.

Don’t you love sites with names like Boston Baked Beads? Lisa Mackin has a way with words and clay (that’s her pink brooch). She calls her kaleidoscope focal beads “indie pendants.” Cracks me up. Her wish chicks give an updated twist to Japanese Kokeshi dolls.

Netherland’s Teodora Colic switches from fiber to polymer with ease and a dramatic sense of design. Her “burdie” was a recent sunny day impulse.

You’ll find more new names by clicking through the list (there goes the morning). Eventually I’ll try to make order of the page but right now enjoy the new faces….and add your link if you haven’t yet.

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