Polymer toppers

What are June brides choosing to top off their wedding cakes this year? There’s incredible variety! Like these polymer kissing fish from Indigotwin (Cortney Rector and Kirsten Arundt). The duo include birds, robots, whales, lobsters, apples and much more in their wedding toppers and favors.

For a more traditional approach, check out Spain’s Noemi Hurtado‘s Flickr page. She copies every ruffle and ringlet for her polymer toppers. Or try Dawn Stubitsch, or Elizabeth Bonura (she did a lifesized one), or Italy’s Mary Tempesta or Sophie Skein’s animals.

Polymer toppers have gotten so popular that you can launch yourself into a weekend’s worth of research by googling the term. I just wanted to put you in the mood for June!

No fear polymer

No-fear polymer fashions from Moscow’s Oxana Volkova. Her love of color extends from a headband bubbling with colors, textures and patterns to makeup that continues the artistry. Are those mokume gane lips?

Why not wear summer? Here are her bracelets, her mixed media, more of her fashion shoots.

Polymer headpins

Looking for diversion? How about polymer headpins like these rustic, antiqued ones from Missouri’s Ginger Davis Allman?

Ginger even offers a tutorial for her headpins, connectors, charms and other beads if you want her insider tips. She moves between grungy and romantic looks, abusing the beads until they look just right.

Ginger gave a clear explanation and comparison of translucent clays in an earlier PCD post and you’ll want to catch up with her more recent faux glass experiments.

Be warned, she’s having so much fun and writes so well that you may end up spending more time on her pages than you anticipated. Of course you’ll want to check in on her Facebook and Etsy sites too. And best of all, her husband offers a handy photo template for that troublesome new Flickr layout.

What if polymer?

It’s time to catch up with the newest versions of Stroppel and Retro cane tutorial possibilities. Just when you thought these cane formulas had been explored thoroughly, Page McNall stretches her scrap into striped tubes, Antonina Lyamaeva from Germany wraps her retros into multicolored swirls while Linda Wentink extrudes hers in flat strips that look very Klimt-like. It pays to keep asking, “What if?”

Polymer crossovers

Canada’s Claire Maunsell worked in hot glass for twenty years and she reflexively handles polymer as if it were hot and liquid. These beautiful hollow pods are created using a technique that Claire explains in the upcoming Global Perspectives book which is full of new names, exciting concepts and scads of pictures.

Artists who crossover from glass, textiles, ceramics and sculpture are perhaps the most exciting part of our global story.

While you wait (the book arrives in July), enjoy Claire’s rough yet sophisticated glass-meets-polymer work on her Etsy shop (where she’s busy adding items), her Zibbet shop, her blog and her Flickr pages.

The Turkish way

Turkey’s Alev Gozonar tied together large pixelated polymer portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Che Guevara, Virigina Woolf, Frida Kahlo and other VIPs pairing them with renderings of VOPs – that’s very ordinary people – for her Way exhibit at Mabeyn Gallery in Istanbul last year.

Here you see Alev with her Sahne IV piece that combines thousands of lengths of extruded cane into a striking 49″ x 40″ image. Polymer QR codes designed into the portraits offered viewers another way to interact with the works.

Visit the gallery site and read the news coverage to comprehend the scale and impact of these unusual mosaics. There’s a weekend worth of research here that may make you rethink scale and size.

Reclusive polymer

Bali’s Jon Anderson has been slow to warm to the social network scene and just launched a new website and Facebook fan page. Hop right on over there to greet this prolific polymer artist and make him feel at home online.

You’ll recognize Jon’s richly cane-covered animal sculptures which are carried widely in US gallerys and have ended up in the collections of such notables as Carlos Santana, Dave Abbruzzese, and Bill Clinton.

Jon creates massive complex canes inspired by Moroccan images and limits his colors to his favorite palette.Though we’re familiar with Jon’s work, his reclusive nature has made him something of a mystery in the polymer community. (You may remember his custom guitar designs from an earlier PCD post.)

We’ve been waiting since last fall when Canadian polymer artist and textile expert Barb Alexander scheduled a tour of Jon’s studio for her group of Bali visitors. Jon and his wife, artist Skid More, were working then to prepare the site.

This copper bowl, made from scrap copper telephone wire hammered by local artisans and covered with Jon’s signature cane slices, is part of his most recent collection. Browse and enjoy.

Breezy polymer

A slice of polymer cane artfully draped over a swinging silver loop makes a particularly breezy summer earring. The pointed elliptical shape reminds us of blooming petals.

Moscow’s Anna Kokareva says she was inspired to make these after looking at Sandra McCaw’s project in the recent Master Class book. Here’s Anna’s Flickr link.

Colorblind polymer

White popped up today so let’s run with it. Barcelona’s Sona Grigoryan disregarded the color in Gaudi’s architecture and concentrated on the famous architect’s shapes that she interpreted into a polymer cuff.

Wendy Malinow took the color out of flowers and bones and applied them as a background on the platform of some summer sandals she’s working on.

Sometimes you can disregard color, focus on form instead and end up somewhere entirely new.

Polymer mashup

These pendants-in-process by Meisha Barbee begged to be photographed at the end of the conference. Right next to them a few new earrings waited to be assembled.

The angled cuts on the earrings may give you a clue that Meisha had watched Jana Roberts Benzon demonstrate her laser cut technique. But with Meisha’s distinctive color sense and handling of elements, the Benzon-like pieces retained Meisha’s vibe. What a great example of integrating a technique and sharing without simply copying!

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