Polymer beach reads

This Little Boat Brooch from Spain’s Iratxe Maruri will send you sailing through all her online shops and blogs. Iratxe is an illustrator and mixed media artist whose beach scenes and creatures have charm and childishness without seeming treacly sweet.

Iratxe has a very thorough web identity. You can see her inspirations and studio setup on Pinterest and find lots more on Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr plus several shops.

She keeps one store for her sea creatures and another for her plants and animals.

On a summer Monday her fresh images may give you a momentary vacation.

Imitating ikat

Polymer is looking more and more like textiles these days thanks to artists like Lynda Moseley. She’s not happy in her studio unless she’s experimenting, pushing the limits of what polymer can imitate.

Hang on, because I think there’s an ikat tutorial coming from Lynda. Look at all the pictures on her Flickr pages. Each ikat sample she posts looks more authentic and touchable.

She’s updating the processes first introduced by Kathy Amt, Susan Hyde, Tory Hughes (celebratng 30 years in business) and others.

You can be sure that Lynda won’t publish her instructions until she’s worked out all the kinks and can tell you how to avoid problems. She makes all the mistakes so that you don’t have to. Now that’s worth paying for. Happy weekend!

Off to the races polymer

Alaska’s Katie Way (Bull’s Eye Studio) makes clever holders on which race runners can collect their number bibs. Katie embellishes the plaques with sayings stamped in polymer and clips that hold the runner’s reminders of past marathons.

Katie has a passion for both running and polymer and she manages to bring the two together. Now she’s reaching out to biking events, incorporating bike parts into her work.

Katie’s a stamp and texture girl and she’s developed some eye-catching techniques for decorative items that she sells after the sports season. Check her on Facebook and Flickr.

Polymer marathon

It feels like we’re off to the races with polymer this summer too and the pace is fast! Here are five events coming up quickly that I haven’t been able to tuck into PCD posts. I sure don’t want you to miss out:

Fire Mountain’s Creative Clays Jewelry Making Contest deadline is coming up in July. The prizes are fab.
IPCA is holding their retreat in Columbus, Ohio this August. Of course I’ll be there! Great classes and pre-conference workshops. Here’s the info on Facebook and their website. You can check the list of who’s coming and sign up online.
Helen Breil is the visiting artist at the IPCA retreat and she’s written a new ebook here.
Carol Blackburn will be teaching her polymer bowl technique this Sunday online on Craftcast.
And if you can include Santa Fe on your travel list, consider the wonderful creative retreats and classes that Tory Hughes is hosting. Artifacts and relics in July, Light Art in August.

Navel gazing polymer

Dan Cormier has been unveiling the 27 pins entered in the Broken Internet Project that he presented at EuroSynergy. The pin at the right by Dan is what got the ball rolling.

Each participant reintrepreted his design as it mutated from artist to artist.

Dan’s original concept referred to two landscapes, one rural and one urban, bisected by a bold zigzag. The jagged stripe represented energy as well as a split, maybe a broken heart. Several of the artists clearly picked up on the theme and some saw it differently. Read all about the project on Flickr and on their Facebook page.

Dan and Tracy will be teaching at Master Class Camp in Maryland in July. This mysterious piece is from the Form and Finish: Bare Essentials class.

No matter how long you study this smooth polymer belly-button shape, its construction looks impossible. Dan’s specific methods for finishing right from the start could make all the difference in your work. See the list of classes here.

Bursting beads

My eyes skitter over the pictures online as I emerge from my vacation fog. I don’t know when I’ll catch up and settle into a routine.

The photos that broke through the fog today are very small delights. Eriko Page’s beads are sweet and succulent. This California artist was trained in Japan and you can feel the influence.

Instead of carefully covering a base bead and hiding it under cane slices, she arranges luscious petals around a solid color bud, making her beads look like exploding blossoms in a polymer garden.

Eriko’s sleight of hand gives the beads a distinctive look that you can enjoy here. Here’s an interview with her from FireMountainGems that tells you more.

Note: In yesterday’s post I missed mentioning Claire Maunsell’s class at Gallery Freisleben…there are a few spots left for you lucky ones.

Welcoming Monday monster

The latest monster from Sardinia’s Alessio Busanca (Buzhandmade) is flying to Galerie Friesleben where it will greet visitors to a new facility for polymer in Germany.

Ariane Friesleben has been unveiling polymer art from all over the world that will be on display in the inaugural exhibit in her new facility that opens at the end of the summer.

Enjoy a peek at the upcoming art while you admire the amazing transformation of her marvelously renovated spaces on the gallery Facebook page.

Ariane has attended to every detail and her facility is sure to be a popular destination. The colorful orc will fit right in and keep the students in line.

See more of Alessio’s creatures on Pinterest and Instagram.

Can cane

No matter how sophisticated polymer art becomes, the color and simplicity of basic canes is still one of its most alluring and enduring charms. This week I stumbled upon this Fancy necklace from Pier Voulkos. It’s twenty-three years old and still fresh and, well, fancy! Note how she used plastic-coated telephone wire to unobtrusively attach the dangles into the composition.

The necklace now resides in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Botson (donated by Lindly Haunani).

This week I was happy to find Kim Korringa (on Facebook) mixing up 19 pounds worth of her signature canes that carry on the cane tradition. Here’s a free tutorial that shows Kim’s Fairy Wing earrings and the secret to her cane methods from my Global Perspectives book.

Kim Arden’s bright canes follow in Pier’s footsteps with the addition of translucent tricks. Laura Tabakman’s muted translucent canes veer off in another direction.

After a month on vacation, I was happy to be greeted by so many reminders of polymer’s vibrant history and your continuing discoveries.

Cosmogony polymer

Russia’s Ekaterina Zazybo makes polymer imitate ceramics, stone, enamels and other materials in new ways. Her pieces play with both roughness and precision.

The roughness comes from powders and texturing while the pigments and gilding on the tight designs are neatly rendered. The resulting effect is both ancient and other-worldly as her Cosmogony shop name suggests.

Her methods are mysterious and the Russian translation doesn’t help much. Thumb through her collection and tell me what you think.

Lennochka found her on Flickr here.

Summer canes

Ohio’s Kimberly Arden was surprised when a gallery gobbled up all she had of her new summer design. We aren’t surprised. Kim’s design draws you in as she layers bullseye slices and leaf shapes over a scrap stripe background.

Some of the bullseyes and leaves are translucent which adds to the dense underwater garden illusion.The summer colors make this a design to dive into.

You can see her bright basic canes here and catch up with her on Facebook and on her site where you can follow her action-packed show schedule.

Winning doodles

This carved flat polymer disk necklace from Staci Louise Smith is part of her winning entries in this year’s Bead Dreams contest at the Bead and Button show. Zen Circles took second place in the polymer category.

Staci’s carved and weathered polymer bead necklace, Sea Swept, took first place in the category.

PCD has followed her subtly carved shapes for years and it’s exciting to see her work recognized by others. This is the first year Staci entered the competition.

She’s a prolific beader and you can see her works best on Facebook, on her blog and in her Etsy shop. See how her doodles spilled over onto her studio floor here.

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