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.
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.
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.
PCD is back! It was good to take a travel break and I’m returning grateful and refreshed. Of course I took polymer with me.
If you look closely at these Tibetan villagers you’ll see that they’re all wearing small square gold pendants I made that feature an image transfer of the Dalai Lama.
Whenever travelers I met on the trail remarked on the pendants on satin cords that my husband and I were wearing, we would take ours off and give them away. My name is stamped into the textured pendant backs.
Images of the Dalai Lama are revered (and illegal on the Chinese side of the border). The ability to leave treasured bits of polymer art in this remote part of the world was a highlight of the trek.
You’ve been busy creating and posting and I look forward to catching up and bringing you your daily dose of inspiration starting today. I’m back in the saddle.
Be thankful that your power grid doesn’t look like this one in Kathmandu. It’s been fastest and easiest to post to Facebook if you’re interested in tollowing my travel news.
I hope you’re poring over the PCD archives and taking this vacation time to visit the wider world of polymer.
Tomorrow we leave for Birtamod where it will be very hot and we’ll take lots of pictures of the Samunnat building that you have so generously supported and the ladies who are used to working in the heat.
I miss talking to you daily and am feeling rejuvenated even with all my mosquito bites. Yes, I’m taking malaria medication.
The stories we tell with our art was a consistent theme throughout the conference. Again and again artists showed how their stories came through in their work and how those who buy art are looking for the connections and the narratives embodied in our work.
Georg Dinkel’s I-reliquaries and shrines captured the hearts of the EuroSynergy audience in Malta. A long time photographer, Georg’s first shrine housed his daughter’s ipod.
The shrines grew bigger and more complex. His latest elaborate creations won best of show honors in the IPCA Awards challenge.
Georg grew up surrounded by both religion and architecture in Germany. Using polymer, salvaged materials and wood he began building ancient-looking constructions that pay homage to today’s important icons – namely Apple products.
Georg’s presentation at Malta was stunning, amusing and inspirational. He makes his own tools from what must be an amazing basement full of odds and sods. His extruder was fashioned from an outdoor spigot handle, a length of pipe, a long screw, and a metal washer. His iphone shrine was built over the skeleton of a lamp salvaged from the trash.
He plans to edit his Malta presentation into an online video that he’ll upload to his site in the next few weeks. In the meantime, you can see his winning entry here. In this silly photo Donna Greenberg crowns the ever-irreverant Dinkel with her polymer tiara.
The other top winners include Fran Abrams, Laurie Mika, Angela Garrod, Cornelia Brockstedt, Annie Pennington, Penne Mobley, Claire Fairweather, Joyce Cloutman and Emily Squires Levine. The winning works are posted here.
No time or bandwidth for captions but you may enjoy these passing glimpses of polymer finery at EuroSynergy in Malta. Winners of the exhibition will be uploaded soon.
Desiree McCrorey has long been known for sharing her thorough experiments with polymer. Irena Saravanja’s crackled polymer surfaces started Desiree’s wheels turning and she headed back to her science lab/studio.
Desiree offers her results to you and they’re fascinating. She’s tested lots of ways to crackle the clay with a heat gun using various utensils and methods to arrive at very different results. She may inspire you to add more tests of your own.
CORRECTION: The work of France’s Agnes Dettai was what prompted Desiree’s exploration. You’ll find the inspiration on Agnes’ Flickr site.
Louise will teach her award-winning translucent polymer disk necklace and take you through all the steps from creating the disks to finishing and assembling. She creates her surface textures and patterns using a variety of techniques including etching, painting and tear-off techniques.
Alison filmed the class in Louise’s studio and you’ll feel like you’re right there. You’ll be able to review the steps later by watching the video that comes with the class. That’s a bonus that conference classes can’t offer. And you can purchase her work in her Etsy gallery.
