Feel good Friday

Tina Crouse’s is a feel-good Friday story. She’s launched a Facebook page to spread the word about the Kindware Premier program. Tina is the Ohio project’s manager and she’s introducing their new collection of Medallion Cuffs, wide leather bands with a polymer oval stamped with a choice of an inspirational word.

Tina took part in the Kindway program when she was incarcerated. The polymer jewelry that inmates make as they’re building their skills is sold by volunteers at art fairs and other events.

Once they transition back into their community, they may opt to continue selling their polymer art through Kindware Premier. Tina explains it more clearly.

“I became involved in this organization while I was incarcerated and not only did it change my life, but it gave me a future. All these handcrafted gifts are made possible because there are people investing in lives impacted by incarceration. While I was incarcerated I was able to develop a skill set working with polymer clay that I never knew I had. It became an outlet for me. Each time I worked with the clay I would turn all the negative that happened in my life into positive. All the bad things that were said to me into kind words – I am a good mother, I am smart, I am beautiful, I am worth it and I CAN CHANGE! All those stones thrown at me at one time are now re-purposed and transformed into beautiful gems.” she says eloquently.

But life’s not always easy (here’s more of her story) and Tina works as a waitress and takes care of her children as well. She was able to attend the Buckeye Bash conference last month (that’s Tina with me and Ron Lehocky in Dayton). The Kindway women sent along inchies they’d made. Tina serves as a terrific role model for other women who will be released in the near future.

Your support, likes, and good wishes energize these women and the Kindway/Kindware project. Have a feel good weekend. Contact Tina here to purchase her cuffs which cost $25 plus $3 shipping.

Big art challenge

Miniaturist Stéphanie Kilgast (PetitPlat) has been on a steady diet of polymer fruits and veggies for 70 days. Can she possibly keep this up for an entire year?

She posts her new food sculptures almost daily on Facebook where you can follow her progress and cheer her on.

“I’m starting to feel a bit tired with this daily challenge,” Stephanie admits. “It is a lot of work to handle and I can’t seem to be able to make them in advance, say make 3-4 veggies in one session. Ah well, I need to get a grip about this, otherwise I’m going to exhaust myself.”

Why miniatures? “Miniatures are usually appreciated because they make you think you can put the world in your pocket,” says Stephanie and the colors are endlessly inspiring. She also ventures into other subjects including a line of City and Galaxy jewelry.

Read more about this French artist on Instagram, Pinterest and Flickr. Yep, she’s got a whole page of tutorials in case you’re inspired and you may enjoy this older video about her work.

Collaborative clock

It may take you a while to see the clock in this picture. The red dots on the heap of black and white patterns provide the clues.

Carol Blackburn made some of the polymer designs and then taught Tory Hughes. Tory combined her own black and white layers with Carol’s to build this sculpture/clock. “Movement feeds my spirit and nourishes my psyche,” Tory admits.

“It’s a great challenge with Carol’s patterned skins because I respond like everyone else: they are so gorgeous as a sheet of stunningly precise pattern and color that I don’t want to cut them up either! But part of why Carol and I work so well together is that the creative threshold is different for the maker versus the viewer,” Tory explains.

The two collaborators will teach their unique magic tricks on June 26-28 in Santa Fe, NM, as the next step in their Take Two series. This one’s called Take Two, Moving Along. Learn to build stunning patterns (Carol) and turn them into sculptural fabrications (Tory)!

Read more about Tory’s recent experiments with sculpture and motion here. See some of Carol’s precise patterns here and here and on Pinterest.

Wedgwood imitations

Heather Powers’ Wedgwood Pottery-inspired beads contain promises of a new season. Her imitative Jasperware beads feature raised white relief sculpture on matte backgrounds in spring colors. Here the Wedgwood beads are paired with leafy designs and topped by birds.

Heather is one busy blogger! Tonight she presents her tips for Promoting Your Jewelry Business Online to the Baltimore Bead Society. She’s gathered her source material, over 300 articles for artists/sellers, into one hugely helpful Creative Biz Pinterest board.

She operates multiple shops and teaches on cruises, workshops, bootcamps and retreats. She writes books. She blogs and connects like crazy. Go marvel at her talents and don’t miss her free jewelry tutorials!

Intentional Monday

This pendant is part of Dan Cormier’s new Intentional Mokume Gane which he’s teaching this Tuesday in Slovenia as part of a week of workshops. He’ll demonstrate how to use dies and cutouts as templates for cutting more predictable patterned veneers with nature-inspired organic shapes.

Dan leaves little to chance and the idea of making mokume gane a less random process gets our attention.

He moves on to France later in March and then returns to the US for summer classes. Check out his schedule and his other new classes here and on Facebook – a good start for your intentional week.

Polymer germs

Madrid’s Silvia Ortiz de la Torre has Germs. That’s what’s she’s calling this series of post earrings (or at least that’s how Google translates it).

They’re pillow shaped and covered with striped veneers. The corduroy texture comes from the fine threads on a bolt rolled across the unbaked surface. That’s an easy addition to pop into your toolbox.

Look closely and you’ll see subtle blends in Silvia’s bright stripes. As a wearer of post earrings, I appreciate her attention to small interesting shapes. See more of Silvia on Facebook, Flickr, Pinterest and Etsy.

Riveting art

Germany’s Bettina Welker will show how she swivels in an April class in Barcelona. Her full-day class is all about playing with shape, color, texture, pattern, dimension and movement.

Bettina has a background in graphics that shines through her work. She’s also got an engineer’s brain and enjoys devising new ways of riveting, hinging and connecting in polymer.

Here’s her newest moving art and she explains that, “All the parts are connected in a hinge-like manner so that every little piece can move freely.”

Classes fill fast so you’ll want to check Bettina’s schedule to see where she’s teaching next. (She’s in the US this fall.) See more of her art on her Ipernity site and on Facebook.

Bead failure

Florida’s Debo Groover is a failed bead maker. She couldn’t figure out how to use polymer so she devised her own methods as this large Dog Park painting shows.

She says that, “A few thousand bars of polymer clay and eight pasta machines later, I use the clay like a piece of fabric or paper. I mix the colors and make the patterns. I cut and glue it. I scrape and scratch it. I treat it like it was real clay and end up with surfaces I couldn’t possibly achieve with just a paintbrush. I try to capture the joy that is in my life and I tell my silly stories.”

Debo had a very successful ceramic career, traveling and teaching all over the world, but in 2000 her home and studio burned to the ground. Heartbroken, she stopped doing art, and instead renovated houses and worked as a nurse.

Then four years ago she started playing around with polymer clay. She’s self-taught and knows that her methods are unorthodox. People often think her large paintings are fabric or wood or linoleum.

You can read her story in the Fort Myers paper this week as she and her partner Tina begin the art festival season. Tina makes the smaller pieces and keeps things organized and on track. Follow their uninhibited and colorful works on the web site, on Facebook and on Pinterest.

Rejuvenated scrap

Angela Barenholtz brings us another scrap trick in her newest woven fabric tutorial. If you’re a textile lover who has some patience with geometry and a pile of clay that needs rejuvenating, you may have found your answer.

The strips of pattern can be joined to make flat veneers as on the Hamsa below (it’s a symbol of protection). Or the thinner individual strips can be joined end to end and wrapped around base beads as shown at the left.

This technique may reduce your guilt about that abandoned project or those long ignored canes. Angela is a whiz at replicating the look of fabric and her tweed tutorial is still one of my very favorites.

Her series of cuts and stacks can be confusing. I know because I don’t follow instructions particularly well myself. But if you follow the pictures you’ll soon catch the logic and start cutting and stacking every scrap in sight. (That’s what I’ve been doing for days.)

Angela’s from Israel and it can take a few hours for her to send you the download link. See more of her samples on Flickr and in her Etsy shop.

Polymer blooms

Yes, yes, Germany’s Jana Lehmann knows just what we need for Monday. Her flowerpot pins bloom with bright graphic flowers springing out of textured cone shaped Skinner-blended pots.

Each flower contains a contrasting “seed” bead and is topped with dots of polymer. Jana says she prefers flowers in pots because they last longer than cut flowers in vases.

Jana stepped away from her precise style and used only very basic tools to create these monsters for a Fimo kids book she’s writing. See the whole range of her work on Pinterest, Flickr and Facebook.

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