When you’re red hot

Pat Stirniman makes red hot dishes on PolymerClayDaily.com

What do you do with yourself when the news makes you red hot? You could take a cue from Illinois’ Pat Stirniman and pound your cadmium red.

Pat uses polymer like ceramic clay, building all sorts of dishes and vases and objects to brighten the house or just to let off steam. She adds balls, stripes, dots, and other bit players. Here’s Pat on Facebook.

Scratching out and idea

Belinda Broughton cuts her pastel painting into earrings on PolymerClayDaily.com

Australia’s Belinda Broughton (polymerbelinda) could have stopped right here. She applied pan pastels to a sheet of polymer. Then she scratched through the top layer of jagged triangles (technically sgraffito) to make an even more dynamic design.

Pop that baby in the oven and hang it on the wall!

I saw a painting but Belinda had earrings in mind. Either way, it was fun to watch and may make you reconsider pastel possibilities.

There are dots and there are dots

And then there are dots by Madrid’s Silvia Ortiz De La Torre. She’s been making her blended, layered, high voltage colored, roughly textured dotted beads for years.

Silvia has stayed way ahead of the trends. We can learn a thing or two from her.


We go back and forth on StudioMojo. Every weekend we look at artists who’ve been around for years while we also keep up with the fresh faces that bumped into polymer during our forced confinement. Both vantage points teach us. Come see what we see.

Life with the kids

A cast of delightful characters from Diane Greenseid on PolymerClayDaily.com

The glee that California’s Diane Greenseid takes in her small sculptures comes through loud and clear. I know nothing about what her small characters (the kids, she says) mean or how she constructs them.

It really doesn’t matter, does it? She’s obviously having a good time and really, isn’t that the point? You can sense some good stories here.