My 2008 video interview with Judith Skinner about how she came up with the blend. Think of her when you check the weather on TV and see your local weatherman pointing to the moving graphic on the wall. She came up with that system too!
I thought I’d keep writing PCD occasionally but my inner 5-year-old defiantly stomped her feet and said, “No.” There was no coaxing her back to the computer.
Abandoning artwork and artists gathered over 18 years didn’t feel good either. That’s a lot of water under the bridge! How to solve the dilemma?
My mind wandered back to the beginning of my art adventure…the Columbus Guild, the National Polymer Clay Guild. Each step got me closer to the IPCA which was fortuitously rebuilding their website. IPCA said yes!
PCD and much more are only a click away thanks to Amy Brown and her amazing group of very capable sidekicks. I threw 200+ videos and tutorials from my travels in for good measure, handed over the passwords, and headed off.
StudioMojo, my weekly newsletter, continues every Saturday. It’s where I bring home all the treasures I’ve collected from the stream where my inner child still plays. Join the gang!
I’ve almost forgotten how to post! But really, who can miss Valentine’s Day?
Christi Friesen has been tucking these languorous beauties in orders all month. Her hearts are encrusted with flowers and pearls and bits of love from Hawaii. They have a perfect beachy buzz.
Check out all her fun events and online mischief.
Holidays are a perfect time to try something fun, easy, and no-fail. Hello, mokume gane!
Problem is there are variations nine ways to Sunday! You’ve got your deep, shallow, scrap, ghost, and natural methods.
For your holiday polymer pleasure, follow this free link from the UK’s Jane Hewitt, who gathers a slew of approaches to the technique into one nicely-illustrated .pdf booklet to download.
If you feel like giving to Jane’s charity, that would be lovely. Donate on the LimbBo page.
As I layered up for the snow today, I figured out why I had these plain Jane earrings in my collection.
They’re the companions for this Karen McCorckle beautifully caned angel pin that I love. Oh, that goes back a couple of interesting decades!
Karen told us that she conditioned clay when she went to the movies with her family. In the darkened theatre, she could twist and knead the stiff version of polymer that we used back then. Her production schedule was so tight that she couldn’t waste any time.
Can anyone update us on Karen?
When Ron Lehocky asked me several years ago who made this dotted square pin that I was wearing, I replied confidently, “Dayle Doroshow.” He corrected me. “I made that,” he said. This is a Ron Lehocky collector’s item!
Long ago and far away when Ron first started dipping into polymer, he made pins that weren’t heart-shaped and weren’t made from others’ scraps. That was 51,000 hearts ago! Hard to believe he’s raised that much for The Kids’ Center for Pediatric Therapies!
Ron pointed me to his 2015 tutorial on PCD that shows how to turn a heart into a Christmas tree. That was from when he had made a mere 30,000 hearts.
Oh, and Dayle Doroshow? She’s lived and taught in France (and Florida) for the past twenty years. And now she’s written a book about her art and life there. Time flies!
In my quest to bring more fun into what I do, I decided to refashion PCD into the “History Channel” for a while. The history of polymer, that is.
As I pinned Susan Hyde’s angel on my down vest this morning, I thought about the works and the artists who have caught my eye since 2005. I’ll be thumbing through my collection for pieces that moved me to shell out money and made me feel so good that I wear them over and over. This clever ploy requires less time online and reacquaints me with my collection.
Susan’s angels always call to me during the holidays. Her madonnas were dark-skinned before that was a statement. She and I met at a weeklong Kathy Amt class on Whidbey Island in 1997 and she’s high up on my list of favorite artists. Her polychromatic color sense and affinity for textiles, inclusions, and faces, get me every time. Click on the Instagram link to look more closely at her construction. If you put “Hyde” into the search box at the top of this page, you’ll see how she’s been my go-to girl for years. Here she is on Facebook.
Every once in a while a polymer artist like Vasso Tizma (ClaylandStudio) from Greece makes us think that we can all be polymer clay sculptors.
You’d think we’d learn that “making it look easy” is a trap. I’m trying to resist rolling out some red and green clay and giving it a go. Is there time to become an expert before the holidays? Hope springs eternal.
Plan B is her Etsy shop.
Ohio mother-daughter duo Keri Parker and Mikayla Beavan (kurumi_kodama) created these haunting, earthy walnut tree spirits using shells with round polymer bellies.
“I found some walnut shells on the ground back in our woods and thought they looked like little disembodied faces. I knew somehow I needed to give them bodies,” says mom Keri.
These magical creatures appear every week or two on their site and disappear quickly.
Discover more polymer magic in the weekend StudioMojo. For your free sample, shoot me an email.
New York’s Susana Martinez popped up in the feed today wearing a big bold necklace she made for a Santiago event.
I went on the prowl to get to know her. She had been in the fashion industry for over 20 years when the pandemic forced her to create a land of her own, SusanaLand.
It houses her jewelry collections, her fashion line, and even showcases her mother’s hand-woven wares.
Her mokume gane meets geodes meets resin in a wonky, cheery jumble of styles perfect for today.
