It’s voting day in the U.S. and I nominate these rolled polymer beads from Texas’ TurnAgainCreative for the best use of Stroppel cane. Cheryl is the only name we have for our candidate.
Experimenting with these will keep your hands busy while you fidget and wait for campaign results to come in tonight.
Don’t forget to vote! Here in Ohio we’ll be happy to move out of the swing state spotlight!
Scotland’s Jacky Mullen has closed her Etsy shop temporarily to look after an actual new baby. While she’s busy, we can still rifle through her past sales and her tumblr site to admire her polymer babies, fairies, mermaids and caterpillars.
This “Handful of Pistachios” is both enchanting and silly as baby faces burst sleepily out of their shells. Her busy bee will certainly be a Monday favorite. We’ll all be cheering for Jacky’s return. Thanks to Lindly Haunani for the link.
Sarah Wilbanks uses images of maps, photographs and ephemera that she transers to polymer clay and sets in silver. “I just love finding images with history, story, line, color, texture and putting them together to create narrative,” she says.
The grackle is perched in her bird-themed gallery.
Sarah’s pieces are made of recycled sterling silver in her Seattle studio/apartment. She’s unveiling her new production line at her first retail show November 23-24. Her work is also at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) store and she’s opened an Etsy shop. Her Facebook page offers the best spot for browsing through her studio and her new line.
Debbie Jackson upcycles t-shirts with striking ethnic polymer beads.
Debbie was wearing this version and she shows us how she turns her thrift store finds into fashionable, no-sew necklaces that can be wound around and worn long or short. She also makes a bracelet version with a toggle clasp.
Debbie and I both live in Ohio but we escaped the political intensity and headed to Kentucky last weekend. Thanks to Debbie for sharing her design and for rescuing the camera I left behind.
Israel’s Angela Barenholtz specializes in dots and dashes in polymer. Her tutorial shows you how to combine a rainbow of colors into pleasant tweeds that mix comfortably with the most riotous patterns.
With its bright, sunny colors, Angela’s Flickr site provides us with relief from the past several days of gray and stormy skies. I hope you’re all safe, warm and dry.
What is it about rolled beads that fascinates us? Is it because we made them as kids that we want to try them again?
These grown-up polymer versions are from Page McNall. She adds graduated color, texture, and embedded trinkets with a wash of color – taking rolled beads to a whole new level.
Page has been experimenting. See what she’s up to on her Flickr page.
These alien skulls from Susan Detwiler looked right at home sprinkled among the polymer poker chips at the Mammoth Cave guild event. They were highly sought prizes.
Susan also features voodoo dolls, robots, faerie houses, hearts and more on Flickr where her art combines ghoulish humor with whimsy and wit. Be sure to introduce yourself to her Fred, Ethel Mae and Lola.
There are a few snapshots from the Kentucky event on Flickr for you to enjoy while I catch up with your posts and a pile of email.
Ron Lehocky takes a more benign approach to Halloween with his heart pins that support the Kids Center for Pediatric Therapies. Ron works on heart number 20,203 as he sits across the table from me at the Kentucky gathering. Artists generously send him their scraps and cane ends which he upcycles into new creations.
Guild members are also working on Beads of Courage and Bottles of Hope. Tonight I regaled them with stories of the Samunnat project. You can take pride in the amount of heart shared by polymer clay artists. We’re playing….see you Monday. Look, Ron added a few Nepali mirrors to his latest heart!
Missouri’s Dawn Stubitsch has started mixing her media in a new jewelry series that combines polymer with metal clay.
Dawn has been known for her super realistic polymer cake toppers and her tame and tidy graphic pendants. These recent energetic combinations of patterns, layers and materials represent a new direction.
Look more closely at Dawn’s work on her Facebook page, her website, and her Etsy shop. Libby Mills, who just finished a metal clay workshop with Celie Fago, brought the Dawn’s new geometry to our attention.
Wendy Malinow’s grinning polymer shaker is filled with steel shot which makes it fit for a serious percussionist. But her musician husband is frightened by the menacing 12 1/2″ tall multi-eyed root. The real teeth embedded in pink polymer gums add to the scariness of this piece that both attracts and repulses.
Her root has been accepted into this year’s 38th Toys Designed by Artists exhibition November 21 to January 6 at the Arkansas Art Center. Here’s Wendy’s official site.
In Las Vegas where Wendy taught last week, the shaker looked at home among the skulls and bones strewn across her work surface. The students made more benign eggs, bones and mushroom charms. Wendy’s quirky woodland vision merged perfectly with Leslie Blackford’s dark and deviant characters from the farm and circus. Check out this snake!
Their “scream of consciousness” approach to polymer art made students stretch their skills and search their souls. It was all in good fun and perfectly timed for Halloween.
