Refined polymer

Betsy Baker knows how to deliver sophistication and elegance with her polymer. Her designs are refined, consistent and understated with a hint of rebellion in her textures and surprise in her shapes.

Betsy sells at shows around Boston almost every weekend. Her refined delivery extends to other areas of her business as well.

She moves her booth and her inventory by taxi since she doesn’t drive. And because the meter is running, she packs and loads her display and wares with efficiency and speed. Flip through her Facebook photos to catch of glimpse her setup and her system.

How I envy Betsy’s skills as I pack and sort for a trip out west. Enjoy your weekend!

Polymer salad

About this time of year, we’re wishing the courgettes/zucchini piling up in our kitchens were the size of Vicky Guile’s polymer miniature versions. This UK artist’s veggies are only an inch long.

Vicky’s bowl of artichoke, aubergines, cauliflower and red onions looks fresh from the garden.

Those of us who started out making miniatures with our kids have a special fondness and admiration for those who can fool our eyes at 1:12 scale. See more on Facebook (NJD Miniatures).

Listening to polymer

On Facebook Ronna Sarvas Weltman recently let us look over her shoulder as she shaped, sorted and tweaked this polymer bead soup into gloriously funky wearable art. Finding all the steps on Facebook is challenging so here’s my compiled page of the basic pictures.

Ronna added washes of color on beads to highlight some colors and mute others. She gave the necklace a good shake at the end to make sure the focal beads would settle where she predicted they would.

All along she changed the arrangement until she felt the love. She made sure the piece spoke to her. It’s a good lesson in listening and in playing around.

French snapshots

If you’re in the mood for more snapshots, take a look at Dawn-Marie DeLara’s reporting on our summer trip to France. Dawn-Marie is a muralist (she says decorative artist), mixed media and polymer artist from Minnesota.

She posts about Blair and Cynthia, Judy Belcher and Julie Eakes, Ruth Krug and Nona Flores, Anne Beach and Beverlee Stafford and our fearless leader Dayle Doroshow.

Trying new ways of working is easier when you’re in a beautiful setting among friends who cheer your successes and laugh off your missteps. Dawn-Marie chronicled our time together with a light-hearted approach. She brings the same great style to her publication, 365 Being. There’s a free sample online full of great craft, food and project tips.

Angling for effect

After months of complex zentangle on polymer projects, Margit Bohmer was looking for something simple to make with her rainbow palette. She shows us how holding your blade at a different angle can make a big difference.

She flattened the beads slightly after rolling. Cutting each bead at the same angle allows them to fit together in a snake-like formation.

Margit has been using chalks or pastels for coloring her polymer lately so I’m guessing that’s how she gave this polymer it’s color. If you look closely you’ll note an interesting bit of variegation in each bead.

Polymer pods connect

John and Corliss Rose have been experimenting with shooting less exhibition style photos and aiming for a looser, weirder vibe. You’ll have to click on their Absolum Pod Necklace photo to see this spunky shot.

PCD crops right into what we know you’ll want to scrutinize – the upturned shapes of the pods and the way the lively beads are connected to the tubing.

This California mixed media duo are driven by experimentation and exploration. Absolum Pods are part of their Alice in Wonderland series that started as an exercise in simplicity. You can sample the results on their Flickr site and their Etsy gallery.

Corliss is heading up the IPCA Awards this year – that’s the competition you’re planning to enter October 1, right?

Tuesday’s quiz!

Tune in online tomorrow (August 20) at 1PM EST as CraftyLink’s Wendy Strain quizzes me about my new book. Got a comment? You can ask questions and enter their drawing for a free copy of the book.

The interview will be also be recorded. You must be a member of the free Tuesday Shmoozeday group to watch and chat live. Here’s the sign-up info.

Pattern swapping polymer

Exhale, take a break and let Francoise Haon’s (Arliane) colors wash over you. On this Onéida cuff, her mokume gane is interrupted by stamped panels. Color and textures shift and change.

Francoise has developed her own way of handling mokume gane and in this necklace she crackles some of the surface and swaps circles of pattern while gracefully curving each bead. There’s lots going on! I hope there’s lots going on in your weekend.

Miracle polymer

Cynthia Wolff’s Waiting for My Miracle earrings look as if they’ve been dredged up from the wreckage of an undersea ballroom. Then she adds this tantalizing verse to her Etsy offering:

My efforts sometimes are futile…I am clumsy, I am inefficient…I fail more often than I succeed. But everyday I show up…and hope for a miracle.

These earrings are a cumulation of all my skills thus far. The making of my own beads, certainly a chapter in itself, has changed me once again.

I am not the same…I am moving and evolving….and sometimes I want to quit…because it doesn’t come easy to me…but sometimes.

These earrings sum it all up…two years of work…showing up…they are filled with me.

Though this California artist has been collecting bits and making jewelry for years, Cynthia just picked up polymer in July. Friends around the globe gave her tips and showed her the ropes. See how she’s moved and evolved on her Pinterest board, her blog, and her Etsy shop.

Hidden openings

We move from funny things to secret things. Madrid’s Fabiola Perez Ajates makes inros in surprising shapes with hidden openings.

These are from her April class. Her class photos are practically a class in themselves. You can oggle all all the tools in the background and admire the techniques the students are trying.

Fabi’s story is a fascinating one. Did I mention that it’s in the book along with a step-by-step of one of her ingenious creations?

More funny things

Julie Eakes helps keep our Funny Things week going with a class sample and a funny blog post. “It’s a cross between an organic piece and a framed piece,” Julie says. She hasn’t decided.

Her Las Vegas Clay Carnival class centers on Delft-like patterns. “You know Delft pottery,” she says, “that blue and white pottery that makes you think of tulips, wooden shoes and the boy with his finger in the dike.”

Her challenge is to use only blue and white polymer and very few canes. The variations come from taking slices at different stages of reduction and recombining them. You can see more of her samples and read the hilarious descriptions on her site.

Don’t you wish you were going to learn about this one-cane wonder? Me too.

Polymer funny things

Australia’s Debbie Crothers starts the week with some Funny Things. Together her series of wrapped natural items becomes a mixed media wall installation.

Debbie’s been experimenting with faux ceramic effects, wrapping white polymer around natural coral and palm fronds. Forged artistic wire and rounded cane slices accentuate some of the pieces.

Flip through Debbie’s pages of work to see how she’s progressed, improving her skills, circling back and bringing funny things to a whole new level. Anna Winter sent the link and encouraged me to look at Debbie again.

IPCA Awards

Beginning October 1, you may submit photos of your art into the IPCA’s Polymer Clay Awards, the world’s largest juried contemporary polymer art competition. The awards will be presented at the 2014 EuroSynergy in Malta in May.

Full disclosure: I’m one of the three judges and we want to dig up the best art possible. We’ll be hounding you from now until the submission deadline in January so you might as well get used to clicking on this call for entry icon.

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Artists

French snapshots

Tuesday’s quiz!

IPCA Awards