Polymer Clay Daily

Artists

Color tests and weekend homework

The bootup chimes of my computer were music to my ears when power was restored this evening. I’ll assign you some weekend homework to keep you busy as I catch up.

Did you see the color test in the left colum? It looks easy and it’s great eye training. I’m already getting messages from readers about how it’s harder than it looks. I thought I’d ace it. I didn’t.

In response to your questions, the book in which Laura Timmins has found her recipes for financial success is Crafting as a Business by Wendy Rosen. Laura admits that following the formulas is a tedious process but well worth the effort.

Interested in metalwork or other online classes as mentioned in yesterday’s post? Connie Fox invites you to also visit her site, Jatayu, which offers an array of online metalworking classes.

The weather is spectacular. I can finally do laundry, plug in the pasta machine motor and get online! Should be a great weekend.

Leupold’s polymer and wire

I’ve discovered the joys of simple metalworking. After getting the magnificent Alexander Calder jewelry book from the library and seeing the delicate polymer clay/wire work of Oregon’s Dede Leupold, I am persuaded that I should try it. Dede has no web site but here’s a page of her recent work.

And I just ran across a promising site, Jewelry Lessons, that seems to have simple wireworking tutorials. The site looks perky and fun. Has anyone tried it?

Oh, there’s so much to learn once I get my power and internet connection back. Maybe today!

Mishly finds new polymer artists

Ohmigosh, Iris Mishly (polymerionline) has found some wonderful links! I’ll lean on her while my power’s out and she’ll take you to some spectacular new artists with a worldwide flavor. Just for starters, she found:

  1. Lisa Henderson (LillyBriar) from Brisbane, Australia (sparkle meets organic in this picture)
  2. Teri from Regina, Canada and her moody graphic pendants
  3. Spain’s Siddiqa Summers (Lasidi) and her quaint mosaics
  4. California’s Selena Anne and her mosaic-looking chunky beads and exotic faces

Iris does her homework and polymerionline is full of new names and faces worth following plus her own pattern-rich work. Thanks, Iris.

Timmins promotes polymer

Wisconsin’s Laura Timmins put polymer clay on the cover of Key Milwaukee magazine. Laura makes her own cord and carefully crafts all the findings and beads in her asian-looking designs. You’ll love the look at her process. She uses a no-nonsense approach to marketing and selling polymer clay that works.

This magazine article promotes the Hidden River Art Festival at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts held September 19-21.

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Thanks for all your good wishes. We’re fine and without power for another few days. I will continue to visit my sister nearby for showers and internet. I’m slowly catching up on my email and research and I appreciate your patience.

Thanks, Ike

Came home to Ohio to find downed trees, no power and a shaken husband who narrowly averted death by falling tree. Our generator is keeping the fridge cold and intermittently I get a computer hook-up. I’ll be back as soon as I can.

Ohio’s power trucks are in Texas to help them out so we probably won’t have power for several days. I have friends and coffee shops to visit with my laptop in tow in the meanwhile. Stay tuned.

Miller mixes silk fusion and polymer

Tracy Miller

Colorado’s Tracy Miller mixes polymer clay with her bright southwest fiber art. Using silk fusion as a base, she paints, stitches, beads and sculpts the surface to create wall art. The medium has dramatic possiblities and Tracy achieves lustrous results.

This medium, also known as silk paper, looks like a promising new companion for polymer clay. Tracy demonstrated her technique on this HGTV tutorial.

Odell’s gift; Winters’ golden information

This polymer clay hostess gift from Maryland’s Mari Odell to Taz Chaudry has a lovely story. Mari pressed transluscent faux jade into antique Japanese sweet mold fragments to create the centerpiece of the necklace. The side beads are a combination of extruded polymer, serpentine jade and antique brass.

Mari taught high school art in Maryland and Taz was her student. Twenty-five years later Taz contacted Mari to thank her for that high school inspiration and Taz, now in Colorado, hosted Mari on her visit. And once again Mari had an opportunity to teach Taz art, this time polymer clay.

Golden Information

Elise Winters passes along this interesting link about gold that gives us more support as we polymer clay artists struggle to defend our medium. The article reports that:

The ecologic, economic, social, and political price of gold is far costlier than we imagine. We are in the midst of a new gold rush, one that is consuming wilderness areas, contaminating watersheds, destroying ecosystems, and imperiling the economics of poor nations and the well being of indigenous people throughout the world. Some cumulative, irreparable consequences of mining will be with us, in this country and around the world, forever.

This new gold rush is the result of a converging complexity of circumstances on a global scale, including:

  1. The development of highly effective and extremely toxic methods of gold extraction,
  2. A continual rise in worldwide demand for gold,
  3. The demise of gold as global monetary standard,
  4. The continued withholding of enormous stockpiles of gold in the vaults of national banks, and
  5. Huge, multinational corporations very eager to cash in.