When ideas crystalize

Stephanie Kilgast didn’t intially reveal where she was headed with her collection of polymer crystals. She offered a great little YouTube video of how she made these other-worldly minerals. She usually creates incredibly realistic miniature foods. Crystals pointed to change.

Her clusters of cave growths reappeared mounted to a dimensional canvas trailing a blue wash of color. Stephanie explains her sculptural painting and talks about her burst of creativity on her site. She hints at more changes to come.

See what other big steps Stephanie is taking on Patreon and Instagram. They’re brave and inspirational steps!

Add drama with paint

Polymer artists like Texas’ Shelley Atwood continue to show us what you can do with textures and paints. Shelley bends the textured ribbons of polymer for additional movement on these dangling earrings.

The red of the bottom medallions is a surprise. Gold paint unifies the look which is topped off with the big loops of the earwires.

Look at her Flickr pages to see how Shelley pumps up the drama of her work.

Complex simplicity

Michigan’s Sandra Niese (DandyBeads) eases us into Monday with a simple pendant. On its own, the spiral would have been too simple.

By embedding those metal pins into the edge of the design, Sandra makes us stop and take in the texture and the metallic finish and ponder the piece.

The dance between complexity and simplicity is a tricky one. See more of Sandra’s organic and slightly grungy works on Facebook, Pinterest and Etsy.

Cutting loose with scraps

Is it the reminder of another way to use scrap clay that attracts us to Carol Beal’s (BeadUnsupervised) newest marbled domes? Or is it Carol’s unsupervised, no-holds-barred approach to jewelry-making that pulls us in?

No matter. It’s inspiring to see how she turns bits of fall colored scrap into stripes and then drags a stylus in zigs and zags across the surface to marble it. Carol’s good at messing things up in delightful ways and this is a great example of how effective cutting loose can be.

See more of Carol on Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest and Etsy.

Cut loose with me in a class at Creative Journey Studios in Georgia, October 7-9.

About face

Lisa Renner’s sculpted busts have wistful, pensive looks with lovely touches of fashion and mystery. Lisa avoids the telltale ways of working that scream “plastic”. Her strong expressions and ceramic-like fabrics pull you right past the material and into the art.

It’s an enviable trick that Lisa teaches in her 2-day About Face class (the next one’s in September in Albuquerque). See if you can figure how how she performs this sleight of hand by flipping through the work on her website. Check out her class schedule and friend her on Facebook.

New ceramics

Pan pastels, improved crackle techniques and better glazes are making it harder and harder to tell polymer from ceramics.

This square pendant from Michigan’s Christi Uliczny proves my point. The only clue that this pendant is polymer might be its vibrant colors.

Christi credits Iris Mishly and Hilla Bushari’s imitative ceramic tutorials with teaching her the basics. See how Christi brings her own color sensibility to the pieces on her Etsy, Flickr and Facebook pages.

Love the depth and warmth of ceramic glazes? You can mimic them in polymer. No kiln required.

Transforming canes

Meg Newbergs’ transforming cane shifts colors like a treasured and worn carpet. What’s one cane looks like many.

It’s difficult to comprehend how the simple canes she constructs can reduce to be so complex. She’s got a great grasp of geometry and she sends out pages of pictures and explanations of a new idea each month.

If you enjoy caning, her monthly subscription is a good deal. This transforming cane is August’s lesson.

Meg allows me to teach some of her designs to inmates who are delighted each time they follow her clear instructions. Not many tools are required and even the newest caners can experience success. Here she is on her site and Etsy.

Double duty polymer bail

Syndee Holt tweaks Jan Montarsi’s easy polymer bails to get double use out of a brooch/pendant.

Syndee added a small hole at the bottom of Jan’s domed circle bail design which allows it to accommodate a pin that slides diagonally from the top hole to the new bottom hole for a brooch. Or slide a cord through the top two holes to wear the piece as a pendant.

Jan makes his bail on a domed form and uses liquid polymer to adhere it to the brooch. You’ll find more examples and clever adaptations on Flickr,

See more of Syndee’s innovations on her Pinterest site and on Facebook.

50% off sale

My extruder disk sets and Helen Breil’s stamps and screens are all deeply discounted only on the KazuriWest site starting today (while quantities last).

Lingering Euro vibes

This jewel-encrusted polymer bead from Monica Rotta keeps my European vibe going even after I’m back in the USA.

Rich textures are topped with metal caps and faceted red beads like a sundae with juicy cherries.

Monica’s booth setup in Italy makes me sigh at her easy euro-elegance. She uses picture frames, hangers, and even astro-turf to show off her wares.

Visit her Facebook photos and breathe in the Tuscan air. There’s more on Pinterest and Instagram for your Italian interlude.

Layers of complexity

Kathryn Corbin’s pieces in the sales gallery at EuroSynergy had usual touches – epoxy sculpted findings (for strength), tube beads with windows, heavily textured beads made of white polymer and colored only with pastels and crayons. Her pieces have a mysterious depth and complexity.

The tube beads are rolled (not extruded) to emphasize their handmade quality. The window in the larger diameter tube reveals another bead underneath (click to see the details on the blue beads below). Recently Kathryn added a gauzy nude portrait brooch (pastel again) that floats on a sharp geometric base.

It was great fun to pal around with Kathryn who’s from Massachusetts and speaks French. She’s not very flashy online. You have to prowl around in Facebook to discover her treasures.

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