Mixed my colors for inlay into a walnut bowl using Anita Long’s app that was a dream once I got the hang of it.
Ran my colors by good friend and guru Lindly who sent me a black and white photo of my inspiration to more clearly track the value spread (the lights and darks) and the proportions of colors (lots of blues, small pops of pink/purple/orange contrasts). I’d forgotten that trick.
Made a quick pair of earrings from scrap. Could see I’d missed the proper orange. Help from friends makes the work easier.
Stopped in my tracks when I saw this sculpt (on Bluesky flashes…which I don’t quite get yet) from Minneapolis’ Marilyn Morrison. This is not your mother’s polymer! She describes herself as an introvert, but obviously, the clay lets Marilyn unleash another side. Doncha love the hair, the scream, tattoos…and yes, the boobs?
I thought I’d begin my return to PCD with something profound or stunning. Great insight! Revelation!
But first, it seems, I need to reintroduce myself to the software and make friends with upgrades. I’m sure it’ll all come back to me. I’ve been gone an ETERNITY in digital time. So here’s something small as I dip my toe tentatively into the digital stream again.
This little trick of organizing extruder disks on safety pins is so old school, clever, and thrifty that it totally delighted me when it arrived from a donor passing on decades of polymer tools as she downsized. I’ll find her name but right now, it escapes me.
I said I’d be back in March and if I get this done before midnight, I’ll have told the truth. Stay tuned for more.
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!
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.
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.
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.
