Veronique Hoffmann (Fimomaus in Belgium) has taken Claire Maunsell's (StillPointWorks in Canada) hollow pod examples from the Global Book and given them her own spin.
Veronique provides a shining example of how techniques bounce across the globe, picking up other influences as they travel. View more of her work here.
Speaking of traveling, I'm in Arizona with a new grandson! Excuse me while I babysit and cuddle these lovely little ones.
Christine Damm has uploaded a new batch of her distinctive polymer art. These paddle-shaped modern relics dangle provocatively from a curled wire.
Christine lathers on the color, adding and subtracting layers until it suits her. She divulges her coloring process in my new book (yep, it's in the stores).
If you want to catch more of her boho spirit, she'll be teaching at ArtBLISS outside Washington, D.C. in late September. She's also decided to start teaching twice a year at her Vermont farm. Her next small intensive Vermont workshop is scheduled for October.
Picture yourself in her Bonnybrook Farm studio with Battles Brook running nearby and think about fall in New England. What a great vision to start the week. Here she is on Flickr too. Oops, had a broken link...here's Christine's blog.
Ottawa's Emma Todd provides a teaser for your weekend with her Roundabout beads. Stacked together, these flat swirls of polymer create a wonderful jumbled zigzag effect. She's a swirl expert and makes a big-holed round version plus pendants and beads that show real ingenuity.
I stumbled into Emma from fellow Canadian Claire Maunsell. Claire hadn't told her family that her story and polymer work would be in a book.
When the Global Perpectives book arrived in the mailbox, Claire snapped some candid shots of her daughter who was surprised to discover her mother's featured work and her story. "This is great, Mum – good for you," is high praise.
Claire also leaked that she's about to release a tutorial which further explains her hollow form technique for polymer. Her project in the book shows you the basics and it's based on her years of glass blowing.
Heather Powers calms our jitters with her Hibiscus Buds, part of the class offerings in her 3-day Inspired by Nature retreat in Michigan this October.
Her delicate polymer flower buds hug their petals around themselves. Topped off with leaves and wrapped with wire, they become pendants or charms to be mixed with an array of metals and bead components and gathered into autumn treasures.
Heather is a busy blogger, author and artist with sites on illustration, earrings and more. Her Art Bead Scene interactive blog has been around since 2007, celebrating the work of a group of jewelry designers who use art beads of all materials in their work.
Heather's sites are full of polymer creations, all inspired by nature in a way that reminds us to slow down and cherish the beauty around us. (These Midnight Garden Wafer Beads are a summer favorite.)
This week's theme seems to center around the jitters! We all get jitters about what lies ahead and sometimes those jitters lead us into new creative territory.
Today you're looking at Wendy Moore's necklace Tsarang Mala #4 that she created for the exhibit she mounts in two weeks at the Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery in Australia. It started with the stripes in Nepali aprons and then Wendy added the horn shapes that she remembered above the doorways on her latest trek in Mustang province. Then flowers appeared. Her story about this evolving creation is fascinating.
Her exhibit is described as, "…inspired by the contrasts of living in the Outback and her frequent travels to Nepal where she works helping women to create jewellery and objects to sell, enabling them to escape lives of poverty, trafficking and abuse."
If you'd like to try some of your own Tibetan style, check out Wendy's project in the new book! Or visit the Samunnat shop on Etsy.
What did the neighbors think when they saw me down on my knees in the middle of the driveway? The few that ventured closer saw that I was jamming red polymer into some thin cracks that had developed near the corners of the pavement.
In the wider areas, slices of bright patterned canes decorated my ragged red lines. The summer sun began the baking process and a heat gun finished the job.
This small, manageable art project felt appropriate as we waited for word on the health of my husband's elderly mother. This was something I could fix and make better. I could control the outcome and it made me feel helpful. I patched the driveway.
Polymer is not just for earrings, you know. Sometimes it brings a smile or makes a statement. Will my art make it through Ohio's freezing and thawing winter? Who knows how long anything will last?
My husband has begun pointing out other possibilities for my artwork. What will the neighbors think? (Here are the original canes based on an antique Iraqi kilim.)
Luann Udell explains her pre-show jitters and invites visitors to her booth at the NH Craftsman's Annual Fair at Mt. Sunapee later this week.
"It’s where I’ll struggle to put up my booth on a ski slope, stand for nine days in 95 degree weather, and wonder if I’ll make enough money to get me through to next year’s show," she says cheerily.
She'll show you her newest polymer artifacts from lost cultures and imagined prehistories and let you see the awesome scar on her knee which explains her absence last year.
Luann's blog post about her display research is a good read and you can find out even more on FaceBook.
Ann Dillon, Sandra McCaw, Marcia Herson, Kathleen Dustin (did I miss anyone?) are also regulars at this terrific show now in its 80th year.
You may have been wondering when my book would appear (me too). Pre-ordered copies of Polymer Clay Global Perspectives have shipped and I'm sending virtual hugs with each one. Now you can order it online and snap it up in bookstores. See what all the buzz is about.
Ukraine's Katya Tryfonova shares her new Octopus beads with us. They're brightly stamped and colored polymer sheets rolled into jagged tube beads.
She then strung them into the angular necklace that she wears below.
On Katya's Flickr page you can see how she's taken classes and tried various styles, always giving the pieces a hint of her own voice. With her Octopus beads Katya is stretching her wings.
Your response to Melanie Muir's project yesterday was amazing and your generosity has been heartwarming. Thank you.
Art Jewelry, Bead & Button and BeadStyle magazines have all added 1-year subscription giveaways to the event so your chances keep improving and there's still time. Melanie will draw the winners on August 19.
When Scotland's Melanie Muir won the top polymer award with her Reggae Necklace at this year's Bead and Button Show the award came with a $300 gift certificate from Fire Mountain Gems.
Melanie feels that the recognition is enough prize for her and she is raffling off her gift certificate on behalf of Women for Women. Craftcast's Alison Lee jumped on the bandwagon adding a $100 class voucher. PCD couldn't be left behind! We're adding two copies of Polymer Clay Global Perspectives to the raffle.
Entering is easy. A £5 donation becomes a virtual raffle ticket. Buy as many as you like. For instance, if you donate £20, your name goes into 'the hat' four times. (We'll let Melanie work out the £/$ mathematics.)
Melanie has already raised 35% of her goal so jump in and take a chance. Any way you look at it, you can't lose.
The satin smooth finish on Melanie's beautifully crafted work is amazing and you'll find her latest creations (and raffle updates) on her Facebook page.
Luxuriate in the colors and patterns on Lynda Moseley's newest group of faux turquoise polymer pieces. She's sampled a variety of colors and experimented with all kinds of cracks and crevices. This sampler pendant combines snippets from lots of test pieces.
"What I had originally planned as a faux turquoise tutorial has morphed into a range of faux finishes using the same technique," she reports. It looks like her Faux Master Collection will be ready for prime time at the end of the month.
Lynda has a reputation for researching and refining her techniques into deceptively simple steps that make you wonder why you didn't think of that. See more of her work on Flickr, on Facebook, and watch her Etsy site for the new info.
