Polymer Clay Daily

Creating polymer heirlooms

Ioana Weber from Rotterdam quiets the week with her White Noise series of polymer brooches. This Dutch mixed media artist had been collecting vintage laces and looking for a way to use them in a project. “Some are so delicate and old, it’s almost impossible to make something with them,” she explains.

Ioana came up with the idea of making them timeless by impressing them in polymer and using the resulting texture plates to create delicate polymer brooches. With no surface enhancement and no color the lace patterns speak for themselves. Some are embroidered with matching cotton thread.

I’m trying to remember where my grandmother’s box of tatting tools and remnants is stashed. My nieces might cherish a brooch with a family history. Do you have heirlooms hiding in your attic that could be shared with future generations in polymer?

How to take heart
Sophie Arzalier Tricia Dalziel Cindy Gimbrone

You must see how Sophie Arzalier grows her tattoo-inspired love heart into an elaborate polymer cane. In the same vein, she’s created a Rosie the Riveter cane that shows equal detail with a less romantic sentiment.

Tricia Dalziel’s Sacred Heart is one of a series of 20 sculptures in her Verses Of The Heart series created as part of a personal healing process.

Cindy Gimbrone aimed for a shabby chic effect with her polymer Heart Mandala. She explains that, “The heart represents metaphorically our emotions, our feelings. Pairing the symbol of the heart with a mandala means to me the universe is in each one of us, it is in our hearts. So, I give you the universe in this heart.”

Tory Hughes takes a contemporary approach with this blue heart brooch that’s been embossed, painted and sanded. You’ll find it on her newly tweaked and refined web site.

Secrets of the heart

“I am a hopeful romantic who is absurdly optimistic,” says Florida’s Heather Wynn.

Her hand-stamped and aged polymer pendants can be found incorporated into friends’ assemblages and reveal themselves like secret messages. (See them in Lorelei Eurto’s jewelry here and in Heather Power’s here.) Here’s her Etsy shop.

Correction

The swirl heart pendant in Monday’s post was mistakenly attributed to Fairy-Cakes. A closer read shows that Fairy-Cakes purchased the bead from UK’s Mel Parrett who sells them on Ebay. Thanks to Terri for pointing out the problem and to Mel for stepping forward.

Painting by the slice

Each brush stroke on these 12×16 canvases by Joan Israel is a slice of a polymer cane. You must see the larger photos to get the full 3-D impact (left, center and right).

The vision, the patience, the number of canes…all mind-boggling! Some have a Henri Rousseau tropical feel. I marvel at their composition and energy. See more of Joan’s lush polymer paintings on the New York Guild’s site.

My husband’s cold is trying to catch me so I’m off to bed to dodge it. Not to worry, I’m good at avoiding bugs and I had a perfectly lovely birthday thanks to all of you. (I’d been saving Jen Dott’s polymer tissue box cover from the Pikes Peak Guild site to share with you on just such an occasion.)

Follow your heart

Polymer hearts are simple icons that are easy to make. Broken, mended, sugary, romantic, bleeding, tattooed…they come in many varieties. Being easy to make doesn’t have to mean boring. Here are a few hearts with heart.

Louise Fischer Cozzi sells translucent, thin, minimalist pendants that benefit the Heart Association on her Etsy site. The edges are carefully painted gold. Easy? Yes. Classy? Certainly.

Fairy-Cakes goes for a light-hearted pop art version with a colorful controlled swirl on her DeviantArt page.

Donna Greenberg’s chunky, sparkly mosaics speak of fashion and flair more than love and she has a new line of them. She calls these her bursting hearts. (Thanks to Sarah Connor for the link.) What does your heart look like?

Taking polymer out on a limb

Tamara Shea’s “out-on-a-limb” polymer series hits a topical theme that we’ll consider more deeply next week. The season of hearts is upon us and I’ve been collecting polymer versions for your pleasure.

I’m struck by Tamara’s consistent quality and search for inspiration. All her Block Party Press polymer jewelery pieces are original designs from drawings turned into hand-carved stamps. She documents her daily inspirations on her blog and customers respond to her out-on-a-limb heartfelt art. Have a heartfelt weekend.

Mixing polymer and paper

It’s been a year since we visited Virginia’s Angie Wiggins who happily mixes paper and bead work with polymer. These paper bowls are embellished with beads and polymer legs. Angie learned to embroider at a young age and it shows in the delightful details sewn onto many of her pieces.

On her Facebook page you can roam through her tidy, cozy studio and see some of her most recent mixed media efforts. Don’t miss her metal clay and polymer jewelry in her gallery page.

I’m putting these wine stoppers here to remind myself how cool and useful they would be in my kitchen. Here’s what we posted about Angie earlier on PCDaily.

Cracking the opalescence code

Liz Hall’s mosaic brass bangles jangle against each other and sing with shimmering color. Small iridescent pieces of polymer butt against each other with a devil-may-care attitude that’s punctuated by black and white stripes.

Liz has been working to create opalescence in polymer and it looks to me like she’s cracked the code. Wander through her Etsy shop and you’ll see her very believable results.

Think big!

Madrid’s Silvia Ortiz de la Torre thinks big and bright with these polymer-covered foil beads. Her stringing is fanciful and fun.

While we’re on the subject of big, check out this new video (at the top of the right column) from Hand Guitars that shows Jon Anderson rolling out one small component of a very large and complex cane.

Don’t you wish the process went as quickly and smoothly as this fast-paced movie?

Join the class!

Need to let loose on a cold Monday? California’s Anne Klocko says her polymer girls are a wild and colorful bunch. This is her “Class of 2010.”

Anne has worked for 20 years creating 3-dimensional framed polymer pictures like this one.

She started out studying ceramics and sculpture, skills that helped when she was drawn to polymer’s color possibilities. You can see her figurative sculpture on her web site and at the Etsy shop she recently opened.