Claire Maunsell doesn’t quite know what to call these new hollow polymer beads. I call them fabulous. The way her new “plank” beads interlock opens up a world of possibility. They’re rough and evoke fish or wood. She plans for this species to evolve.
Claire is great at making connections. See how her beads hug each other on her Etsy and Zibbet sites.
With her “Windows” series, Betsy Baker gives us a stunning view of a growing trend in polymer (via DailyArtMuse.com).
The window metaphor is a powerful one. It suggests something not entirely visible and a bit beyond our grasp. Arden Bardol features them in her “Connections” series shown at the right.
Lori Wilkes gives the design a more literal interpretation with her “Metaphor Doors” and window pendants. “They are glassed-in spaces through which we see everyday life. They also serve as portals to the world within,” says Lori.
Laure Bonnet’s polymer flowers scream spring with their intense colors, wavy petals and playful accents.
Her wire-wrapped necklaces are perfect for a sunny Mother’s Day weekend.
I found Laure via the Parole de pate and gadouille (aka Sylvie).
Helen Breil shares a low-cost polymer extrusion method which also uses a vice and replaces the plunger with an aluminum tube.
Helen explains, “I use the standard clay gun. I purchased an aluminum dowel at home depot. The diameter is 1/2” which leaves a bit of a gap where clay builds up but it’s not a big problem. For easy clean up I put parchment paper into the tube before the clay is inserted (shown sticking out of the tube in this picture) and then I put it all into the vice as shown.”
Look to the right. In preparation for next week’s conference, I dusted off my video camera and shot a bit of footage just to get in practice. Pardon my deer-in-headlights look and messy hair. Filming was a spur-of-the-moment decision.
After years of searching for a way to extrude polymer clay I devised a system that works for me. (Here’s my old way.) Small batches, no clean up, easy on the joints – those were my criteria. Watch the video to learn my tricks.
The vise is my new favorite tool. It’s useful even when cranking by hand. Here’s the vise link. Here’s how to contact the Bullens Wullens (adapter) folks.
Gera Scott Chandler fearlessly fuses polymer clay with digital photography, canvas, silk, inks, acrylics and found objects to create textured three dimensional interpretations of the mood and spirit of her west coast Canadian landscapes. Gera often incorporates beachcombing ephemera into her compositions.
It was her Arbutus mixed media collage on canvas in the Synergy exhibit that helped fuel recent experiments by other artists in combining liquid polymer and fabrics. Her research and development is constant (the lantern at left is a recent example).
Gera has moved on to combining polymer and resins and offers the results of her experiments for comparison shoppers. She has a way of bringing remarkable colors to polymer and she’s working to enhance those colors further with resin.
Following Gera’s work is like being on an adventure that leads from the beach to the garden to the studio.
New earring designs are rare in our world. Holland’s Els Van Haasen stacks polymer clay beads on a wire for a new and intriguing look. Does the end wire fit snuggly into the tube bead? How do these look on? So many questions.
Els’ Flickr page led me to the Dutch guild’s page and it seems that outside-the-box thinking is the guild’s mission. If, like me, you’re in search of exciting ideas and shapes, wander through their members’ pages.
The weekend was filled with mixing colors and building canes. Instead of sitting stunned and overwhelmed on the first day of my next conference, I thought I’d prepare new canes so that I can get in the groove quickly. These canes, built with extruded triangles, are ready and wrapped for traveling next week.
Some artists have a vision of the end product when they begin a design but I simply ride the wave of inspiration and see where it takes me. Here’s how a few of my previous canes were used (1, 2, 3, 4). I wonder where these will end up.
This project also served as Internet detox. I stayed away from the computer all weekend!
Who better than mixed media comedian/artist Meredith Arnold to round out our week? Meredith will play with just about any materials and she usually manages to sneak a bit of polymer (and lots of laughter) into all her work.
Click through her site to see how she integrates polymer with fiber, metal, books and more. This bracelet is the project for her upcoming class with the Puget Sound Bead Festival folks. Students play with foils, powders, paints, shapes and colors and walk out with this bracelet and a smile. Have a cheery weekend.
Art historian Rachel Carren is most comfortable as an art writer and contributor of critical commentary. She’s also been quietly working in her polymer studio since 1999. Rachel spent several years refining the air-filled polymer pillow construction she used on these segmented brooches. The surfaces are elegantly screened and the segments are fitted together on a clay base.
Artists friends have nudged and nagged Rachel to promote her own work and her lovely new site is worth the wait.
She’s still writing about polymer on the PolymerArtArchive, promoting polymer art to museum curators, helping out with the RAM project, and curating a Lark book on Polymer Masters that’s due out next spring. Elise Winters tipped us off to Rachel’s new site.
Simple designs like these polymer disks from Israel’s Victoria Slutsky (visart-dali) stack up to sweet simple pendants.
Graduated circles of textured clay in muted shades are accented with pigment powders and topped off with a glass bead. How effective simplicity can be! See Victoria’s new collection on her Etsy site and her Flickr page.
