Polymer Clay Daily

Simmons Synergy Donation

One more yummy item in the Synergy silent auction. Carol Simmons has refined her kaleidscope polymer clay pendants to perfection. Take a look at the front and back of this piece. Her stringing method allows the wearer to comfortably adjust the length and the mechanism blends unobtrusively with the bead.

Thanks to Carol and all those contributors who donated their works to the guild even though they won’t be attending. We’ll try to keep you all posted. Hollie Mion and I are on the road!

NICHE WINNERS: Kudos to the polymer clay Niche Award winners announced last week at the Buyers Market of American Craft. California’s Meisha Barbee won with her mica pendant in the professional polymer clay category. New York’s Loretta Lam won in the professional bead category for her Kalamata necklace.

About entering competitions, Loretta Lam says, “It’s more about doing your best – often better than you thought you could. It’s creative problem solving and pushing out of your comfort zone.” Read more about the winners and their reasons for entering the competition.

Artists Head to Baltimore

Polymer clay artists from around the world are on their way to Synergy in Baltimore. England’s Carol Blackburn sent these pictures of her colorful, cheery bowls that will be offered in the silent auction.

Israel’s Iris Mishly shopped ’til she dropped in NYC and is blogging about it as she rubs her feet and prepares for the flight to Baltimore. Browse her Flickr photos from the comfort of your home.

Germany’s Bettina Welker blogs about a layover in Cincinnati that she’s dreading. Wish I could make her brief stay in Ohio more pleasant.

Melanie West is unveiling a great new bangle design that she’ll be selling and Martha Aleo has pictures of the bracelets she’s added to the auction.

Check in with PCDaily to attend the conference virtually. I’m gathering all my techno gear, cameras and batteries to keep you in touch with the action.

LAST MINUTE DONATIONS: Bring an auction item with you to the conference. There’s still time! Simply fill out this form and present the item at your check-in (there are forms at the desk as well).

Polymer Ouija Board Needed

I could use one of these little polymer clay oiuja boards by Wickedgems as I look at the past and predict the future of our craft at next week’s conference. There are a number of interesting pieces throughout the Wickedgems site.

Thanks to Kim Cavender, Bettina Welker, Ronna Weltman, and Janice Abarbanel for letting you peek at their contributions to the Synergy silent auction.

Fellow Ohioan Debbie Jackson has spruced up her web site with new work in a new format. After a year in the studio, she’s restarted her classes for those in the Columbus area. The schedule is on her site.

Mika’s Mixed Media Valentine

Laurie Mika’s polymer clay/mixed media “Sacred Heart” looks like a perfect Valentine for you.

Her workshops at April’s Artfest in Washington are full but that won’t keep you from enjoying a tasty treat of her work here and here. Mika says she has “a passion for combining and overlapping a variety of mediums creating an original style of mixed-media mosaics and assemblage using handmade tile.”

Follow-up: Ronna Weltman wants you to see a better example of the work we showed yesterday (photo by Doug Yaple). She’s donating it to the Synergy auction next week. If you’re donating something to the auction, I’d be pleased to show it off here (and you’ll be helping me expedite my posts as I pack for Baltimore). Email me.

Weltman’s Extruded Marbles

Ronna Weltman has been playing with her polymer clay extruder in a much more freestyle way. “I put in little blobs of this and that color (not randomly picked, but for harmony) and delight in the serendipity of my multi-hued bead caps,” she says.

“Yesterday I played around with randomly placing the strings on translucent and/or translucent mixed with ultra-light, running it through the pasta maker, and then covering an ultralight core with the result.” I love her looser approach. Check it out.

Follow-up note: I have not tested the PolymerClayExpress large extruder because I needed small batches. Word is that it’s quite wonderful. Oh, the perils of talking about tools! We all have our favorites.

Extruder fun

In my search for the perfect polymer clay extruder, I finally hit upon a dream machine.

I’ve written a short article about it (read it here) for Stacey Apeitos’ arts and crafts e-zine. Her Astarte’s Megazine is an Australian online magazine that you can subscribe to. There’s plenty of lovely info free on the site as well.

My hunt for a good small extruder (see an earlier project) became such an odyssey that I felt I could break my rule not to discuss tools on this blog. The BullensWullens adapter (contact pat@bullenswullens.com) was developed by an Ohio couple which makes my discovery doubly special.

Korringa’s Hearts

A little California Korringa for your Friday pick-me-up. Kim Korringa has been working in polymer clay for years and has a densely packed studio bursting with color. Her flat drawers contain hundreds of canes that she has made over the years. “Occasionally I will clear off the work surfaces, but I find that I am more creative when I have everything laid out like a giant palette,” says Kim.

Her “making a cane” tutorial is a perennial favorite.

Dilday’s Tropical Setting

I couldn’t stop reading about Australian Melanie Dilday who lives in New South Wales near Mullumbimby. Her polymer clay covered frame perfectly mirrors her tropical setting.

Melanie’s encounters with lizards and snakes and overactive vegetation provided a lush contrast to cold gray Ohio last weekend. I followed along as she “painted the dunny,” partied with the neighbors and hacked the encroaching vegetation. Looks like a great place for an exotic class (scroll down that page to see the setting).

Sometimes when I intently follow the latest polymer clay tidbit and hurriedly track down the best link, the fun blows right out of this blog. It’s the fascinating glimpses into lives like Melanie’s that got me started in the first place and that keep me going.

A Smile from Quebec’s Lavigueur

Dominique Lavigueur likes to make people smile with her polymer clay art. She sent in a lovely fan letter and as I clicked through to her site, I had to beam.

“I hope you will sense the pleasure I have in creating my art,” she says. How could one not smile at the picture of Dominique holding a giant grinning polymer clay sun?

She lives in remote Quebec along the St. Laurence. Her wind-blown islands (shown here) are built on natural beach stones. It’s a charming scene and is paired with other offbeat figures that have interesting stories to tell.

Making people smile is an admirable artistic pursuit that she does well. Take a look.