Polymer Clay Daily

Leftovers

Susan Rose made these lovely vessels out of the leftovers from her extrusions class. What a wonderful use of materials.

If you haven’t wandered around in her polymerclaynotes site recently, you’ll want to revisit it. Every time I turn around there’s some fabulous germ of an idea or tool or technique that has totally eluded me. Very inspiring!

Turkish Art


Alev Gözonar is a polymer clay artist from Istanbul, Turkey. While the site’s a little wonky to wander around in and the language left me clueless, it’s a terrific presentation and a nice look at the surprisingly modern polymer clay art sensibilities of another culture. Simple canes and clay work are displayed in an artful and unusual way. If you click on her press section, you’ll see great magazine clippings of her work.

Thanks for Judy Dunn for forwarding this along.

Yellow House


Here’s a lovely piece by California’s Julie Picarello. The piece hints at Julie’s earlier 20-year career designing integrated circuits with computer-aided design tools. Her unusual use of watch parts is intriguing and her color palettes are inviting. Take a peek. Thanks to "River" for the link.

Raw Clay

We sometimes focus only on the safe and ornamental side of polymer clay art. The Extreme Craft blog often looks at more raw and edgy works where we found Canadian artist Shary Boyle.

Boyle uses the "dainty" arts to amplify her own themes of sexuality, transgression, and secret and disturbing worlds that lie beneath the surface. She’s recently moved beyond her porcelain figures into the world of polymer clay, which allows her more spontaneity. Critical, enchanting and at times humorous, Boyle’s work is raw with human vulnerability and dysfunction.

She lives and works in Toronto, spreading her talents between drawing, painting, making projections for musicians like Bonnie Prince Billy and Sonic Youth.

A solo show featuring seven years of Shary’s miniatures will be shown at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery. Read more about her art in this "Broken Pencil" article. Have an exciting weekend.

Chili Pepper

How is it that "voice" comes through in an artist’s work? This example is from Ivana Molinari Schwab, a Swiss artist who has studied with Kathleen Dustin and Louise Fischer Cozzi and others.

Ivana brings her own emerging voice to experiments such as these Dustin-influenced brooches. She communicates a twist and a laugh in her "color" series. This makes me want to see what’s next and to hear the rest of this promising artist’s story.

How did it happen that the "purple pill" or the "blue pill" came to identify specific medicines that we all recognize? The New Yorker magazine features an interesting article on color in this week’s issue. The power of color certainly has infiltrated our culture.

Chili Pepper was selected by Pantone as the color of the year for 2007. They describe it as, "A bold hue that catches the eye and projects confidence, sophistication and engages our senses. We’re seeing shifts in people’s opinions on current events and major changes in the way they are expressing themselves through new technology. People are open to the possibilities of the future and Chili Pepper celebrates that."

New Possibilities

These chunky diva art bangles are from Steven Ford and David Forlano at Charon Kransen Arts. A tour through their slide shows some other new works that look like a significant departure from earlier work with more reliance on metals and other materials. Susan Rose found the link.

Correction: Dan Cormier couldn’t believe his eyes at Ford/Forlano’s work. And he was right. Steven says the gallery attributed several pictures of someone else’s work to them (the enamel and metal works in the slide show). Thanks to Dan for the detective work.

Your new work? The National Guild folks remind us that you have until April 1 to submit your best new work to the guild’s "Progress & Possibilities" juried exhibit. Welcome and good luck to the new officers of the NPCG who have great plans to move the guild forward this year.

Growth Chart

This Flickr link charts the growth of Tatana (Natalia García de Leániz) from Madrid, Spain.

What strikes me about this young artist’s work is that even when she’s taking a class from Dan Cormier or Judy Kuskin or Jeff Dever and the resulting work is naturally derivative, Natalia’s own voice comes through loud and clear.

It’s wonderful that there’s no question that this is not the work of the teacher but rather an homage to the teacher with her own story shining through the design and the palette. It takes confidence to make that happen. Hats off to Natalia as she finds her voice in polymer clay.