Out of shape

Germany’s Cornelia Brockstedt was trained as a goldsmith and she’s run a design agency for 17 years. Her training is evident in her cleanly designed and impeccably finished polymer art like this new Winter Blues brooch.

Conny is fond of irregular and surprising shapes. She challenges herself with what seem impossible constructions like her entry in this year’s IPCA awards. Skinner-blended extruded strands wove through a central structure to create a complex geometric pendant.

She’ll be teaching her Wave minimalist 3-part bangle at a post-conference Synergy workshop. See the whole range of Conny’s experiments and discoveries on Flickr and Facebook.

Carving out a plan

Lindsay Locatelli (Wazodesigns) has a background in wood so carving’s not new to her and it shows on this polymer bangle.

Once she gets the feel of the tool and the rhythm of the cut, she takes off!

Lindsay’s latest venture is joining Artful Home where her work will appear in the Spring online catalog. More cut-ups on Facebook and Instagram.

Semi-lenticular polymer

Madrid’s Silvia Ortiz de la Torre combines her Semi-Lenticular creations into a bright bangle. The half-dome is one of Silvia’s favorite forms.

On her Flickr site you can see how she has used this shape to make other jewelry pieces.

For the new creation she covers a half-dome base with precisely positioned thick cane slices. The halves zig and zag against each other to form a round bracelet.

Silvia sticks to a bright color palette in most of her work. The variety comes from changing the shapes, folding and texturing beads to fit together in new ways. She used these three domes as decorative window blind pulls.

See more pictures of the bangle on Facebook. You can also follow her on Etsy and her blog.

Calming Fischer-Cozzi

Too much upsetting news! Louise Fischer Cozzi’s calm, understated jewelry feels like shelter from the storm.

She takes the simplest shapes and classic patterns and puts them together in a sophisticated way with only perhaps a painted gold edge of flash. Louise was riveting and etching translucent polymer before it even dawned on the rest of us.

Here she turns a brass bangle into modern art. She covers the form with ultralight, sculpts it with a surprising jag, then paints and distresses it. Her work encourages you to look carefully and breathe deeply which is just what we need.

Here’s her Etsy shop, her site, her Craftcast class and her Artful Home profile.

Read Kopila’s comment on yesterday’s blog post to keep up with the Nepal news.

Nailed it

The bangle at the right could have been clipped out of a Paul Klee painting. France’s Agnes (Primatoide) calls it her Ancient Assyrian Ceramic Cuff which is made of polymer, inks and paint.

But I bet Paul Klee didn’t make nail art to match his paintings!

Agnes takes her nail art seriously and moves it to a whole new level. She was inspired by Claire Wallis’ caned nails. Now Agnes often creates companion polymer nail art for her jewelry.

Even if nail art doesn’t suit your fashion sense, you may find her methods and concepts fascinating. See more of her rough, ancient polymer on Flickr.

Polymer tropical breezes

Jeff Dever is premiering new pieces that blow in on tropic breezes. These gems are for the BIJOUX! 2015 in West Palm Beach, Florida. It’s the fourth annual exhibition and sale of The Norton Museum of Art. The earrings and bangle shown here are part of Jeff’s offerings.

Forty-four international contemporary jewelry artists were invited to the event which runs from February 25 to March 1.

See the rest of Jeff’s new work on his Facebook page and catch his We Are SNAG: Identity entries on the Society of North American Goldsmiths’ site.

Evolving bangles

Two flat sculpted bangles caught my eye. Similar designs with very different treatments.

The first is from Pennsylvania’s Staci Smith (stacilouiseoriginals). She’s happy to be back to polymer after nursing a sore shoulder. “This was one of those things I couldn’t stop sketching or thinking about. It’s a practice bracelet.”

She shares some in-process shots on her blog and Facebook. She’s also published articles in the latest issues of Belle Armoire and ClothPaperScissors.

The second was from Czech Republic’s Eva Haskova who wrapped extruded elements into a shape that looks like the structure of a chemical element with random holes and connected particles. You can see more of her stylish discoveries on her site, Flickr and Facebook. Here’s her quick free video too.

These concepts made me want to revisit the extruded flat heart I played with a few years back. The flat bangle evolution continues.

Encrusted and enlightened

Ann Dillon was captivated by Jana Roberts Benzon’s Encrusted workshop last October. “I didn’t want to do quite the same thing,” Ann explains. “I like matte more than shiny. I’m not into Swarovski crystals. I had been hankering to make some of the rough-edged spirals I’d seen online.”

Ann’s Encrusted works have a woven fiber appearance. “I can’t seem to stop making them!” she admits. See more of Ann’s interpretations on Pinterest and Facebook.

Meanwhile Jana has moved in her own new directions.

The bangle below is her wearable coral reef – complete with barnacles. In another piece she makes polymer look felted, then wrapped (see her Rapt class at Cabin Fever). Techniques are tools that can be used to express very different concepts.

Mixed media melange

There’s nothing like reading about snowy Vermont to get you primed for the season–unless it’s an article about Celie Fago in snowy Vermont.

The online issue of Woodstock Magazine is free. Flip to page 54 and you’ll see Celie in her studio teaching a class how to make one of her polymer bangles that’s loaded with rings of stone and beaded wires.

The bracelet jangles with a collection of circles made from precious metal clays.

Celie mixes her media and I cheer when I find polymer holding its own in her rich melange of metals, beads and found objects. Browse her Etsy store, her blog and her Facebook page.

From painting to polymer

When I first saw the lovely paintings of Indian women by Rachana Saurabh, I thought, “This artist needs to try polymer, she’d be a natural.” It was easy to imagine her graphic style and her skill with color transitioned to clay.

Two years later, Rachana wrote from Baltimore where she now lives and indeed, she had found polymer.

Rachana quickly learned the craft and tried any number of techniques. She gravitated to appliquing bright bits of clay onto beads. Her designs take on a distinctly Indian textile flavor to which she adds bunches of dangling sparkles. These earrings are from her Festive collection.

On her latest bangle, Krishna and Peacock Feathers, Rachana introduced the ladies from her paintings to her jewelry. She says she tried face canes but couldn’t get the hang of reducing. These faces are sculpted and painted on the wide blue bangle. The Indian dieties’ favorite peacocks, cows, trees and lotus circle the piece.

Rachana’s story is full of exotic imagery and happy coincidences. Watch her on Facebook, Flickr and Etsy as well as her blog to see what she develops next.

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