Vancouver’s Joan Tayler makes butterflies that will bring help when you need it. Her slim black polymer whistles are given wings and used as pendants or zipper pulls.
Blow on the bottom and help will arrive, predators will run away or people will just wonder why you’re making such a fuss.
In any event, they’re fun and great to hang on book bags.
Joan teaches you how to make your own in this tutorial or you can buy a plain whistle and decorate it yourself.
There are easy-breezy polymer approaches with pieces joyfully slap-dashed together. And then there are intense and enthusiastic polymer artists.
Yesterday we had intense miniature cats. Today it’s butterflies.
UK’s Fiona Abel-Smith dives deep to create When I Grow Up a 4 x 16 x 8-inch sculpture. There’s a metaphor embedded in this caned and sculpted piece.
Fiona says, “The little caterpillar doesn’t realize that she will grow into a beautiful moth and is already a stunner in her own right if only she could see herself as we do.”
Fiona documents her progress in videos and photos on Facebook and shows us the intensity required to tell her story.
You probably have some questions about how France’s Cécile Bos (11prunes) creates these delicate canes.
How big are the original canes (these seem impossibly small), what’s her inspiration?
Cecile intends to mix up these canes. The white background surrounding each of them ensures that she can combine the elements into a larger botanical image.
Here’s a previous similar cane to give you an idea where she’s headed. Cecile brings a fabric designer’s sensibility to polymer. We are used to kaleidoscoping and repeating designs. These are complex canes from a different perspective.
Linda Webb’s little 4″ polymer mosaic butterfly, Monarch Migration, won the People’s Choice Award in the Peoria, Illinois ArtPop contest and grew into a 49′ billboard where it will be featured for a year.
The inspiration for this piece came after Linda learned about the Monarch Butterfly Task Force, a local group that educates the public about the rapidly declining numbers of Monarchs. The group plants milkweed and other host plants for pollinators.
“My hope was to create an appealing piece of art that could assist the Task Force’s efforts,” she explains. By giving them the reproduction rights, Linda allows the group to produce bookmarks, cards, t-shirts, posters and other fundraising items.
“The positive feedback I’ve received encourages me to think about more ways I could use my art to help local groups,” she says. Makes you think, doesn’t it?
