Janine Müller’s pictures from her October masterclass with Sandra McCaw in Germany show more astonishing student work. Sandra is leaving a trail of polymer flowers in a wide range of colors all over the UK and Europe. The work looks more precise in each class. (Here are earlier 2010 class pix from UK and France.) Next comes Switzerland!
France’s MissTyc (Nathalie) prepares for winter with a seasonal palette of companion canes in reds, black and golds and in her signature crisp clean cane patterns and textures.
The necklace at the right was the result of Nathalie’s cleaning up her work space. Fed up with too much scrap clay, she gathered up the bits and forced them into a cheery necklace. It’s nice when that works.
As she gears up for the EuroClay Carnival in Madrid on October 9-12, Natalia Garcia de Leaniz has unveiled this chunky, dimensional scooped-out bracelet.
It’s a companion to the folded beads that she’ll be teaching in Madrid.
Natalia’s Flickr pages are filled with snapshots of ideas and processes that she’s developed and played with. It’s like a workshop – but without the beauty of Madrid and the warmth of friends (sigh).
Wanda Shum is only inspired to create one or two polymer-covered teapots a year. This year’s Space Girls theme was prompted by the Jetson-like shape of the pot. The best view of the rest of her line of jewelry and accessories is found on her Facebook page (it’s public).
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If you click on these images, you’ll see the smooth, flawless finish on Wanda’s intricate collage of canes and textures.
She provides inspiration to rocket us into a new week.
Polymer beads that could be dismissed as hippie beads become ethnic treasures when they’re masterfully strung by Thailand’s Aow Dusdee.
Aow’s world travels have given her a keen eye for ethnic traditions. She combines fiber and polymer with metal and stone beads to create modern tribal pieces.
Photos of her living spaces show how she incorporates polymer in her distinctive decor. It’s all so Eat, Pray, Love, isn’t it?
Jon Anderson lives and works in Bali. His distinctive animal sculptures, densely covered with rich polymer cane patterns, have for years been found in galleries across the US.
Now Anderson has branched out, covering custom electric guitars with polymer for Hand Guitars. Hear him talk about his 50-pound, 12-foot canes in this video (at the top of the column at right) taken at a trade show in Nashville. The guitars range from $1800 to $6000. Here are more pictures and videos of the new venture.
I’ve returned to the midwest with a head full of ideas and a suitcase full of dirty laundry. I’ll be unpacking both this week.
One of my guilty pleasures at retreats is taking pictures of artists’ workspaces when they’ve left them for the night.
The tools and the piles of projects in process give a glimpse into how an artist works. Piles of scrap and dissarray are as intriguing as the tidiest table.
My favorite items are the personalized tools. Maybe it says something about how the artist values his or her skill, taking time to decorate a humble tool.
Kim Korringa’s work surface was littered with petal canes last night. Because she often wraps canes with Jones Tone foils, they pile up without sticking to each other.
The canes were surrounded by experiments and evidence that she was having a good time, like a littered kitchen after a particularly good party.
Jonathan Callan is a UK sculptor who mostly works with books and paper. While there’s no polymer clay here (and PCD rarely strays from polymer artists), I’m hoping that you’ll appreciate Callan’s cane brain. His “canes” are made from books and they’re simply fascinating. Could he have been influenced by polymer clay?
New ideas are flooding in from fellow artists here in Colorado. I have some lovelies to share with you tomorrow. For now, it’s back to my worktable. Today’s link came from my darling daughter.
Julie Eakes is pushing the boundaries of extrusion-based mosaics again. This time she used a looser palette and a more stylized image as her starting point. Would the image still be discernable?
This is the small version of the finished cane. I’m partial to the dimensional original cane. Mixing the palette for one of these works is an arduous dance between Photoshop and the pasta machine. She created 2,000 color samples on the computer to arrive at her last palette. No small feat! Read her story here.
The cable guy appeared and we’re back in business. Heaven!
One look at Amy Wallace’s polymer chevron beads makes me want to try chevron canes again. The bright colors give them a happy, ethnic, graphic look that’s very much in vogue.
Amy has shut down her old Ovenfried site and the “stacker” bead tutorial that she popularized has vanished (sigh). She’s opened a new blog and Etsy sites. On her Flickr page her megastackers and snakeskin beads show off the newest twist on her old stacker technique.
