To polymer artists, there’s nothing more appealing than a neat pile of coordinated canes. Show us the resulting bouquet of flowers and you’ve got our attention. These lovelies are from Madrid’s Fabi (fperezajates).
A few minutes on her Flickr site will reveal how she’s combined polymer with felt, crochet, books and wood. She even shares a mini-tutorial about turning a nail brush into a letter holder.
I admire Fabi’s experimentation with household items and decorative accessories.
Madrid’s Silvia Ortiz de la Torre is fascinated with shifting colors and patterns, from soap film to fractals. A look at her Flickr page shows you how she translates this fascination into polymer patterns. Polymer was made for artists like Silvia.
I’m mesmerized by these recent pieces. I can’t tell if they’re made from extruded blends or hand-built canes. The colors pop and the patterns play nicely with each other.
Friday Giveaway
My daughter’s visiting and she’s making me tidy my library. The brand new Art of Metal Clay, a beautiful revised and expanded book from Sherri Haab comes complete with a project DVD.
While there are several polymer and mixed media artists in it, this book deserves a good home with a metal clay artist. If metal clay rings your chimes, leave a comment and my daughter will draw a name on Monday. Have a lucky weekend.
Perhaps a little black and white polymer from Maria Psaltis will cool off our hot summer. Maria is from Australia where it’s winter.
She does a cool rendition of Ronna Sarvas Weltman’s Ancient Modern rings and then pairs them with her more complex Persian Rug canes for building bangles. See more of her ethnic influences on her Flickr pages. (Ronna has two new DVDs just out.)
Shopping update
Thanks to Kim Korringa, Brenda Urquhart and Jeanette Walters for reporting back about their shopping at the Grove and Grove sidewalk sale. Enjoy shopping vicariously by reading their stories here.
Not every holiday polymer piece has to be stars and stripes. Lori Wilkes canes with crisp blue and white and adds red accents for a summery set of bracelets.
There’s something challenging about a flag cane that Sarahb4 couldn’t resist.
On her Flickr page she shows how she used a star cutter to start the process. She fashions the results into a variety of playful patriotic holiday baubles.
Early polymer pioneers, Michael and Ruth Anne Grove, left the business several years ago and are selling the last of their work this July 3 in California.
Michael explains that, “Ruth Anne and I are finally dealing with all of our past canes – thousands of them – and some of our old work. We are planning a sale at our home in 2510 Russell Street, Berkeley, CA on Saturday July 3. The canes for sale include faces, variegated, colorful patterns and black and white. These are canes which were the collage elements from which we made the majority of our work.”
The couple perfected the pre-Skinnner “step blend” and created magnificent complex canes and jewelry. Not familiar with the works of these polymer pioneers? You can read up here and here and find them in many books.
He says of those early days, “Since there were so few people working in the medium, it was wide open for play. I think that play is what still draws people to it. The techniques have been developed and refined and a new palette of them added since we played with it. But playing is what brings people into polymer and the pleasure and surprise of what they create keeps them there. Ruth Anne and I enjoyed the ride of being working artists in that medium. And we are delighted that it has continued to grow!”
Dede Leupold gives me a vicarious thrill on a day when I can’t get to my own studio. She posted pictures from her process in creating a masterful kaleidoscope cane on Facebook.
It takes thought and planning to achieve such delicate shading and color combinations that sing. Here are earlier looks (1 and 2) at Dede’s work and the jewelry made from her canes on her Esty site.
Lynne Ann Schwarzenberg, winner of the Bead Dreams 2010 top prize, sent in a picture of her winning entry. Lynne layers floral cane slices over filigree to achieve her “Beautiful Baroque” effect. You can see more recent examples of filigree work on her Facebook photo page.
As Lynne tells it, “I discovered polymer clay in college, when a friend brought over a sampler pack of clay and wanted to make beads to sell as she traveled the country following her favorite band, the Grateful Dead. We made beads together that afternoon, and she left the clay at my apartment when she left on her trip. I was immediately taken by this wonderful, colorful substance, and it’s been a love affair ever since.” Have a lovely weekend.
I’m mesmerized by landscape polymer artists like Jayne Dwyer of Maine. I went in search of more of Jayne’s Paper Moon jewelry and found a bit here and here and on Facebook.
She doesn’t make it easy to feature her work but I couldn’t resist.
This Maine Coon Cat was made from her recycled gray clay.
Jayne’s scenes will put old-time caners in mind of Mike Buessler. Slices of these vista canes stand on their own, no embellishment necessary.
Thanks
All blessings and good wishes have been gratefully received. We said goodbye to an elderly family member, patched up a young one with a successful surgery and are doing our best to look after a dear friend. I’m back in service.
When I asked extruder extraordinaire Meisha Barbee what kind of extruder setup she had, she admitted that her equipment was nothing special. She works in small batches and spends more time selecting colors and building a pattern library of small canes than she spends in extruding.
With her variety of components built, Meisha gets down to the business of composing, balancing, building the elements into finished pieces. It’s a good lesson in planning and prioritizing to start our week.
If yesterday’s polymer petals started you thinking, you’ll want to study Marina Lombardi’s version of flower buds as well.
Her approach is more lyrical and less graphic than Kim Korringa’s. You can see that both artists (Kim in California and Marina in Rome) were inspired by the beauty dripping from hanging pots at this time of year.
Marina’s polymer roses woven on wire with crystals and seed beads creates a wearable garden.
