Fantasy polymer paintings

San Francisco’s Alberto Toscano creates square polymer paintings with a tactile and pictorial quality. His small formats, mostly 5″ to 9″ squares, contain industrial landscapes, fantastic figures, zoomorphic elements, surreal structures and remote scenarios that resonate with past and present.

Layering over foggy, colorful backgrounds, Alberto makes his scenes out of sharp-edged slivers of black and white canes.

Peggy Carlan and Carolyn Bond sent me the link to Alberto and I remembered having bought similar designs at the Flying Shuttle in Seattle. Turns out those items come from Raw Art which was founded by Laura Blaconá and Alberto in 1994. They have been producing a line of functional art pieces since then.

Meanwhile Alberto’s paintings have appeared in numerous southwest galleries and shows. You can piece together the story from his site, blog and Facebook sites. You’ll find Raw Art on Facebook.

Painting by the slice

Turkey’s Alev Gozonar piled thousands of polymer slices into Garbage, this 4′ x 5′ collage on canvas. Alev’s pointellist style has evolved into larger, more dense, colorful and dimensional images. On her most recent canvas, Alev amassed over 9,000 pieces.

Watching these images grow (see Instagram and Facebook) adds to the fascination. Zoom in close and you’ll see how she paints, building color with precise and varied cane patterns.

Big gestures

Jill Palumbo’s big beads have an unselfconscious flair that’s part tribal, part fashion flash.

The layers and layers of pattern on these big beads have an appealing gestural quality as if she confidently shrugged her shoulders and flung on color. The fuzzy fiber cords fit right in with her “more-is-more” attitude.

If you’ve ever tried collaging with abandon, you know what a trick it is to tread the line between just right and too much.

Jill often finds inspiration in art challenges and does some of her best pieces when she’s reinterpreting great works of art. Here are her Pinterest and Flickr pages.

Druzy doozie

If you need a little sparkle on Thanksgiving, check out Barb Jarman’s polymer and druzy media mixes. Druzy is the name used for the natural crystals that form on other rocks.This pairing with polymer may give you lots of ideas.

Barbara comes from a painting and mixed media background which is reflected in her pendants that look like small wearable canvases. Carol Dresben was inspired by a class she took from Barbara in California and sent us the link.

I’m thankful for you readers who send in links. You make my job easier and widen our circle of artists and friends. Pausing to appreciate what you have? Here’s a list of 60 things to get you started.

Fractured polymer geometry

Missouri’s Dawn Stubitsch has started mixing her media in a new jewelry series that combines polymer with metal clay.

Dawn has been known for her super realistic polymer cake toppers and her tame and tidy graphic pendants. These recent energetic combinations of patterns, layers and materials represent a new direction.

Look more closely at Dawn’s work on her Facebook page, her website, and her Etsy shop. Libby Mills, who just finished a metal clay workshop with Celie Fago, brought the Dawn’s new geometry to our attention.

Polymer bail beauty

Zuzana, from the Czech Republic canes and collages pendants in an increasingly interesting way. The thin buna cord accents running through the polymer bail on the top of this pendant fit right in with the rest of the design.

She nicely attributes her designs to her teachers and then takes flight on her own as you can see from her Flickr photos.

I’ve taken flight too. Checking in from the road and back home soon.

Listening to polymer

Minnesota’s Jan Geisen calls herself an improv artist. “I just capture what the art piece I am working on tells me it wants to be,” she says. She comes to polymer after years working with photography and silkscreen.
Jan tried caning but had more fun collaging the scraps and followed her instincts.

If you find yourself isolated and far from other artists, read how Jan reserves her Tuesday nights for a Skype date when she works and chats with a polymer artist who lives 600 miles away.

See the results in Jan’s Flickr site and her Etsy shop which is full of her collages and tutorials.

Polymer shisha

Pieces of the PCDaily blog started moving themselves around unpredictably yesterday. And I started chasing them in the code (not my strong suit).

I threw up my hands in dismay and decided to focus on something positive like the brand new Etsy shop put up by the ladies in Birtamod, Nepal (with a big expert assist from Genevieve Williamson).

Look at those colors! Read Wendy Moore’s warm, wild commentary! I am so proud. Please go buy! Click a like or a favorite. It’s all good. The money goes directly to the project that you can read about here.

Miracle of miracles, the blog reshuffled itself back into place. “No, you did-dent,” I yelled at the computer and it smiled back. We seem to be on the mend! Thanks for your patience.

Lam’s lovelies

These bangles from Loretta Lam were heaped in a beautiful pile on a table. Loretta’s another artist who’s so busy that she doesn’t often update her web photos and this is our chance to get an update.

While she remains true to her signature patterns and muted palette, lately Loretta’s been applying the polymer pieces to sleek and dramatic bangle forms in a collage style. The finish is as smooth as the design.

Round five

Dayle Doroshow’s Rounds are playful accumulations of layers and cane slices and they remind me of the playtimes that Dayle and I have had together. These pieces began as companion pins for her fabric collages.

She added center pieces but abandoned that idea when someone said they resembled breasts. She set the work aside.

Over time the designs were revived with more slices and fiddling. They seemed to play nicely with each other. Notice the stamped scrap beads she uses as spacers in the resulting necklace.

Dayle practices what she preaches in our Creative Sparks book (now available as a download). She shares many tricks for stalking your muse and for teasing each project to a happy conclusion.

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