This polymer look into the future is more positive and inspiring. New York’s Lauren (Maedbymini) has deployed all the colorful liquids and powders in her studio for this slab – inks, paints, sparkles and glows.
She’s anxious to whip up an other-worldly collection of earrings for the new year.
Lauren’s first baby is due any day so it’s no wonder that her current perspective is cosmic!
There are all sorts of “wowser” weekend posts out there but I’m stuck on the earring explorations from UK’s Rebecca Thickbroom.
She takes the football shape (or is a leaf shape a more accurate description) and combines with squares, circles, rectangles to arrive at a whole collection of earrings.
The finishes are scuffed and scratched. The colors are muted. Rebecca’s playing around makes me realize how I miss doing that.
Those of us stuck in isolation are wistful about how she enjoyed a weekend in-person, socially-distanced show (oldspitalfieldsmarket). It looks almost unreal. Here’s hoping that we can all experience that again soon.
Polymer’s finest champion, Elise Winters died on New Years Day after a long struggle with cancer.
While we absorb the sadness of her passing, it may be comforting to read How Polymer Hit the Big Time, the story written by Monica Moses about Elise in American Craft Magazine’s October/November 2011 issue.
It begins, “In the 1990s, Elise Winters became convinced polymer artists weren’t getting the money or respect they deserved. “The whole field needed to be elevated,” she says. A natural strategist and organizer, Winters set out to make that happen.”
And she did make that happen.
The Racine Art Museum (RAM) was the first to put together a permanent collection of polymer art. Then RAM director Bruce Pepich helped pave the way for smaller chunks of Winters’ collection to go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Newark Museum; the Mingei International Museum in San Diego, and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York.
Elise elevated our craft and artists around the world mourn her loss. Our community will forever be in her debt.
