“I find beauty in the unbalanced arrangement of elements to create a harmonious mess,” says Singapore’s Cynthia Marizhka. Harmonious, yes. But mess? Not so much.
Marizhka’s asymmetrical compositions are simple and sleek and since her background is in painting, they’re painted!
Look out, her Tumblr is full of a wonderful mix of unusual materials that’s turned into alluring jewelry. Keep your eye on her on Facebook too. The link came to PCD from Cassy Muronaka.
Betsy Baker knows how to deliver sophistication and elegance with her polymer. Her designs are refined, consistent and understated with a hint of rebellion in her textures and surprise in her shapes.
Betsy sells at shows around Boston almost every weekend. Her refined delivery extends to other areas of her business as well.
She moves her booth and her inventory by taxi since she doesn’t drive. And because the meter is running, she packs and loads her display and wares with efficiency and speed. Flip through her Facebook photos to catch of glimpse her setup and her system.
How I envy Betsy’s skills as I pack and sort for a trip out west. Enjoy your weekend!
Cynthia Wolff’s Waiting for My Miracle earrings look as if they’ve been dredged up from the wreckage of an undersea ballroom. Then she adds this tantalizing verse to her Etsy offering:
My efforts sometimes are futile…I am clumsy, I am inefficient…I fail more often than I succeed. But everyday I show up…and hope for a miracle.
These earrings are a cumulation of all my skills thus far. The making of my own beads, certainly a chapter in itself, has changed me once again.
I am not the same…I am moving and evolving….and sometimes I want to quit…because it doesn’t come easy to me…but sometimes.
These earrings sum it all up…two years of work…showing up…they are filled with me.
Though this California artist has been collecting bits and making jewelry for years, Cynthia just picked up polymer in July. Friends around the globe gave her tips and showed her the ropes. See how she’s moved and evolved on her Pinterest board, her blog, and her Etsy shop.
Lorraine Vogel's polymer pendants and earrings glow with graceful shapes and layered colors that make me envious. Look closely and you may spot tricks she's learned from tutorials by Lynda Moseley and Ginger Davis Allman but the stamps, the carving and the colors are distinctly her own. She uses tutorials in the way they were meant to be used, quickly integrating them into her signature style.
A graphic artist from South Florida, Lorraine brings a keen eye for balance and harmony to polymer. She has a couple of Etsy shops and you can find her on Facebook. Her Flickr photos will give you a wider look at her eye-pleasing creations.
Don't miss Margit Bohmer's step-by-step photos of her doodle transfers for some free weekend fun.
The sign on Ruth Ann and Michael Grove’s site says under construction and let’s hope the sign is right. Only Ruth Ann’s pin and necklace galleries are operational.
The California duo were a driving force in polymer in the 80s and 90s and collectors would vie for their pieces. Grove & Grove sold their inventory in 2010 and after a couple years off they’ve hinted that they’d like to try their hands again.
Polymer Art Archive tells the story well in posts about their Flora or Fauna, their big early exhibition pieces and their early, early geometrics. This spectacular necklace is from 1994. Vacation posts from the archives
Judy Dunn’s clever constructions and her polymer folded cranes peace project kept catching my eye as I thumbed through the archives. Her tutorials for making cranes are still on YouTube.
Judy’s life got busy and she was pulled to other pursuits. I sent her a note saying that we miss her fine work and I hope she comes back to polymer. In the meanwhile, we can still learn from the ways she combined and recombined short wormlike shapes into interesting groups for earrings and necklaces.
Vacation posts from the archives
A slice of polymer cane artfully draped over a swinging silver loop makes a particularly breezy summer earring. The pointed elliptical shape reminds us of blooming petals.
Moscow’s Anna Kokareva says she was inspired to make these after looking at Sandra McCaw’s project in the recent Master Class book. Here’s Anna’s Flickr link.
Virginia’s Tina Wujick has an affinity for the Damascus cane and when she took a Skyscraper class with Iris Mishly earlier this year, she saw new possibilities. On Tina’s newest earrings black bisects the cane for added interest.
This week you’ll see snapshots of works in progress as a group of us play here in Virginia. “What if…” is our mantra as we take what we know and turn it on its head.
Tina is also making bright beads with rope edges from her bright pieces of cane as she tries to give her favorite technique her personal signature.
Angeliki Anar has been throwing around polymer colors with exhuberance recently. Here are just a couple of examples of what this Greek artist has been churning out.
On these earrings Angeliki slices flat pieces of color that have been dusted with rainbow flecks (how does she do that) and shapes them into shallow cones. Contrasting edges heighten the color mix further. When she adds a glaze, you’d swear they were ceramic or perhaps enamel.
On the bangles she textures center beads that are captured between black polymer spirals. Take some time to soak up the warmth radiating from her work on Flickr and on her Facebook page. Have a warm, sunny weekend.
A little quiet time in the studio got me thinking about how meditative working with polymer can be. These earrings from None of the Above are a perfect example.
In Daniel Torres’ class at Synergy he explained how repeating patterns like these appeal to us because they are found in nature – Fibonnaci numbers, fractals and such. Anybody have their class notes handy?
None of the Above knows nature’s math and she calculates with perfectly arranged dots of clay. Fascinating and mesmerizing work on Etsy.
Speaking of numbers, tomorrow’s post marks a special one for me. 2000! Maybe that’s why I’ve been contemplative! Whew!
