Polymer Clay Daily

Wilder declares independence

Wire-wrapping has been on my radar all week. Here’s one more in Dee Wilder’s (Malodora) Butterfly Wings polymer clay bracelet – a riot of colors, beads and wire combined into a noisy, noticeable bracelet.

Dee credits a workshop with multimedia artist Mary Hettmansperger and a tutorial from Deryn Mentock for leading her to wire work. Dee’s sites show a wealth of dramatic works that range in tone from exhuberant excess to careful extruded and turned shapes to constrained micromosaics.

In an Etsy interview Dee explains that, “I feel for the first time that I have reached a level of competence where I can control my materials. I’m not just trying to duplicate techniques and processes. I’ve never [before] stayed with a medium long enough for that to happen. I am able to visualize a finished piece and execute my vision. That might not mean much to most crafters and artists, but to me it is a giant breakthrough.”

Enjoy Dee’s shower of colors like the Independence Day fireworks we’ll see this weekend!

Birnco’s riot of color

I’d love to sit down and try some of the beads that Belinda (birnco) has been working on during her first year with polymer clay. The technique looks simple (an extrusion/mokume gane combination) and the effect is stunning.

She’s got a great sense of color that makes the end result luminous, improving as she’s progressed through the year. This riot of color is a good way to start the week.

My daughter’s here to visit and help with Thanksgiving festivities. Maybe we can sneak a couple of hours off to play in the studio like we used to.

Note: Carol Simmons gives a few more clues about reducing her cane with help from the microwave. Scroll way down in the comments on her post and you’ll see her response.

Odell’s gift; Winters’ golden information

This polymer clay hostess gift from Maryland’s Mari Odell to Taz Chaudry has a lovely story. Mari pressed transluscent faux jade into antique Japanese sweet mold fragments to create the centerpiece of the necklace. The side beads are a combination of extruded polymer, serpentine jade and antique brass.

Mari taught high school art in Maryland and Taz was her student. Twenty-five years later Taz contacted Mari to thank her for that high school inspiration and Taz, now in Colorado, hosted Mari on her visit. And once again Mari had an opportunity to teach Taz art, this time polymer clay.

Golden Information

Elise Winters passes along this interesting link about gold that gives us more support as we polymer clay artists struggle to defend our medium. The article reports that:

The ecologic, economic, social, and political price of gold is far costlier than we imagine. We are in the midst of a new gold rush, one that is consuming wilderness areas, contaminating watersheds, destroying ecosystems, and imperiling the economics of poor nations and the well being of indigenous people throughout the world. Some cumulative, irreparable consequences of mining will be with us, in this country and around the world, forever.

This new gold rush is the result of a converging complexity of circumstances on a global scale, including:

  1. The development of highly effective and extremely toxic methods of gold extraction,
  2. A continual rise in worldwide demand for gold,
  3. The demise of gold as global monetary standard,
  4. The continued withholding of enormous stockpiles of gold in the vaults of national banks, and
  5. Huge, multinational corporations very eager to cash in.