New Mexico’s Barb Fajardo rolled out a new series of Controlled Chaos pendants that combine a smorgasbord of techniques. She shows off a mix of work in her recent posts on Facebook, Flickr, Pinterest and Instagram.
Her inundation of new pieces feels like the grand finale at the fireworks. It’s exciting and leaves us wondering, “Is there more?”
The southwest colors and simple shapes play a big part in the success of the pieces. Studio chaos is sometimes a good thing.
Italy’s Chiara Curreli (Duecentogrammi) stacks two circles of extruded slices, one on each side of her ear. (Silicon earring stoppers can be built into polymer and baked in the oven.)
Chiara knows how to play and if you’re looking for hot, bright colors and carefree summer designs, soak up the sun on her Instagram site.
Take a little Italian attitude into your studio today.
This pendant from Florence Minne-Khou (creationmyway) resembles the patriotic bunting that’s festooned around my neighborhood. It’s not likely that a U.S. holiday was her inspiration since Florence is French but still…
She swoops extruded flat ribbons of polymer from one side of a wire to the other, using holographic beads to hold everything in place and to add accent.
Shape-shifter designs have been jumping out at me (this one’s a year old) so we’ll declare that our theme. If you wander through her Pinterest page, you’ll see what speaks to Florence as she plays with shape. Admire more on Facebook.
You may not usually envision denim with ruffles but Russia’s Anna Bragina combines these two concepts quite nicely in her new Denim polymer bangle.
The rough-edged pieces (I’m guessing some extrusion was involved) stack up tightly next to each other in a rich selection of blues. Some strips fold back and forth to form ruffles. The contrast of tight/loose, rough/ruffled, makes me start thinking about how I could build an outfit around this. And getting the viewer/customer involved is what our art is all about, isn’t it?
See more of Anna’s solid and sophisticated pieces on Flickr and on Facebook.
Just when you think you know where Milan’s Alessia Bodini is headed with her extrusions, she swoops in a different direction. On this blue necklace, she flattens an extrusion into a ribbon, loops it over and over, adds her own marks and threads it onto a choker.
She extrudes graduated purple polymer and joins lengths of the resulting triangles into a square pendant that teases the eye. It’s as if Alessia simply has to put her own quirky stamp on each design.
Few things can make a polymer artist more jealous than someone else’s neat stash of luscious canes. Libby Mills adds heaps of vision, skill and focus into one tidy box of blues group canes.
Then she shows us her next step, slices assembled into a sheet of veneer with some solid colors plus black and white stripes added to balance the mix.
She says beads are next but this is plenty for my eyes to absorb for now. To see where the blues take Libby, check Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
As we approach our usual end-of-year studio pare down and purge period, we might take a hint from Spain’s Tanya Mayorova and bury our beads!
Tanya doodles with extruded strips of clay set on edge. Stacked against each other, the strips dip and bend and wind around an assortment of beads and baubles. They change color as they move along. The effect is like water flowing past pebbles in a stream.
Do you have some beads you love and can’t let go of? This collage of treasures might be just the thing. Look closely at Tanya’s methods on Etsy, Flickr, and Facebook (and in prior PCD features).
In this season of ribbons and bows, Sharyn Neuwirth (NewEarthCraftWorks) demonstrates how you can shape ribbons of polymer. I’d guess the strips are extruded and dusted with metallics.
This Washington, D.C. artist bypasses social media pretty successfully but she offers quite a selection of variations on the ribbon theme on her Flickr pages.
France’s Irene Hoiles keeps a low profile online. The snippets and clues she leaves on Facebook and Pinterest point to someone who knows how to persist until she finds a solution.
About the earrings at the left Irene says, “When you’re not Julie Picarello and your mokume gane doesn’t go quite as you planned…dot it.”
Consider how those dots salvage the pattern and take it in a new direction. Sort of aboriginal.
Fine extruded strings wind around to make dramatic caps for Irene’s mokume gane beads at right. They needed another element for drama.
What a good way to start the week. Let’s channel Irene’s no-fail approach to her polymer designs. What’s on your work surface that needs a little TLC to make it sing?
Ron Lehocky just hit the 30,000 heart mark in his campaign to raise money for Kentucky Kids Center. He’ll continue to make hearts as he begins teaching CPR.
Not that CPR! His first class is called Come Play with Ron, May 22-24 at Creative Journey Studios in Georgia.
Dr. Ron is easing up on his medical hours and he’s beginning to share some of the finer points that working with polymer day in and day out taught him.
He’s perfected Roney Gane, the Easy Peasy Cane and developed clever ways to recycle canes and enliven surfaces. Ron explains more on this short video. He’s donating the 30,000th heart to Creative Journey Studios’ polymer history collection.
Each month I upload all the PCD photos to my Flickr gallery. April’s features were particularly photogenic. Have a look.
