Emily Squires Levine pushes what a polymer bowl can do with her recent work. Lots of open work and tendrils on this example from the Philadelphia Area Polymer Clay Guild site (there’s an even closer shot here).
Emily uses the extruder to reduce her canes! She taught her method to the PAPCG in February and you can see her basic steps here.
Russia’s Maria Belkomor finishes our week of textures with her faux knitted polymer in soft colors. She sands the tops of her knitted circles (made from extruded strings) to unearth more colors, a sort of knitted mokume technique. The beads look like scraps salvaged from a faded favorite sweater.
Maria shares how she added bails to the backs of the beads and strung them on a suede cord with a button closure. The rustic closure adds to the easy, laid-back comfort of the piece. Have an easy weekend!
These beads are from Mari O’Dell’s Deep Textures workshop that she holds in her treehouse in Annapolis, Maryland. She has a distinctive way with textures. Mari’s a whiz with extrusions and she has a real love of Asian designs.
While you can find some small pictures and lots of descriptions on her website, the place to find her most recent work is on Facebook. Look in on her classes, check out her latest extrusion patterns and see samples of her cake decorating there. Be sure to check out how Mari adds buttons to flipflop sandals to improve their fashion statement.
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| Ariane Friesleben | Angela Hickey | Jan Montarsi |
Go on a little egg hunt with me today. First I bumped into Angela Hickey’s flower-covered eggs (one chicken, one quail). Hers is a traditional approach straight from her garden of flower canes.
Ariane Friesleben camoflaged her eggs with Swelligant patinas to make them look like precious metallic treasures. She offers a carved faux ivory version as well.
This Jan Montarsi egg was hiding in his Flickr gallery. His palette includes pearl clays and pinata inks (here’s the tutorial) in the mix which makes the extruded strings glow.
All of this led me back to the PolymerArtArchives and one of my all-time favorite eggs from a 1991 series by Ford and Forlano (then City Zen Cane). You can still find echoes of David and Steven’s bright graphic roots in their current work.
Even Martha Stewart was in on the hunt this year. Yep, here’s the video that shows Martha trying her hand at polymer.
My suitcase sits by the washer mounded with dirty laundry and my husband forlornly admits that he’s eaten all the pot pies in the freezer. I’ve been on the road too long and must attend to the homefront today so I’ll make the Synergy wrap-up brief.
The two presentations that Judy Belcher and I gave at the conference (How to How to and The View from Higher Ground) are available. Keynote speaker Harriete Estell Berman has posted the handout listing references from her speech, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly in the Age of the Internet. Her talk evaluates the good of the Internet, some bad trends, and a few ugly behaviors that threaten the healthy growth of crafts.You can follow Harriete’s entire slideshow here. Other presentations will soon be up on the IPCA site.
I am most grateful that I did not catch the cold that ran rampant through the stressed and sleepless crowd. This snapshot shows the pile of therapies on my Georgia friends’ kitchen counter. Thanks to the IPCA committees that soldiered through sniffles and snafus to bring us Synergy3.
Heartfelt thanks to all of you who donated your money and good wishes to the Samunnat building project for the ladies in Nepal. By the end of Synergy you had exceeded the goal. We’ll follow along as Samunnat realizes the dream and I’ll share pictures right here as the building goes up. We are over the moon with gratitude and the ladies are astonished at the generosity of their friends a world away. Thank you, thank you.
This black and white necklace from the UK’s Angela Garrod was in the Synergy gallery and I couldn’t get the idea of its extrusion-wrapped cones out of my head so I’ll leave it with you this weekend.
Tatiana Begacheva of Russia admits that this Rainbow bangle made of extruded cane bits became quite heavy on her slender arm. Still, the construction is fun.
If I’m reading the translation right, she sandwiched memory wire between the layers to give the piece more strength.
She’s got some great ideas. Go browse through them while I pack for Synergy where I hope to find another rainbow of ideas to bring you.
Katie Way brings us a whole bunch of very cool textured polymer hearts for our Friday enjoyment. Katie’s Bull’s Eye Studio shares studio spaces and gallery/classroom area at Upstairs Studio in downtown Anchorage, Alaska.
If you want a hit of happy color or a reason to dust off your extruder, check out the header on her Facebook page. (Here’s the image for the non-FB crowd.)
One more sweet little non-caloric treat to make it a lovely weekend – a freebie heart tutorial from Meg Newberg.
I’m out of town and out of time so I’ll lean on Ford and Forlano to bring you some Monday cheer with their Squiggle necklace from this season’s Artful Home catalog (always a sure thing for serious browsing time).
Wrap it, tie it, knot it! This polymer necklace can be twisted into lots of configurations.
Thanks for letting me play for another day. Happy New Year!
Louise Smith’s Swanwalk cane marries Bettina Welker’s extruded retro cane with Alice Stroppel’s scrap idea. The resulting combination cane looks organic and like snakeskin.
Louise takes a chunk of scrap ho-hum cane, reduces it to a diameter that fits the extruder, and tops it off with two chunks of contrasting plain colored polymer. The resulting long extruded snakes are combined Bettina-retro-style. It’s all documented on Louise’s Flickr site. Getting your head around the concept is a good exercise to start the week.
And while you’re getting acquainted with Louise, be sure to look at her Facebook page which is filled with even more eye candy. Thanks to Perrie May for the new link.
Russia’s Tanya Mayorova applies slices of extruded cane with layer overlapping colorful layer to create a bangle that is rough with color and texture. The design circles around one small stone.
As you flip through her Flickr pictures you’ll see that this denseness and a preference for jewel tones combine to make Tanya’s signature style.
Polymer is well-suited to this pastiche approach. Look at how Joan Israel has applied canes onto bottles to achieve a similar dark, rich texturing. Here’s Joan’s latest work.
Don’t feel bad about not winning this week’s lottery, you can sign up for the CraftArtEdu Sweepstakes! The odds are better (20 chances to win), the prizes are great and your ticket doesn’t cost a cent.
