This tag necklace from Baltimore’s Linda Loew is full of surprises. The dark gold polymer links are stamped, painted and textured in a dark and rough urban grunge style accented with red.
The pieces are thinner than you’d expect and slightly curved during curing. Each is individually shaped.
Take a look around and you’ll see more polymer artists switching up their connections and experimenting with wires and tailor-made findings. Virginia’s Wiwat Kamolpornwijit makes wire a feature along with his metallic polymer shapes.
Wiwat’s background in environmental research shines through in many of his pieces. Here in an ACC Baltimore piece he flips his focus, highlighting the connectors that hold the curved polymer segments together.
Croatia’s Nikolina Otrzan stretches out a roughly textured tube and captures it with two polymer findings that hold the bar in place. Just look at how Nik stacks, cuts and connects her jewelry with an urban, industrial edge.
Here’s her new site with lots of tutorials that detail her methods.
These polymer pieces (and yesterday’s) speak more and boldly with an eye on construction and craftsmanship.
Bonnie Bishoff coiled loops of tigertail (nylon coated wire) and embedded part of each coil in striped half-circles of polymer to make this light, bouncy necklace. It can be doubled into a short curly version.
Assembling it must have been tricky since the necklace would have to be constructed first and then baked. The wire adds to the graphic quality of the design. There’s another example on Bonnie’s Pinterest site.
This was Bonnie’s response to one of the Creators Art Challenges that’s traveling around online. See more of her challenge creations on Facebook and follow Bonnie on her site.
A trip to a local quilt festival prompted Vermont’s Mags Bonham to go all rainbow. The colored paperclips used as findings take her Skinner blended swirls a step farther. The resulting Love Wins earrings make for a simple and striking project.
Natalia Garcia de Leaniz is one clever and efficient artist. Look closely here and you’ll see that she built these polymer earrings right onto the findings. Her method is perfect for those of us who have trouble assembling and finishing earrings.
She filled the earwire’s bezel with clay and textured it then wrapped slim strips over the background clay and the bezel. She tops her construction with a small bowl shape with a bright shiny interior. Bake and wear!
This blog post from polymer newbie Kimberly Rogers about bad days and new beginnings may make you smile.
She’s an Alaskan lampwork and mixed media artist who easily transitioned to polymer when she bought Ginger Allman’s tutorial on rustic beads.
Kimberly used the red, white and blue polymer that she had on hand and diguised the color with paints following Ginger’s instructions. And then she danced!
Washington’s Dede Leupold hammers leftover bits of silver into soft shapes that harmonize with her canes for an elegant effect and easy assembly. Baked into the clay the silver also provides a sturdy finding.
Dede gravitates to canework and she has come up with a folding mirror to carry in your toolbox so that you can accurately predict how a pattern repeats. It’s a handy device to have when you’re building a cane that’s full of confusing color and geometry. Enjoy Dede’s spring colors on Facebook and in an Etsy shop for jewelry and one for buttons.
I’m cobbling together a post from your emails since I’m on vacation and laptop time is limited.
In response to yesterday’s post, Patty Barnes describes how she makes her Kemper cutters organized and portable.
“Since I have many sets of Kemper cutters and I like to take them to classes and meetings, I used a metal tin to hold them.
I pressed scrap clay inside the bottom of the tin so that it was about ½” thick. I cut out each shape with the cutters and baked the entire tin. Coating the cutters with cornstarch or ArmorAll and leaving the cutters in place during the baking helps. Polymer clay shrinks a tiny amount and leaving the cutters in place during baking makes for a better fit.”
Art Jewelry Magazine has two articles about Melanie West in their current issue. One is a look at Melanie’s solar-powered home and studio. The other is a tutorial on bonding seamless polymer over aluminum cuff armatures.
Wisconsin’s Laura Timmins put polymer clay on the cover of Key Milwaukee magazine. Laura makes her own cord and carefully crafts all the findings and beads in her asian-looking designs. You’ll love the look at her process. She uses a no-nonsense approach to marketing and selling polymer clay that works.
This magazine article promotes the Hidden River Art Festival at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts held September 19-21.
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Thanks for all your good wishes. We’re fine and without power for another few days. I will continue to visit my sister nearby for showers and internet. I’m slowly catching up on my email and research and I appreciate your patience.
Look at the newest commissions that Alev Gozonar has created for a Turkish hotel using polymer clay cane slices. Her 20″ square sculptural pieces create patterns from fields of slices and remind us that those pretty little designs can be used to make bigger, bolder statements.
Gail Froula McIntyre is displaying her cane work on a new website. I’m loving the innovative use of those fancy circular paperclips as a finding (at least that’s what I’m guessing they are). The link to the new site is from Barbara Fajardo who knows her way around canes too.
