A fresh approach

Katie Way keeps her 2022 valentines young at heart on PolymerClayDaily.com Gael Keyes' angel bud vase from mixed media scraps #polymerclaydaily https://wp.me/pegT3-7h4 https://rolls.bublup.com/view/a46eeeef-4f90-448a-8b27-4747eddb89a6 cynthiat9.sg-host.com https://polymerclayart.org/events/#page-content https://rolls.bublup.com/view/2b33d0b0-d4a7-4103-9e8c-40d3ecaaa06d Joe Barbaccia Afrodita Sideris warms us up to Valentines Day 2022 #polymerclaydaily https://wp.me/pegT3-7gS Arieta Stavridou's folk earrings want to dance #polymerclaydaily https://wp.me/pegT3-7gQ https://www.instagram.com/reel/CYmlAtBjv0P/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link Joan Tayler's butterflies make noise #polymerclaydaily https://wp.me/pegT3-7gt Arlene.s.harrison325@gmail.com change her email for mojo Enaids World sculpts fantasy creatures #polymerclaydaily https://wp.me/pegT3-7gd

When Katie Way (BullsEyeStudioArt) moved from Alaska to Oklahoma to Texas she had to rethink lots of things. Downsizing, city life, climate change.

It was a natural time to shift her artwork too. This year’s valentines have a distinctly fresh look. Some city vibes, updated shapes, grunge, new colors, links.

These big changes are coming from her tiny home studio. She shares photos that will appeal to the gypsy artist that lives in a little corner of our hearts.

Hey, wanna see how other polymer artists live and work? We’ll poke our noses into messy back rooms and sleek studios in Saturday’s StudioMojo. Wanna peek?

Holiday stress reliever

When you’re simply overwhelmed by holiday and all the hubbub, this little video tutorial from New York’s Cathryn (bluebassoonhandmade) may be just the thing to calm your jangled nerves.

Rolling little balls and then poking them with a dotting tool is the perfect stress reliever. Nothing more satisfying than mindlessly squishing dots.

Make a slab and you have your very own 2021 holiday collection! Cathryn specializes in grungeglam and farmpunk fashions.

Urban vibe

Isabelle Masse creates an Urban Tribe on PolymerClayDaily.com

Montreal’s Isabelle Masse (tribu.urbaine) updates the cameo with these polymer dangles. Or are they coneheads? Very modern either way.

The shop name translates to “Urban Tribe” and she’s true to the name. She mixes her media with care. There’s an appealing grunge about her works.

Her doctor told her that she needed to move to feel better. He was right and she hasn’t stopped.

This week’s StudioMojo delivers a heap of new faces, classes, and ideas. I dig deep so that you can save your fingers for the studio. This week we talk about how your work changes you and why you need to continue. Keep on!

Daring dots

Debbie Crothers takes dots to a new place on PolymerClayDaily.com

Last I talked with Australia’s Debbie Crothers she was going to lay low for a while.

If you check in with her Instagram, you’ll see she’s wasted no time and is coming up with hot new ideas like crazy. “I’ll be running an eight-week course in Geraldton next term so I’ve been busy preparing workshop content,” she reports.

I particularly like this dotted “stick” necklace that shifts between positive and negative dots on narrow strips of polymer. Some are painted on, some are cut out. The colors are muted with a fashionable grungy feel.

Over at StudioMojo we’ll look at how our current situation has affected us. Some of us hunker down and others are kicked into high gear. There’s no right way, there’s only your way. Join us at StudioMojo.org

Beachy boho Monday

Lorraine Vogel creates a bit of beach on her earrings on PolymerClayDaily.com

The Zen of these earrings from Florida’s Lorraine Vogel (wiredorchid) offers us a smooth transition to Monday.

She embeds rings into the tops of satisfying painted shapes. They feel balanced and swingy. A vacation vibe on your ears.

The painted surfaces are some combination of her batik and pretty grunge techniques. (Correction: Lorraine says: I created this surface with stencils and acrylic paint, not by using my batik technique.) Lorraine offers tutorials on her boho beachy styles. She’s here on Instagram.

Urban polymer

Sarah Wilbanks translucents with an urban vibe on PolymerClayDaily.com

Seattle’s Sarah Wilbanks distresses her translucent slices and turns thin concave polymer ovals into fashionable urban grunge earrings. They’re sold at the Seattle Art Museum in combination with the Yaoki Kusama exhibit which is full of color and repeated patterns.

Sarah’s workspace is surprisingly compact as she explains, “I create my polymer clay and silver jewelry in my cozy and colorful studio apartment in Seattle just a few blocks from the new Amazon campus. It’s amazing how little space you need to create jewelry. I have a jewelers bench in my hallway, a polymer work table in my kitchen and a soldering station in my hall closet.”

Translucent polymer lured Sarah back to polymer and she’s developed several variations of carved shapes that are both graphic and primitive in their appeal. You’ll find her work on Instagram, Etsy, and Facebook.

Complex simplicity

Michigan’s Sandra Niese (DandyBeads) eases us into Monday with a simple pendant. On its own, the spiral would have been too simple.

By embedding those metal pins into the edge of the design, Sandra makes us stop and take in the texture and the metallic finish and ponder the piece.

The dance between complexity and simplicity is a tricky one. See more of Sandra’s organic and slightly grungy works on Facebook, Pinterest and Etsy.