Because her camera battery had died, Angie Wiggins had to rely on her eyes and her memories to bring her vacation in Wyoming’s Red Desert back to life.
This mosaic bowl was inspired by sand dunes, petroglyphs, wild horses and antelopes topped off by a picnic lunch.
The textured square tiles on the inside of this wooden bowl are polymer. She’s decoupaged papers onto the outside and added polymer legs. Could you make your own version of this with inchies?
Angie mixes polymer with paper, felt, beads and whatever else strikes her fancy. She was taught to embroider at age five and has been a detail freak ever since. You can sample some of her details on her site, Facebook, Pinterest (love looking at her inspirations).
Oregon’s Alison Sachs is still roughing up her polymer (PCD last checked in on her in 2012). She also creates some torch-fired enamel on copper pieces and it sometimes becomes difficult to tell which medium she’s dabbling in.
Alison calls her business BeadsByEarthTones and that pretty much sums up her approach. Earthy, scuffed, textured pieces.
One of her recent experiments is a faux porcelain line that will make you look twice. She gives Mother Earth’s colors some competition. You can find her latest works on her Facebook page.
This 2.25″ x 2.75″ polymer pendant by Iowa’s Patti Kimle balances light and dark in a soothing and striking way. A fine silver bail repeats the daisy pattern.
Patti’s works are reflections of the nature around her and often contain inspirational messages. Subtle repetitions and her muted palettes add to the calming influence of her pieces.
Patti’s taught for years and has written three books but she shies away from the limelight. You can search her out on her blog, on Pinterest, on Etsy and on Facebook.
What would you find if you scooped up a handful from Nikki Zehler’s bead stash? Pyrite? Porcelain? Polymer? If LoveRoot is missing a color or needs more texture she turns to polymer to fill the gaps.
The earrings to the left include chunks of pyrite along with African baule beads. The rusty textured chunks are polymer.
The distressed earring bells to the right? Yep, they’re polymer. The big bead in the bracelet is the only polymer there. Nikki lets her eye guide her, not the material.
This exotic gypsy sensibility comes from wild Ohio! Who would have guessed? See loads more on Facebook, Etsy and Pinterest.
Slovenia’s Tina Mezek makes Circle Pins that pop with playful loops of wire and polymer accents. Tina trained as jeweler and now she mixes her media with ease.
She carves a design, then stamps, colors and uses liquid clay liberally. Her lopsided accents give her pins an extra springtime flair.
Tina Crouse’s is a feel-good Friday story. She’s launched a Facebook page to spread the word about the KindwarePremier program. Tina is the Ohio project’s manager and she’s introducing their new collection of Medallion Cuffs, wide leather bands with a polymer oval stamped with a choice of an inspirational word.
Tina took part in the Kindway program when she was incarcerated. The polymer jewelry that inmates make as they’re building their skills is sold by volunteers at art fairs and other events.
Once they transition back into their community, they may opt to continue selling their polymer art through Kindware Premier. Tina explains it more clearly.
“I became involved in this organization while I was incarcerated and not only did it change my life, but it gave me a future. All these handcrafted gifts are made possible because there are people investing in lives impacted by incarceration. While I was incarcerated I was able to develop a skill set working with polymer clay that I never knew I had. It became an outlet for me. Each time I worked with the clay I would turn all the negative that happened in my life into positive. All the bad things that were said to me into kind words – I am a good mother, I am smart, I am beautiful, I am worth it and I CAN CHANGE! All those stones thrown at me at one time are now re-purposed and transformed into beautiful gems.” she says eloquently.
But life’s not always easy (here’s more of her story) and Tina works as a waitress and takes care of her children as well. She was able to attend the Buckeye Bash conference last month (that’s Tina with me and Ron Lehocky in Dayton). The Kindway women sent along inchies they’d made. Tina serves as a terrific role model for other women who will be released in the near future.
Your support,likes, and good wishes energize these women and the Kindway/Kindware project. Have a feel good weekend. Contact Tina here to purchase her cuffs which cost $25 plus $3 shipping.
Florida’s Debo Groover is a failed bead maker. She couldn’t figure out how to use polymer so she devised her own methods as this large Dog Park painting shows.
She says that, “A few thousand bars of polymer clay and eight pasta machines later, I use the clay like a piece of fabric or paper. I mix the colors and make the patterns. I cut and glue it. I scrape and scratch it. I treat it like it was real clay and end up with surfaces I couldn’t possibly achieve with just a paintbrush. I try to capture the joy that is in my life and I tell my silly stories.”
Debo had a very successful ceramic career, traveling and teaching all over the world, but in 2000 her home and studio burned to the ground. Heartbroken, she stopped doing art, and instead renovated houses and worked as a nurse.
Then four years ago she started playing around with polymer clay. She’s self-taught and knows that her methods are unorthodox. People often think her large paintings are fabric or wood or linoleum.
You can read her story in the Fort Myers paper this week as she and her partner Tina begin the art festival season. Tina makes the smaller pieces and keeps things organized and on track. Follow their uninhibited and colorful works on the web site, on Facebook and on Pinterest.
New tools offer the promise of exciting discoveries, new creations. When we’re cooped up and restless we start thinking, “What if ?”
Melissa Cable thought What if? and popped a band embellished with snap bezels and polymer into the oven to see if the leather would survive. It did and Create Recklessly was born.
If you’re itching for something that will help you take your work up a notch, come on over to Craftcast this evening (7:00 pm EST) for the free I Love Tools online party.
Discounts, giveaways and virtual appetizers! Reserve your seat or listen in later. Here’s what’s on the agenda (including my newest disks):
Art Clay World stamps with Jackie Truty
Potter Tools USA with Melissa Muir
Jool Tools with Anie Piliguian
Perfect Match Doming ™ with Janet Alexander
The D.R.E.A.M. Machine with Wilma Yost
Dover copyright free designs with Barbara Becker Simon
Create Recklessly leather tools with Melissa Cable
Polymer extruder disks (new set #2) with Cynthia Tinapple
Marina Rios (fancifuldevices) was born in Uraguay and lives in Chicago. Perhaps that helps explain how she’s able to reconcile colliding worlds, patterns, materials. Here’s what she says of her assemblages that often include polymer.
Balancing opposites is how I think of the universe and how I make jewelry. Old is paired with new, feminine contrasted with masculine, rustic mixed with refined, western enriched with tribal, functional elaborated with decorative…all these dualities and more are synthesized into an artifact that tells an alternative story of our past or perhaps a myth for the future.
On Pinterest you can see her polymer on a single board. On other sites (Etsy, her blog) your eyes have to search carefully to pick out which components might be polymer.
She says of her cosmic Victorian tribal jewelry, “To me they are a magical key to an imaginary realm.”
A class with Ronna Weltman pushed Seattle’s Sue Ellen Katz to begin making polymer Talking Heads five years ago as a daily creative meditation. (Here’s a PCD post about the beginning of her work.)
The talking heads have evolved into elegant magnetic brooches embroidered with glass beads and semi-precious stones. Sue Ellen has created hundreds of polymer faces in three collections: Ancient Entities, Goddesses and Chinese Zodiac.
Alese, The Light Bearer, is an Ancient Entity painted with alcohol inks and surrounded with seed beads, vintage beads and crystals. She is a 2″ x 4″ magnetic brooch.
When not worn, Sue Ellen’s pieces are richly framed in shadow boxes that she designed. The deep, fabric-lined frames have metal backs that hold the brooches and create a dramatic presentation grouped on a wall.
The effect of these collections (photographed by Douglas S Yaple) is captured on Sue Ellen’s new site (click the Display it/Wear it headings to see the frames). See more on her blog, Facebook and Pinterest.
