Arlene Groch’s Blended Brights necklace is in the finals for the 2015 Niche Awards. Arlene’s hard to find online but she shared more of her summer creations like this blue beauty on the Philadelphia guild site.
You’ll also find Lindly Haunani, Judy Summers, Wiwat Kamolpornwijit and Louise Fischer Cozzi in the running. Link alert! Following these gems may take you some time.
As Steve Ford and David Forlano continue their exploration of tube shapes, they hit upon this juicy jumble of obliquely cut polymer pipes. The magnetic closure fits easily into the design.
The long strand below shows what happens with the same oblique cut edges on smaller, brighter beads with a few surprising circles tossed in the mix.
They’re revisiting some of their ideas from the 90’s, updating them with new surfaces. Here’s a behind-the-scenes studio picture and you’ll find more on Facebook.
This is part of their selection for next weekend’s Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show. To spot more polymer, look for Kathleen Dustin and Wiwat Kamolpornwijit in the show catalog.
Carol Blackburn came to polymer through knitting and you can see how she has thought through her work. Her brain stacks and repeats and combines patterns and shapes that appear both engineered and organic.
For several years her strips of color have marched next to each other in increasingly interesting formations, most recently in this Striped Shell Necklace.
In her new Waves series the components now dance and flow more smoothly.
You can witness how she has evolved and moved through the process by looking at her site, at Pinterest, at Flickr and Facebook.
Beauty will save the world. – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Austria’s Izabela Nowak posted this quote on her site and she takes it seriously. She mixes polymer with juice boxes and milk cartons as she navigates her way to beauty in recycling. Upcyling humble materials is part of her most recent Cut Up pieces.
A stroll through her Flickr site shows how she’s moved from spiraled up strips of polymer (her Gilese pieces) to intricate folded shapes (Into the Fold) and then to Cut up assemblages.
She has found that most manipulations that can be done with paper can also be done with polymer and she has developed classes and workshops for teaching her methods. Ultimately she combines the two media. Her latest creations appear on her Facebook page.
Her colors are bright and her love of geometry comes through strongly as she bends, cuts and folds basic shapes into beauty.
David Forlano models his newest tube necklace. This version is spiked and curved with striped surfaces. Gouges carved out of the tubes reveal the inner contrasting colors of the tusk-like shapes.
Four layers of polymer claws make the piece bushy and lush and suitable for an African hunter…or a New Mexican artist in this case.
The new design will appear in Ford & Forlano’s upcoming shows.
Watch how they work by viewing their YouTube videos. Catch up with them on their site and on Facebook.
Peek at the polymer exhibit that began this week at Carthage College in Kenosha, WI. The opening reception for Re-Visioning: New Works in Polymer at the H.F. Johnson Gallery of Art will be held next Thursday, September 18.
Gallery staff have posted snapshots of the works on Facebook as they arrived to get us excited.
Laura Tabakman’s On the Trail is a delicate installation of a field of blossoms that emerge from the floor and climb one wall.
You can see her sitting on the gallery floor arranging every petal in what turned out to be a 15-hour operation. She says of the show, “OMG, don’t miss it!”
Here you see Cynthia Toops’ So Much Yarn, So Little Time which includes tiny knitting needles that pierce one of the balls of imitative yarn wound in Cynthia’s fastidious micro style. At one time or another all knitters and artists have shared the sentiment of the piece.
The event is being held in conjunction with an October polymer symposium, labs, and (in)Organic exhibit at the nearby Racine Art Museum.
The first college level polymer studio class was launched last year at Carthage College. Professor Diane Levesque taught the class and curates this exhibit.
Arden Bardol takes two flat pieces of polymer, adds surprises on both sides and dots one side with color. She backs the two curved pieces against each other separating them with polymer stoppers.
Voila! Earrings that will have everyone studying them as they twist and sway. Even the space between is filled with interesting shapes.
Her Wings Multi 1 earrings are part of the Artful Home fall collection. See all the items that Arden offers.
On Facebook you can see a similarly designed necklace that she created for the Rehoboth Art League Fine Craft Show this weekend.
Portland’s Laurel Swetnam has a website that I missed and her work has surged forward. It’s a treat to see how old friends have changed. Browse and enjoy.
Here are the mountain flowers that she had coming out of the oven today. They’re meant to be sewn onto a fat fabric cord. An inspiring environment can lead you in new directions.
In Sonya Gallardo’s latest collection called Loverboy/s she reflects on romantic love. You may never have seen polymer look quite so sexy and fashionable as it does in her video. “Each piece in this project consists of a pairing of two parts and what they represent reflects some of my ideals on what love is,” she explains.
This LA artist’s Golden Ardor necklace was created for the trendy Of a Kind online artisan fashion store. Sonya and Of a Kind are part of the current issue of American Craft magazine which focuses on artist-made fashion and wearables. Her work (like this two-part Amity necklace) is also sold at the Cooper Hewitt Museum shop.
When she dropped out of art school and moved into her brother’s old room, she asked herself, “What can I make that’s small enough to fit on this table?” A blogged photo of her work went viral and her aesthetic caught on. HighLow Jewelry was founded in 2011. Read her bio here (it contains some great stories).
No matter how sophisticated polymer art becomes, the color and simplicity of basic canes is still one of its most alluring and enduring charms. This week I stumbled upon this Fancy necklace from Pier Voulkos. It’s twenty-three years old and still fresh and, well, fancy! Note how she used plastic-coated telephone wire to unobtrusively attach the dangles into the composition.
The necklace now resides in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Botson (donated by Lindly Haunani).
This week I was happy to find Kim Korringa (on Facebook) mixing up 19 pounds worth of her signature canes that carry on the cane tradition. Here’s a free tutorial that shows Kim’s Fairy Wing earrings and the secret to her cane methods from my Global Perspectives book.
Kim Arden’s bright canes follow in Pier’s footsteps with the addition of translucent tricks. Laura Tabakman’s muted translucent canes veer off in another direction.
After a month on vacation, I was happy to be greeted by so many reminders of polymer’s vibrant history and your continuing discoveries.
