Kathleen Dustin shares her struggles as a polymer artist in her most recent post. For years she’s enjoyed great success following the advice of a professor who encouraged her to “Make your work personal.”
“But, now I’m at a standstill. Where do I go from here?” she asks. “I want to still make my work personal, but am struggling with how to do that right now.”
“Art is hard work,” she concludes. Read her post here.
Laure Bonnet’s polymer flowers scream spring with their intense colors, wavy petals and playful accents.
Her wire-wrapped necklaces are perfect for a sunny Mother’s Day weekend.
I found Laure via the Parole de pate and gadouille (aka Sylvie).
Helen Breil shares a low-cost polymer extrusion method which also uses a vice and replaces the plunger with an aluminum tube.
Helen explains, “I use the standard clay gun. I purchased an aluminum dowel at home depot. The diameter is 1/2” which leaves a bit of a gap where clay builds up but it’s not a big problem. For easy clean up I put parchment paper into the tube before the clay is inserted (shown sticking out of the tube in this picture) and then I put it all into the vice as shown.”
Veruschka (Vee) Stevens is not shy. You can tell that by the exuberance of her work and the energy emanating from her site and her diva jewelry.
“I create custom couture pieces and sets exclusively for my clients, based on whatever their inspiration might be and never repeat a design,” she says.
An IT professional, Vee grew up in Germany, Bolivia and South America. She set up her polymer business in Philadelphia a year ago.
The butterfly necklace at the left reflects the metamorphosis metaphor and is meant to remind the wearer that she is a beautiful, changing creature too. Vee is new to us so wander through her site and her Flickr pages and have a beautiful weekend.
Fancy Gallery’s “Accumulation” exhibit features Seattle-based emerging jewelry artists who break the mold of what is expected. Rachel Rader and Dixie Darling both mix their media into magpie-like nests of beads and use polymer clay shapes to supplement color and vary shapes.
Says Dixie Darling, “I take pleasure in the process of figuring out new techniques and translating them into a language of my own.” She sorts and arranges her finds, “…in order to stitch together the past and the present into these objects of my fictional world of beauty and borderline kitsch.” She embroidered and assembled the pendant at the right.
Influenced by The Little Mermaid, Rachel Rader’s pieces are heavily encrusted with jewels and drip with sea life from her fanciful Mermaid Empire. Her Blue Lagoon bracelet is shown here.
Kim Arden’s current solo polymer show at 20 North Gallery in Toledo, Ohio gives us another example of “forced” creativity. “Adorning Glory” is the gallery’s first all-jewelry show.
Kim explains that, “Making work for this show has been a wonderful yet bittersweet journey. I recently lost my mother, my greatest fan and critic. In creating these new pieces, I was able to get away from the heartbreak and emerge a little stronger each day. Mom would have been proud of this new body of work and surely would have picked out a few pieces for herself!”
Kim’s bold works are featured within gold picture frames hung at eye level throughout the gallery. It’s a simple and effective exhibit technique that leads viewers comfortably through the show. The gallery’s web site gives you a 3D view of the show and Kim’s latest works can be seen more closely on her revamped website.
Barcelona’s Elvira Lopez del Prado wraps and spins wire around her fanciful polymer clay flowers and baubles to create what she calls her Fairy Tales series.
Meanwhile Austria’s Eva Ehmeier (Hoedlgut) folds and stacks her polymer slices into undulating rows that create the cuff shown below from her Artichoke series.
Both artists are this week’s poster girls for thinking outside the box, breaking the rules and following their muses.
Links
Thanks for all the links you’ve submitted to the new page. Since I must approve every one, there may be some delay between your submission and actual posting. If your link doesn’t appear immediately, don’t be alarmed, come back and check later.
France’s Danièle Moucadel (fimotifimota) knows how to hang loose with polymer. Not sloppy or thoughtless but carefree and unselfconscious. The mixture of colors and shapes in this new necklace look springy.
For me it’s a trick to ride a wave of inspiration while silencing doubts and self-criticism, especially as I try to cram work into the last few days of vacation.
Danièle’s Flickr pages and website are full of loose, fresh works that inspire me to hang loose.
Thanks to Bettina Welker for the link. And speaking of links, you can add your site to a new page on PCDaily by going to the top of this page and clicking on Readers’ Links.
Madrid’s Chama Navarro gives us a break from colors and flowers with her new minimalist line of white, textured polymer clay.
Chama calls the collection her “Nurbs” and says she was inspired by the computer-generated mathematical models of the same name which are commonly used to represent freeform surfaces like aerospace exterior surfaces and car bodies.
Charma’s Nurbs look like organic forms trapped under a blanket begging to be touched. If you need color, visit the Flickr photos of her 2010 work.
Kim Cavender has emerged from hibernation covered in moss! After several months of quiet, she’s added some new work that includes faux moss clinging to her polymer sticks and stones.
My polymer pebble mentor, Kim has expanded her forest finds to include nuts, vines and pods that she’ll be teaching at the Ohio retreat this weekend. (Let’s hope the snow stops.)
Kim’s rocks are beauties. Take a look at her new ones.
Melanie West promised new work and true to her word, she’s featuring a new line of brooches that expands her sea creature-inspired repertoire. She’s bravely posted her plans for the year.
New beginnings are good for us. Lots of polymer clay artists are rolling out fresh work, reorganizing, posting and updating. There’s a definite out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new vibe in the air.
My young tech-saavy neice is coming over today to discuss my social networking strategy. Losing weight used to be my social networking strategy but I don’t think that’s what she has in mind.
