As I sat on the deck having coffee (retirement is grand), it was obvious that Juli McCarthy’s work was just right for today. Juli’s Skinner-blended swirl pendant perfectly mirrored the colors in the spring treetops above me. Simple and so right for the season.
Read all about this Wisconsin artist on her site, her Etsy gallery, and her Facebook page.
New Jersey’s Kathryn Reid (aka PendulumStudios1) has bounded onto the Flickr and Etsy polymer clay scene with beads that beg to be touched. She’s attached names like mineral, earthen, lichen, and moons to her smooth pod-shaped creations.
Colorful translucent cane patterns are applied over glittering base beads as with the “Day and Night” beads shown here. See more of Kathryn’s work on her Etsy site.
Her secret? “I believe that my jewelry is inspired by the freedom that comes from not thinking about what I’m trying to do.”
Making mokume gane in polymer clay is an exercise in finding the balance between control and chaos. It can easily become a jumble of patterns and a stew of colors. These mokume earrings and pendant by Barbara McGuire show what can happen when you master the technique.
Barbara is teaching her “Extreme Mokume Gane” (as well as two “faces” classes) at Bead and Button in Minneapolis Milwaukee this June.
A list of all the polymer clay classes being offered at Bead and Button is available here. Thanks to Ronna Weltman for the heads-up.
Poking through the polymer clay on the French PerleRouge site launched me into an afternoon at the computer. (I’ve streamlined the trip for you.)
I surfed from there to Crea’Sofimo (pendant at the left) who credits Mathilde Colas (the green necklace to the right) as her teacher and inspiration. Somehow I landed on the site of Cecilia Mabcrea, a French artist working in Xiamen, China.
This whirlwind web surfing made me marvel at how fast concepts travel and at the polymer clay community with its connections that span the globe.
I keep running into reminders of fall like these polymer clay leaves from Judith Liedtke of Dortmund, Germany. I like the spare, minimalist design. You’ll like some of her canine cane work as well.
Here in the US it’s Labor Day, our symbolic end of summer holiday.
Perhaps you’ll enjoy some pictures of the project I’m working on, a last minute entry into a local gallery show. My engineer husband created a wonderful system for firing polymer clay inlays. The system uses two paint stripping guns, a bench vice and the wind-up turntable from our aging microwave. Ingenious.
California’s Amy (aka SocietySedSo or BunnyXProductions) is taken with sea creatures and has created many jointed variations on this theme (including a zombie one and this gas-masked version) in many colors of polymer clay.
Her love of this species comes through in the color and detail she obviously enjoys adding to each tentacled necklace and squid pendant.
Amy’s in touch with her sunny side and makes graphic and flowery pendant designs as well.
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I won’t tell you how much time I spent chasing links for this post. My new life is enticingly unstructured and the computer and the studio both call to me. Computer won today.
Was it fate that I’d run into Heather Wynn’s new blog, swoondimples, and her cautionary pendant pictured above? Heather turns a simple phrase and a bit of polymer clay into high art. Go knock around on her new blog and see her work on her etsy store and her site. Check out last Wednesday’s post and those stud earrings.
It’s fun to bump a new blogger’s numbers up. Be sure to leave comments.
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