Maryland’s Linda Loew cleaned the pan pastel residue from her sponges directly onto a slab of light clay.
Here’s the result of her abstract clean-up paired with other extraneous bits and turned into painterly earrings and pendant.
Sometimes our scraps scream to be saved.
When Melbourne’s Michelle Sansonetti (zedembee) picks up bits of old projects to cover humble glass jars and bottles, she unleashes her inner abstract painter. She gets loose, She shines!
There’s a common blue/green thread that runs through her palettes and when you put them together, there she is in all her glory. It’s not about perfection, it’s about being present.
Sometimes watching an artist’s hands is so instructive and calming.
That’s what Canada’s (BC) Wanda Shum does in this 3-minute bug-building video. She’s in control, she knows what she’s doing. Sigh! Relax and watch.
Wow, that bug’s got a lot of wings! Who knew?
Wanda uses the littlest bits of canes to build an extravagant creature. Lots of wild variations crawl around on her site.
Israel’s Angela Barenholtz shows a large and growing collection of interpretations of famous paintings rendered in polymer on Flickr.
She’s refined and changed and expanded her painting techniques. Angela chops her clay into a terrazzo-like mix that buzzes with energy and color.
This latest is her rendition of a Paul Klee work and it popped up on her sparse Instagram site. You may want to follow along. Let’s hope she keeps moving in this direction. It’s the bomb!
Ginger Allman Davis (thebluebottletree) calls this her True Grit vessel made with leftover baked polymer shavings and other studio debris rolled into the thick raw clay.
It’s part of Ginger’s 100-day challenge. There’s more to the story. Her grandfather was a bit player in the original movie!
It feels like we’re in need of some true grit. We’re all trying to make sense of our circumstances right now. I’ll take this as our sign of strength for Thursday.
New Mexico’s Gael Keyes makes fantastical bugs and beetles with fancy wire legs dressed in polymer and beaded antennae. They’re composed of scrap clay twisted into a Natasha bead pattern to create the bookend pattern on their backs and wings.
Polymer is a family affair with Gael. She’s here at Claython in New Jersey with her mother (Carole Centrella) and sister (Linda O’Brien). Retired from a school principal job, Gael’s online exposure had to be limited. She launched onto Instagram today! Follow her.
Johanna S (JS Creations) hits on all cylinders with this bright necklace that she calls Dust to Dawn. In the first place, the flat disks appear to have been cut from scrap clay (and we’re always chasing scrap clay ideas). And further, the colors are bright enough to warm the most wintry day.
So even though we don’t know who or where Johanna is, this simple necklace is a winner. She only shows up on Flickr. If you can unravel more of this mystery, let us know.
Meanwhile appreciate another cool use of leftovers.
Is it the reminder of another way to use scrap clay that attracts us to Carol Beal’s (BeadUnsupervised) newest marbled domes? Or is it Carol’s unsupervised, no-holds-barred approach to jewelry-making that pulls us in?
No matter. It’s inspiring to see how she turns bits of fall colored scrap into stripes and then drags a stylus in zigs and zags across the surface to marble it. Carol’s good at messing things up in delightful ways and this is a great example of how effective cutting loose can be.
See more of Carol on Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest and Etsy.
Cut loose with me in a class at Creative Journey Studios in Georgia, October 7-9.
