Plugged in polymer

If you feel at home online, you may appreciate Jake Johnson’s Professor Poindexter, a 16 3/4″ x 9 1/2″ polymer, wood and wire sculpture that he’s airbrushed and hand painted with acrylics.

Jake is a sci-fi, horror, fantasy kind of guy and he calls his Etsy shop Dr. Sculptenstein’s Laboratory. His sculptures make the most sense on Mondays when we’re all trying to get our signals straight.

Like the mad professor, I like being wired. After weeks of conferences and travel, it’s good to be plugged in again.

Happy Labor Day and welcome to fall.

Collaborative gardens in polymer

Carol Simmons has been working on this breath-taking modular Wearable Gardenseries for months. This photo is of a box of her components. She’s been shaping and stacking the caned polymer blossoms into fantastical organic creations that can be worn as brooches or pendants.

Carol feels at home with complex pattern but struggles with three dimensions.

Sculptor Maureen Carlson saw Carol’s flowers and thought the heads would take on new life if they were perched on stalks. She envisioned the pieces as sculpture, wall pieces, terrariums, habitats.

Both artists had been to the Chihuly exhibit in Denver. Maureen felt that the blossoms could be at home in the Avatar or Epic movies.

Carol and Maureen’s collaboration on this Woodland Garden led to plans for a couple of possible separate workshops, each taking a different approach.

You can look over their shoulders as they work here and here.

In polymer wonderland

It’s hard to keep up with Alice Stroppel! I just figured out why so many of her images, like this White Rabbit sculpture, are from Alice in Wonderland. Alice does Alice, get it?

In her own wonderland, Alice’s polymer work spreads across table tops and covers the bases for lamps. Her fish swim up the walls and wind around arms. I’m particularly fond of this haunting portrait of a woman gazing intently…much like Alice herself.

The rabbit seems right for today. People are arriving in town. I’m late! I’m late! Must get to the party.

Chasing after Alice will keep you busy. She’s all over Facebook and Etsy too. If you’ve never made a Stroppel scrap cane, you simply must watch the tutorial.

Alice shared her story on camera a couple of years ago. If you’d like to see more videos like this, join StudioMojo, the weekend newsletter.

Polymer with a point

Using 413 small millefiori canes and lots of patience, Canada’s Dorothy Siemens created this 5″ diameter ball.

She describes her system as, “…one step at a time – and eventually it’s done! Truth be told, it happens over a period of weeks as each stage seems to need baking, drying or thinking!” She calls this latest one her Ball of Pointless Pointillism.

Dorothy has been pondering her obsessiveness in both polymer and beading. “Much of my work, especially in polymer, seems to involve the creation of many small components of similar appearance, arranged in grids or around spheres,” she says. Her shelf of creations tells the story.

She prefers to think of these repetitive works as meditative which means they’re not really pointless at all.

You can read more about her inspiration and her meditations on her blog. See more in-process shots on her Facebook page and Pinterest.

Showing off polymer

If counting the number of artists using polymer in a prestige art show makes us more credible, we’re doing well. According to this year’s roster at the San Francisco ACC show, polymer pops up frequently in the roster.

There’s Wiwat Kamolpornwijit, Jillian Moore, Ford/Forlano, Debo Groover (the birds polymer painting here), Mary Filapek, Anne Klocko (the bicyclists at right) and I’m sure I missed someone.

We span categories from jewelry to painting to mixed media to sculpture. The show runs August 8-10, but if you can’t hop over to SF, thumb through the exhibitors.

(You’ll get a better sense of the size of Debortina’s paintings on their Facebook page.)

Polymer confessions

This post is late because I’m vacationing out west. I confess!

These couple of frames are from the newest Facebook video from Georg Dinkel. He again addresses our religious and technological lapses in a piece appropriately called The Sinner. It shows a blogger flogging herself with her laptop (that’s my interpretation).

If you can’t access the video, take a browse through his website to experience his remix of architecture and religion in polymer. I’ll be a better person tomorrow!

Polymer shrooms

Jana Roberts Benzon recently collected ideas from walks in the woods and hikes in the mountains and turned what she saw into polymer beads.

She used alcohol inks to color these polymer versions of the mushrooms she found. See the bark and berries that she grouped with other components into a dramatic Woodland Gathering neckpiece.

“I’m having so much fun creating things from nature and close to my heart,” Jana says. These photos appeared on Jana’s Facebook page where she also unveiled a prototype of new some new work like the spiraled piece at the right that she may be teaching soon.

Red, white and floral

This red, white and blue is from Katarina Mravcova (Ketlin) from the Slovak Republic but we’ll snitch it for the US July Fourth because these earrings feel festive on our festive day. You can see them on some lovely models here.

Gathering bunches of delicately blended and layered petal cutouts, Ketlin creates bouquets of pastel polymer.. She suspends her mini-florals from ear wires or pendant bails.

In her day job, Ketlin is a Geographic Information Systems research scientist who relaxes with polymer art which she sells online. Her soft, serene color sense sets her work apart and you can see it best on Facebook.

Happy Independence Day!

Polymer gnOHMes

Pittsburgh’s Les Polinko showcased her Gnome Consciousness sculptures at a June RawArtists.org exhibit. It’s hard not to smile at her blissfully meditating Spirituality Gnomes. There’s more on Facebook.

Les says her work is inspired by universal archetypes, fantasy, dreams and folklore. She’s also an author, illustrator and teacher. She’s also the vice president of the Pittsburgh guild.

Read about how Les gathered the 20 sponsors she needed for the exhibit. They received tickets to the show, a polymer sugar skull pendant and an invitation to an After-Crafter skull-painting party.

Polymer beach reads

This Little Boat Brooch from Spain’s Iratxe Maruri will send you sailing through all her online shops and blogs. Iratxe is an illustrator and mixed media artist whose beach scenes and creatures have charm and childishness without seeming treacly sweet.

Iratxe has a very thorough web identity. You can see her inspirations and studio setup on Pinterest and find lots more on Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr plus several shops.

She keeps one store for her sea creatures and another for her plants and animals.

On a summer Monday her fresh images may give you a momentary vacation.

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