Inclusions add a cosmic touch

Marina Rios mixes lots of ingredients into her cosmic rocks on PolymerClayDaily.com

Chicago’s Marina Rios (FancifulDevices) creates rustic, Victorian, tribal style mixed media assemblages. Her antique and vintage materials are heavily altered and combined with artisan components to create evocative objects.

Marina adds sand, ground and dyed oyster shell, embossing powders, pre-baked and chopped polymer and more as inclusions in the beads that stack up into this Regolith totem.

After firing, she begins painting – back-painting, resist, dry brushing, glazing and more to give this 3.4″ stack of beads its history and mystery.

If you like it when cosmic collides with tribal in polymer, check her out on Instagram and Etsy.

Easter Island polymer

Maureen Carlson's small Easter Island totems on PolymerClayDaily.com

Of all my eclipse week memorabilia, these polymer totems from Minnesota’s Maureen Carlson (weefolk) make me smile the most. Maureen is known for finding fantasy characters everywhere.

Her old man monuments are made of polymer rocks stacked in an Easter Island way. Though they’re only 2″ tall, they look massive. The faux pebbles form another face on the back side.

Here they are laid out on the swap table, ready to be slipped onto a garden stake. If you like rock cairns these may give you ideas for enlivening your garden. There’s more on Facebook.

Two weeks of travel have provided a bonus of exciting new works that we’ll examine on PCD this week.

Interpreting the eclipse

Are you ready for the eclipse? It’s all the rage in the US and we hardly know what to expect.

Since our Colorado group is near the path, we’ve created some solar-themed big bead totems for a swap, brushed PearlEx powders into our hair and tried on our eclipse glasses. We’re psyched!

The sun/moons are by Wendy Malinow, the cutout light/darks come from Barb Harper, Eclipse cane beads were from me (Cynthia Tinapple).

Joan Tayler’s raven pendants allude to How the Raven Stole the Sun, an ancient Native American myth. Randy Ketzel models an eclipse tee that she created using bleach. Here’s wishing you clear skies and a momentous event.

Pocket art hearts

Tejae Floyde creates a heart-inside-heart on PolymerClayDaily.com

A Facebook video from Colorado’s Tejae Floyde shows you more of her Encased Hearts. Tejae loves pocket art – tokens and secrets and hidden wishes. The smaller heart fits perfectly inside the larger one and they are covered with wise words, rich textures and glints of metals.

She’s been busy creating this stamped and painted Mother’s Day version, sometimes adding childrens names on the back.

Read more about Tejae on her site, Facebook and Etsy. You’ll find Tejae’s step-by-step instructions for a basic encased heart in my book.

GPS in polymer

Looking for direction? Western Australia’s Debbie Crothers shows you which way to go with her new Affirmations Totems class on CraftArtEdu. She talks about these meaningful pieces and the techniques she uses in this brief free intro.

Debbie started making totems when she was looking for help with the letting go process as her children grew up and moved on. She guides students through identifying their own issues and affirmations. Then she shows how to create a personalized and symbolic polymer piece that inspires and encourages.

Debbie has come up with cool chalk, pastel and polymer processes as she’s taught and traveled the outback. Visit her on Facebook, her blog and check out all her classes as you head into the week.