The land of What If

One benefit of teaching is what the students teach you. Look at this imaginative Miro-like polymer inlay from Florida’s Lynn Yuhr (TheFlyingSquirrelStudio).

My class in Georgia focused on making polymer art for the domestic environment. Students quickly embraced the concepts and happily dressed up sticks, covered paper forms, and drilled holes in whatever wood they could find to inlay. You could see their attitudes change as the possibilities expanded.

Lynn brought wooden jewelry components with her to our class. She and her Florida friends at Banyan Bay are tinkering with wooden beads that can be inlaid. While they were originally thinking of designs for bead weavers, Lynn urged them to consider polymer inlay as well. The new products should be available soon.

Once you enter the land of what if, a whole new world of possibilities opens up.

Liedtke’s polymer clay leaves

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.