Making Time for Spring

All winter I've been enjoying the view out my studio window onto my garden and fields, the snow falling and blanketing everything so that  the shapes of things transform and soften. It's been very serene and calming but Spring is finally here in Vermont and between the arrival of baby chicks soon and the garden badly needing my attention, my work schedule has suddenly accelerated and become like a young, frisky pony that's a blast to ride but a bit out of control.
 
I'm currently working on multiple projects, all of them showing up at the same time and all needing to be coordinated with each other. When you're a working artist, playing with the art stuff is the fun part but the scheduling, writing, arranging and all the other business aspects still have to be done so it's like having to eat your veggies before you get to dessert.   

ArtBliss 2013, which happens this year September 27-29^th just outside Washington, DC went live last week. Cindy Wimmer and Jeanette Blix have gathered some amazing artists this year so be sure to visit the site for more information on the three intensive days of classes. I've planned two completely different topics to teach this year so if you've taken classes with me before, I'll still be teaching my unique method for applying color on polymer clay but there will be some new and exciting things to learn if you'd like to come and join the fun!

 

Coral Reef beads – Polymer clay, natural coral

Example from “Worlds of Color: Textured Polymer Clay Beads” workshop for ArtBliss 2013

 

 

Stonehenge beads – Polymer clay, moonstones

Examples from “Worlds of Color” workshop for ArtBliss 2013

 

 

Polymer clay, pigments

Example from the “Colorful Landscapes” workshop for ArtBliss 2013

Next, I'm back to making beads! Yes, where I first started with polymer but with lots of new twists and techniques. I made some mokume gane beads (based on the Japanese metalworking technique) for Lori Anderson's Bead Soup book last year and it turns out that someone saw them and ordered a custom set from me. Then she sent photos of some of her tees to match to new sets of beads for her to use in her own creations. I love working with clients like this and it's very gratifying to know they're getting exactly what they want. Here’s what beautiful work Dianne did with one set of beads.

 

Comic Book beads in an ensemble by Dianne Dies
 

As if all this wouldn't keep me busy enough, I have taken a BIG plunge and am planning two large endeavors this year-- a book and  polymer workshops at my home. Yes, very big news for me and I’d be lying if I said I was completely confident of pulling it off. But it’s out in the Universe now and I’m going to make it happen!
 

The book has been in the works (that is, in my head and my notebooks) for over a year but now I'm actually ready to submit a query to a publisher. I'm not saying which one yet but the one that’s attracting me the most is a very respected house and I love the books I've seen from this publisher-- the photos, the organization, the artists they choose to represent. I've talked to several other friends who have entered the publishing fray and am using their generous advice to set my compass for this sail of mine into totally unknown waters. Luckily, I have a firm grasp of my purpose in writing a book and in what I want to put out in the world so I already see it in my mind's eye. I'm essentially working backward-- the book exists in my life, work and notebooks and now I'm merely writing it down.
 

 

Everglades necklace – Oil paint, acrylic, pencil

 

 

Mayan cuff – Embossing powder, acrylic, patina
 

  The second big project is to create a 3-day intensive retreat at my home in Vermont for an intimate class of students who want to delve deeper into my method and techniques and benefit from more individual attention and from watching me do what I do. After my ArtBliss classes last year I was invited by a couple of my students to come to their home town to teach but the distance and time away from our mini-farm was prohibitive so an idea that had been in the back of my head for a while began to evolve. I have a large free-standing workshop in the garden behind my house with space for the classes and although our home is rural, we are only 5 miles from the nearest small town with B&B accommodations, restaurants, and all the other amenities. I have to hammer out the details yet but I'm planning to open registrations soon for the first session during Vermont's foliage season this October. I'm hoping students will view this as an opportunity to plan an entire vacation in Vermont with the retreat as one part of the fun since there is so much to see and do here-- biking, riding, antiquing, Colonial America history, photography, etc. As I firm up the details and class information, I'll be posting it on this blog and you can always leave me a comment here if you want me to e-mail you directly about the classes.  

 

 

In Alice’s Garden necklace – Oil paint, Byzantia metallics, pencil

 

 

Layered heart pendant – acrylics, oil paint, pencil

Authenticity

Recently I was hard at work trying to figure out how a new polymer clay technique was done. Now I could just buy the tutorial on Etsy but I constantly endeavor to exercise my aging brain so I was attempting to reverse-engineer it by myself. I was also trying to figure out why I was feeling slightly annoyed while discarding this and that theory about the technique's technical ins-and-outs. Then I realized that what the originator of the technique was doing with it was just not living up to its potential. They were simply creating various ways to use it without any in-depth attempt to really exploit it and make me want to learn the secrets of its invention and ways in which I could enhance my own work-- make it my own-- instead of merely copying it and making an object with it. I make lots of objects myself, mostly experiments that result from trying something new with polymer but I wanted the inventor's examples to pique my curiosity, to make me sit up and say “wow!” To start my brain on a whole series of “what-ifs” and send it down the rabbit's hole of discovery. To make me see my medium and my artistic options in a whole new way.

If any of you follow my Pinterest board “Polymer Clay”, you'll notice that I don't post a lot of images there. Sometimes this is due to the fact that some sites are rights-protected and I can't “pin” them but more often because I don't post anything that doesn't grab me, at least in polymer clay work. This is the reason that I don't often post my experiments on Flickr-- I don't crave public approval so I only try to post work that has ripened, you might say-- work that will nudge you in your creative backside and send you on a journey of your own. I'm not saying that I always succeed but it is always my ultimate goal.

So here's my only New Year's Resolution for 2013--my stated purpose in working in polymer clay or in any creative medium, for that matter. It's not good enough, I believe, just to make something beautiful, however enjoyable it is for me and however enjoyable it happens to be for others to gaze upon. My purpose will be to strive to make something that arouses the viewer's curiosity to wonder “how did they do that”? To inspire mastery, not only of the technical skill in order to duplicate it but to discover what the hidden or underlying meanings might be, both to the maker as well as the intended audience. To inspire others to produce work that is not merely attractive, even though that is not a bad thing in itself, but work that illuminates some underlying condition of the human spirit or experience. To help us realize who we are and what our contributions to life on this planet and in this Universe are and could be, even on the small scale of one piece of work by one human being in one tiny corner of the cosmos. 

Here are some pieces I just finished by using my own methods instead of those of the tutorial I didn't buy. Created in my own way of working, I like them much better than if I were just copying the originator. They tell my story.

 

“Sands of Mars” – Polymer clay
 

 

Untitled – Polymer clay, chalk, pencil
 

 

“Like the Color When the Spring is Born” – Polymer clay
 

 

“Earthen” – Polymer clay

 

“Moonrise” – Polymer clay
 

Untitled – Polymer clay

The Turning Year

 

Nightfall.

Clouds scatter and vanish.

The sky is pure and cold.

Heaven turns in the jade vault.

If tonight I do not

enjoy life to the full.

Next month,

Next year,

Who knows where I will be?

The Turning Year

Sung Tung Po

 

To new beginnings, new ideas, new work, and renewed resolutions. My thoughts and blessings to you all!

 

Stonehenge I

Honoring the Beads

 

I think the true indicator that you've achieved a certain artistic maturity in your work is that your style is immediately recognizable. Before I began using polymer as my primary medium, I felt that I really didn't have a style, a signature creative presence. Looking back at my earlier textile work I realize that I did have one-- I just didn't hadn’t created a  body of work large enough to be able to see it easily.

When you begin to dedicate substantial time to your artistic work, whatever it is, your style begins to emerge, no matter where your creative experimentation takes you. When I first started in polymer, I tried lots of other artists' techniques until I finally began to devise some of my own. But when I look at all the pieces I've created, I see something that is very distinctly “me”.

Another polymer artist – and good friend of mine-- who has this distinctive style is Claire Maunsell, of Stillpointworks. Over the few years I've known her, she has produced many, many beads of all shapes and styles and yet-- there is a distinctive “claire-ness” about all of them, an evident curiosity for color and texture and finish that is intriguing and different and special. I bought beads from her all willy-nilly, not knowing what I would do with them but also knowing that they were pretty much one-of-a-kind and would never  be seen again made in exactly the same way.

So they sat in a box and waited for inspiration to strike. I would occasionally take them out and marvel over the colors and the tiny subtleties of them-- only if you are a beadmaker can you appreciate the intricacy of something so small and how many decisions are made in every step of the process of making them-- blending the clay, forming it, curing, painting, re-painting, applying coating after coating and the final finishing. And then it waits, full of energy and the artist's personality, ready to be made into something that has never before been seen in all the Universe.

So it's a bit daunting to attempt to do a set of pieces using all the various small marvels that you have collected, in an effort to pay homage to an extraordinary artistic vision while creating something that reflects the artist's unique style while simultaneously expressing your own.

Now if I had started this post in an organized fashion, I would have the before-and-after photos, so you could see the beads before I used them. But I just dove in as I always do! So..... I started by stringing a bracelet of many strands, using some beads that Claire had sent as a 'thank-you' for purchasing, one-offs that were all in the same basic colorway. Whereas my base antiquing color is usually burnt umber, Claire's is black so I used various silver chains and beads to tie her colors together, along with some repurposed pink beads from my sister's stash.

When Claire sent me the large pod she said “I'm sure you'll find a good use for this” and I did, as a ballast to keep the bracelet from slipping around the wrist to the toggle side. I made the toggle to coordinate, using only Premo clay and embedding the wire findings into them. I've worn the bracelet several times and have no doubt that the clay is sturdy enough to do its job.

As for the earrings, I decided to string the sweet little pod duo in a very minimal way--unlike some of the other interesting uses I've seen by others using Claire's signature bead-- so as to honor the perfection of her coloring and texture technique. I simply used annealed steel twisty wires with a bit of patina and silver earwires.

Then the big challenge-- what to do with the cunningly-created interlocking beads? I wanted to do something dramatic but understated, modern and yet somewhat organic. I've become very fond of dangles and tassles lately so I used lengths of an old silver chain and combined it with some minute silver beads and gemstone chips to weight the dangles. Next I dug into my stash for some African glass rounds in purple and gray and added some Czech glass rondelles with a Picasso finish, all complementary to Claire's palette, to top off the bead stacks. Then the whole composition sat for a few months while life and other projects had to be taken care of.

When I finally got back to my “Claire Project” as I had begun calling it, I had a brainstorm and went to my Mary Hettsmansperger book “Wrap, Stitch, Fold & Rivet” for a look at her project “Bead Shelf Necklace”. Although her tutorial uses metal sheet, my take on it used--of course-- polymer clay, which I have been using more and more lately to build connectors and toggles that customize nicely to my palette and are easy to fabricate. I textured and folded and cured and antiqued and colored and then began to attach my bead stacks. It took a lot of tweaking and fussing but I believe that I achieved what I was going for-- a modern and interesting way to stage Claire's beads that was still true to her organic style and colors. After crafting sterling silver squiggles to connect to the chain and the bead shelf, I declared the piece well and truly finished.

Thank you, thank you, Claire for providing the most challenging and exciting collaboration design I've ever done! I hope you like what I've designed with your beads. Isn't the palette just perfect for the snowy holiday season? I can tell you that I will cherish these pieces forever.

Things That Go Bump in the Night

 

Living on a farm as I do, something is always banging or squeaking or thumping in my house after my head hits the pillow at night. The field mice are rampant this year—maybe a result of  the long, hot summer?—and my cat would rather sleep off her supper than hunt. Little things chew in the walls—chipmunks frolic nocturnally  on the front porch—sometimes a bear comes to raid the birdfeeder. So I lay there—is it the wind? or something more sinister?

I’m pretty sure my sewing room is haunted. My sis came to visit last summer and claims she encountered a ghostly visitor who, though benign, was a shock to see upon waking in the middle of the night. But this is an old house—1830s—and there is much history here, of families who were born and lived and died here, had arguments and happinesses and conflicts and relationships and I’m just an interloper. I think the house tolerates me—cabinet doors don’t bang closed or things disappear, never to be found. But I love this old house and have always tried to take care of her and honor her construction and the ancient materials that form her bones. As the Celts hold the tradition of appeasing the Little Folk with a saucer of milk, so my Old House gets the best Ben Moore Paint and quality sheetrock from Home Depot. But sometimes I wonder.

For several years now I’ve made a piece especially for Halloween, which is actually the Celtic New Year, Samhain (saw-win) as a kind of jumpstart to the autumn season of indoor projects and freedom from garden and outdoor chores. Last year I made a small protector, a talisman against the Things That Go Bump in the Night. I call him the Little Man and he sits on the windowsill above my workbench where he can scare away bad things (or at least banish horrible artistic decisions).

When my ongoing owl obsession kicked in a few months ago, prompted by a visit to see some of the real creatures up close and personal at the Vermont Raptor Center  I started a pair of owl earrings. As a base I used a Victorian metal stamping of an owl with wings outspread, added some metal leaf to white polymer clay and then finished off with acrylic paint and gilders wax. Keeping with the orange and black color scheme, I used some gorgeous agate drops and copper spacers, finished with a dangle of tektite. So they feel mystical and otherworldly at the same time, tektite being the by-product of a meteorite impact.

“On Silent Wings” – polymer clay, metal leaf, agate, tektite, copper

While my sister was entertaining nighttime spirits in my sewing room last summer, by day she and I were playing with resin for the first time. She had brought along some mask molds that she made during a workshop by the amazing performance artist Sha Sha Higby  and  I  made a couple up in polymer, since their faces were so compelling. I dug these out this week, added some Whimsy Wire connectors and strung them together with a shibuichi metal piece, some bone beads and a polymer pendant that I made a while ago. Sometimes things just have to sit around on my bench until they have  the right purpose.

 

“Things That Go Bump in the Night”

For this year’s Halloween-themed piece, I began my process with a wonderful strand of vintage mother of pearl buttons I unearthed at a local antiques mall. They were very tribal in feel and I knew they would anchor the entire piece. I wanted to diversify the traditional orange-and-black color scheme so I crafted a pendant made with a mold of a found object metal piece I purchased on Etsy. I purposely mixed the base ivory color with a smidge of brown and black for a gray that would mimic the patina on the original piece. I added some dzi beads in orange and black designs, some andalusite rounds and a few lustrous vintage faux amber lucite beads. It will be very wearable for any season and is a little Goth (at least for me) in feel. I call it “Tribal Victorian”.

“Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”

Please excuse the dark post. I’m feeling very affected by the destruction that the hurricane caused on our coast. Some close friends have still not been heard from. I hold good thoughts of them in my heart and mind and urge you to as well.

Soaring – ArtBliss 2012

 

Teaching has to be the scariest and, at the same time, most exhilarating thing you can do as a human. You just have to fling yourself out there, be as authentic as possible and pray that your students are not only getting it but enjoying it. Bold is the way to go, no other way. What could be more terrifying than to look up at a ring of faces to see a look of total incomprehension on them all. But to look up and see everyone nodding and smiling-- ah, bliss! Soaring!

My three days at ArtBliss 2012 in Sterling, Virginia were a non-stop whirlwind-- meeting people, taking in all the creativity of the assembled students and teachers, connecting with friends both old and new, putting every ounce of energy into making sure my students were inspired, motivated and successful. Cindy Wimmer and Jeanette Blix made sure that nobody was bored or hungry or uninspired-- there was so much to do that I didn't get to enjoy simply because I needed to recharge every night so that I could make sure my students go their money's worth. They organized bead and charm swaps, coordinated author signings, provided great food and encouraged camaraderie.

Heartfelt thanks to all my fabulous students for conquering your fears about trying new things! Everyone seemed to trust themselves to delve deep into their creative wells and produced amazing work while supporting each other to expand and learn. What a nurturing environment!

As usual, I didn't get all the photos I wanted to but thanks to the camera skills of several students, including Carol Myers and Kathleen Klik, as well as those of Cindy and my husband Douglas, I think I managed to gather enough images to give you a hint of the level of mastery and imagination that were present in my classroom. I am a very lucky teacher!

 

Photo taken by Cindy Wimmer of my Meet and Greet display

 

Terri’s cuff from Day 1, Romancing the Wrist

Some in-process shots, antiqued and ready to color

Kathleen’s photo of her leaf from Day 2, Color Your World

Louise’s shimmery take on the cuff workshop

Cuffs by Jenny and Frankie

Perrie’s beautiful cuff

 

Cindy’s layered and colorful pendant

Carol’s cuff with ornate centerpiece

Cynthia’s cuff plays off circles and angles

 

I’m already thinking of ideas for classes for next year! I’m going to continue with the idea of applying surface coloration to polymer since it seems that this resonates with people who have never used clay before but have experience in other jewelry-making and art disciplines or have worked with paints, paper and multi media. If you want to be notified of class topics for next year, convo me at www.storiestheytell.etsy.com. Hope you enjoyed the slideshow!

Change is Good

 

I’ve been wanting to change my blog header for a while but had been unwilling to put the time into learning the vagaries of digital photo editing with the confusing array of formats, pixels and photoshopping options. But as I approach my 100th post I know it’s time I updated my look to acknowledge the evolution of my artistic style.

Friends Cindy Wimmer and Claire Maunsell came to my rescue. Cindy turned me on to PicMonkey, a very user-friendly and fun program (don’t let yourself get too carried away with features) that has significantly more ability than my very low-level, free Photoshop program. Claire was having issues with Blogger, as was I, and discovered Windows Live Writer—which saved my sanity and my hair (as in the tearing out of) and has made blogging a pleasure once again. Also, Live Writer has a very easy-to-use photo resizer so I can manipulate the images easily.

So now I’ve been playing around on PicMonkey and stored up several other headers so I have them on hand when my next urge to update arrives. 

So your patience with my housekeeping shall be rewarded with some eye candy. Here are several new pairs of earrings I’ve made for the ongoing 52 Pairs of Earrings Flickr group that I belong to. Now that I’ve taken the plunge and updated my blog template, I can also make my photos larger and my surface treatments show up to much better advantage.

“Molten”

 

“Tectonic”

“Enfolded”

“Spiral”

 
“Distorted”

“Amoeba”