Daily Archives: January 24, 2012

January 24, 2012 · 8:51 pm

A whole day in the studio!

And no photos to show for it.

Yesterday, I combined different brands and colors of polymer clay together, working with a variety of green colors. I  hoped to get a layering effect with some of the translucent clay.  The colors were darker than I expected after firing. Some of the pieces I expected to be translucent were not.  I used mostly Premo yesterday afternoon, and one of the alcohol inks I used was a citrus green. After I fired those beads, the light green clay looked like pee!  I have forgotten a lot of what I used to know about polymer.

Today, I decided to get a little more organized. I kept the Pardo translucent separate from the Premo translucent. I tinted each one with the same color ink. I made similar earrings to see how the two clays differ. I haven’t fired this batch yet, so I’ll wait to do that tomorrow and take more photos then. One thing I do know, I like the feel of the Premo translucent clay  much better than the Pardo. Pardo was dry and crumbly, and took much longer to condition.

In the meantime, I’ll post some photos of lobster bait at the Cranberry Isles Fishermen’s Co-op.

I know. It’s pretty random.

Redfish racks. Yum.

Some bait gets so old, it can’t even be given away!

And some bait gets left behind, unintentionally.

 

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January 24, 2012 · 12:14 am

Deciding what not to make

Today I got out some polymer clay so I could experiment with translucent clay and alcohol inks. I wanted to make some beads and earring components to combine with silver, but I didn’t have a definite plan in mind.  I spent a good part of the afternoon just conditioning different colors of clay, and I kept getting interrupted by phone calls. (The kind of calls that involve follow up phone calls, like trying to find out the wheel chair accessible van schedule, so I could then call back and make an appointment for a follow up visit with one of Mom’s doctors. It all came together pretty well, as far as rearranging my own appointments and my mother’s appointments.)

Actually it was surprising how things worked out in a way I could not foresee, even though it wasn’t the afternoon I thought I would have.

Last year, in the spring, I went to the Museum of Arts and Design with my friend Susie when I visited her in New York. I had been wanting to see their jewelry collection, and the exhibit,  A Bit of Clay on the Skin: New Ceramic Jewelry, sounded like it could be interesting. It was. Even though most of the pieces were things I would never wear, they were fun to look at and the execution was fascinating. They made sense to me, as art.

However, there were a few pieces that just made me think, “Are you serious?” In trying to find something positive, I will say that the pieces balance well.

Even with a lovely explanation of the artist’s intent, I thought to myself, “Really? Uncomfortable jewelry for the sake of it being uncomfortable so we can talk about it?”  (I don’t want to even know what she means by “other mysterious waste materials…vaguely repellant…”)

Maybe it’s not so bad that I didn’t have a definite plan of what to make this afternoon.

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