I am absolutely thrilled to share these images that Jeanette Kandrey  sent me today = what a great idea to incorporate these bead forms into a brooch!

Several years ago- while Maggie Maggio and I were working on our book- a well intentioned friend mentioned to me (while laughing)… once they find out they need to pinch,fold and pierce over 120 petals to make that necklace!?!

Apparently the labor intensive aspect of that project has not dissuaded dozens of artists around the world from making a pinched petal lei , and in many instances adding their own twist. I am always delighted when I run across examples on Facebook, blogs and Flickr.

The joyful looks on the faces of the women Nepal via A Colourful Journey wearing their versions of my necklace was especially poignant to me –  a shared aesthetic and a wonderful example of out “shrinking” world. Here are some other inspirational examples I found…Nora Pero, Bettina Mertz, Oak Georgia, Kralenia and Allessia Stre.

Sampler Necklace – Lindly Haunani Two day Survey workshop Artway at Polymer Clay Express

Saturday December 3rd and Sunday December 4th
10:00am to 4:00pm each day
$150 To register- 800 844-0138 or polymer@erols.com

Make a sampler of thirty different polymer clay beads that will be combined into a stunning sampler necklace with a custom covered clasp. Join Lindly Haunani, who has over 20 years of experience teaching polymer clay workshops, for an exciting, fun and fast paced weekend

You will learn how to make a “perfect” Skinner blend that will be fashioned into four “mother” canes: stripes, spirals, rounds and a stacked slab. You will then explore the possibilities of the more complex canes including: lace, a veined leaf, shaded flowers and a zipper cane.

Strategies for combining canes and tweaking their profiles will be presented. Then you will explore expanding your repertoire of bead shapes to include: bi- cones, pillows, rounds, twists and tubes.

Eccentric bead shapes, created by folding, twisting or cutting, will be presented, along with strategies for exploring scale, proportion and emphasis in your finished pieces.

Come with your two magical hands and your sense of humor: be prepared to be amazed and leave with an enhanced sense of your artistic sense and a beautiful sampler of beads to combine into a necklace or bracelet. This workshop is appropriate for a beginner or as a refresher/expansion course for the more experienced polymer clay artist.

Questions: Lindlyh@aol.com Supplies for Sampler Necklace workshop

Work surface pasta machine Tissue blade pin tool

digital camera for taking notes Box or container to take unbaked clay home in

Materials for Sampler Necklace Workshop

8 oz. white polymer clay 2 oz. black polymer clay 8 oz. dark polymer clay – you will need a color that provides value contrast- choose either black, burnt umber, ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, violet OR purple

For this workshop I recommend Premo brand polymer clay. If you normally work in Kato or Fimo Classic- please condition all of your clay prior to class time. Not recommended = Sculpey 3, Fimo soft or Studio clay.

As a guest blogger for the day on PCD I have been reading everyone’s comments. Several have commented that there isn’t any room on the survey for longer responses to recent changes. If you would like to leave a longer comment or suggestions  here- please do.

Kudos to Mags Bonham for  coming up with the marketing survey idea during a brainstorming session last spring about this vital issue, that included forty five polymer artists. She collated a myriad of suggestions into this comprehensive survey.

Here is the guest  post-”An Accurate” Polymer Picture as it appeared on Polymer Clay Daily on Monday November 14th, 2011.

“I would like to direct your attention to an issue that affects the polymer community and to offer you the opportunity to have your opinion heard.

The manufacturers are grappling with many issues that center around reformulating polymer and bringing the best product to market. Your response to this comprehensive survey allows you to rank which issues are most important to you. With an accurate picture of our needs manufacturers may make products that suit us better.

Grab your favorite beverage and expect to invest 10 to 15 minutes of your time to answer 40 questions. The responses will be tallied and sent as one document to all the polymer manufacturers. Here’s the survey.

As a thank you for your efforts, you will have a chance to win an autographed copy of Terra Nova – Polymer Art at the Crossroads, released in conjunction with the opening of the Racine Art Museum’s exhibition. This special book has been signed by all the boundary-breakers! To enter the drawing, fill out the survey and comment on this post “I took the survey.” Then check next Monday to see if you won.”

I was in Atlanta last weekend teaching a workshop at Creative Journey Studios and had the opportunity to see this show yesterday. It is still traveling- if you can see the show or read the book. Great food for thought on the power of jewelry to communicate.

“Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection”
Saturday, September 3, 2011 through Sunday, November 27, 2011
Carter Presidential Library & Museum

“Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection” features more than 200 pins, many of which Secretary of State Madeleine Albright wore to communicate messages during her diplomatic tenure. The exhibit examines the collection for its historical significance and the expressive power of jewelry and its ability to communicate through a style and language of its own.

When she was named the first female Secretary of State in 1997, Albright became, at that time, the highest ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government. While serving under President Bill Clinton, first as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and then as Secretary of State, she became known for wearing pins that conveyed her views about the situation at hand.

“I found that jewelry had become part of my personal diplomatic arsenal,” Secretary Albright said. “While President George H.W. Bush had been known for saying ‘Read my lips,’ I began urging colleagues and reporters to ‘Read my pins.’”

There is an interesting interview by Marianne Schnall of Madeleine Albright here.

What an incredible weekend! The exhibit Terra Nova:Polymer Art at the Crossroads opened at RAM in Racine Wisconsin. In conjunction with the show opening there was a symposium =Polymer: The Journey to the New Terrain, you read more about it here. It was fabulous to catch up with old friends and meet new ones…while considering the possibilities for artists working with polymer in the future.

I am thrilled to have six pieces in the exhibition and grateful for everything that Elise Winters has done to make the “Polymer Project” a viable,vibrant  ongoing reality. 

There was a small glitch on the Polymer Clay Express web site concerning their workshop schedule. The calendar is back up and there are still spaces left in Lindly Haunani’s , Mokume X Five- a survey of five different approaches to mokume gane using polymer clay – September 17th & 18th, 2011 for more information and to register . Hope to see you there.

The past few weeks it has been way too hot work with my polymer…Friday’s heat index was 122 F !!! No way, I am turning on the convection oven to fire anything, let alone try to pinch any petals from cane slices. It is so hot I have been knitting fabric strips in front of a fan to make another pillow cover. It is so hot I started to think I could knit an area rug, using the fabric scraps from a quilt I am cutting out…Cooler weather and studio time is around the corner. In the meantime Libby Mills sent me this link to a spectacular rug from Sonya Winner- what an incredible sense of color and design.

Sonya Winner’s vibrant contemporary rugs include After Matisse, inspired by the artist’s work using paper cut-outs. The collage of 26 colours replicates the effect of transparent colours mixed together. The irregular shape and five different tuft heights create a sculptural and striking design, which is made of pure New Zealand wool.

After our book was published in 2009 there have been several significant changes to the colors that are available to the polymer artist- Polyform products discontinued their  Sculpey Studio line and two essential primaries – Zinc Yellow and Cobalt blue in their Premo line are only available on a limited basis (see my last post). Several pre-mixed “designer” colors are now available: including Pomegranate Red, Denim Blue and Wasabi Green. The recipes for mixing Zinc Yellow and Cobalt blue, as promised, have yet to appear on their web site.

In the meantime many artists, myself included, have been experimenting with the new Polyform colors and exploring the currently available primaries offered by FIMO, Pardo, Kato Clay and Cernit- will keep you posted.

Maggie Maggio has updated her color triangle chart to reflect the changes in Polyform’s product line.

“I’ve started testing the new Premo clays and added the possible primary colors to the chart above. I’ve also added a new category – package colors that have white – because I choose to use colors that are at full saturation and add white if I need it.”

This spring I was designing a project where I normally would have used fluorescent pink to pump up the red in the Skinner blend and since I usually would have added white to the mixture Candy pink was an acceptable substitute.

For the past several months Carol Simmons has been posting a series of well thought out and detailed articles on her blog in response to the  discontinuation of two essential  primaries -Cobalt Blue and Zinc Yellow –  in Premo by Polyform Products. For those of us that mix our own colors and teach about color using polymer clay….Denim blue and Sunshine yellow are NOT  acceptable substitutes.

Carol has annotated Maggie Maggio’s color triangle color chart on her site to help illustrate the loss of Zinc yellow and Cobalt Blue.

Note: For the time being the remaining stock of those two colors is available from Polymer Clay Express.