POLYMER CLAY 1990-2003

In 1990 I was coming off a tough master’s program in dance/movement therapy. I took a week and visited my sister in Seattle. My niece was wearing a pair of cactus earrings which caught my eye. I still remember my surprise when I found out she had made them herself! Long story short, we ended up going to the local craft store and getting a starter set of different colors of clay. I brought it back home and started messing around in my basement. It didn’t take long to become addicted. I was 28 years old, had a bachelors and a masters degree, a part-time job as a dance therapist and all I wanted to do was play with clay.

IN THE BEGINNING: BAUBLES

My first items were pieces of jewelry, a popular thing to make with the clay. Nan Roche had just published her book “The New Clay” and I pored over it endlessly. I learned many wonderful techniques including Millefiore, mokume gane and how to think outside the box. (And even to make a box.) It quickly became the bible of the polymer clay world. I also took a few classes to understand the world of jewelry findings, pin backs, necklace clasps and beading.

SCULPTED ITEMS

Three dimensions are my favorite. Creating a form out of thin air is magical and requires a different kind of spatial thinking than two-dimensional work. And I love doing the visual research required to recreate an animal.

With both the animals and the furniture, I had to learn how to create an armature to give the piece more strength (as well as to save on clay). I used tin foil and ground up leftover clay to make the general form, then I covered it with slices of whatever pattern I made using the millefiore technique.

WOVEN ITEMS

I really challenged myself by learning how to weave basket forms out of polymer clay. I knew nothing about weaving baskets. And to my knowledge, no one had ever attempted to do this with the clay. Inserting bendable wire into the spines and baking them upside down were two of the techniques I developed before I could even do any weaving. These basket forms often had two or more baking sessions depending on how complex they were. I started with simple baskets then got increasingly more adventurous as I became more comfortable with how they were made.

TWO-DIMENSIONAL ITEMS

Despite loving to sculpt, I also enjoyed making two dimensional pieces out of the clay. I played with exhibiting them by themselves, either framed or unframed, and putting them in mixed media artwork with watercolor or Japanese ink. My least favorite part of the process was framing. It was time-consuming, expensive and I never seemed to pick the right frame. But the process of creating the pieces was great!