Pages

This blog has moved.....

This blog has MOVED to a new location! Please visit my new site by clicking here.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Erudite Collection....








erudite er′yo̵̅o̅ dīt′adj
having or showing extensive scholarship; learned
[from Latin ērudītus, from ērudīre to polish, from ex-1 + rudis unpolished, rough]

The new Erudite Collection is a collection of rough hand-faceted polymer clay pieces fashioned into wearables. I was really inspired by Diane Hawkey's faceted ceramic nuggets that she sent me in the Bead Soup Party and before that time, I had already been contemplating a new ready to wear jewelry line that incorporated faceted pieces of some kind. I'm getting ready for Indie Craft Parade and I wanted to have a bunch of one of a kind affordable pieces on hand to sell there.

Part of my love affair with polymer clay is taking standard items like tribal fetishes, stones, netsuke and translating them into polymer clay. Polymer clay is such a versatile medium and I leave the mokume gane and canework and complicated things to the polymer clay masters. I am, by my own admission, not a polymer clay master. I couldn't make a cane to save my life and I don't really care to!

I use polymer clay as an extension of my creative process. I could be using any medium, so long as I achieve the aesthetic I set out to get. For me, I have developed a process which I like to follow. For polymer clay, it is sculpting, carving, painting, sanding, polishing.... It is focused and therapeutic to an extent. I use these same process over and over but often the work speaks to me and asks me to change.... Sometimes it asks me to stop and think and reexamine. Should you carve after you paint? Should you carve after the baking/firing?

I've come to realize that I'm very much a process oriented artist. I think that process art gets a bad name sometimes. Sometimes, people associate that those who make process oriented art do not care about its outcome. I think that is untrue. The outcome IS important to me and through the process, I reach this state, where the process is finished and the outcome is apparent. It is very similar to Wabi-Sabi. One accepts the impermanence of all creation or that this piece is finished for this maker.....

What is your aesthetic? How do you work?

The above pieces are currently available for purchase in the shop.

6 comments:

outofthedark said...

b-
you are on a roll!
very nice collection, indeed.
i love the teardrop shaped bead.
wonderful!

Dawn Doucette said...

I love the new style... it blends faceted (which people associate alot of the time with formal) and the every day wearing jewelry. Great combination! Indie Craft Parade sounds wonderful! I only wish I lived closer!

{Hugs!}
Dawn

Silver Parrot said...

I am looking at those pictures and I am gleefully rubbing my hands together in anticipation (and you know why LOL)!

Oh, and as far as how I work? I call it "beading by the seat of my pants." I rarely know where I'm going with a piece or a particular set of beads until I'm actually starting to put them together. And I get bored easily so I'm always bouncing from one technique to the next which is probably why my jewelry collection isn't so much a collection as a randomly haphazard mish-mash.

Pretty Things said...

Those are lovely!

I don't think I HAVE an aesthetic. I kind of flutter here and there. Maybe that's my aesthetic?

Davinia said...

Hi Barbara, aesthetic? I haven't one I don't think. I just bumble along with what ever takes my fancy be it colour, design, my mood (good or bad). I'm just starting my journey with polymer clay and like you canes and mokume gane don't hold a great deal of appeal. Colour and texture and shape are what interest me at the moment. I've just become a follower and look forward to your posts.

Barbara Bechtel said...

Thanks friends! I think aesthetic is your innate sensibility. I think aesthetic is also related to personal style and it pervades through your work whether you want it to or not. I think it is important to listen to this and consider its importance.