A Peace of Art

What do you get when you combine a love of color and texture, fabulous artistic ability, great design sense, a big heart, and a hippie chick with a wonderful sense of humor all into one package? You get Tammy Garner, of course!

Tammy, who lives right here in my hometown, has been working with polymer clay for about 13 years. She's one of those fearless people who can jump in and immerse themselves in most any medium and master it effortlessly. In just the past few years, I've watched her add metal clay, resin, enameling, beading, and metal working to her bag of tricks and her work continues to evolve in a wonderful way.
In addition to creating such beautiful artwork, Tammy is a wonderful and inspiring teacher who offers classes in both beginning and advanced metal clay and mixed media. She's also the author of the upcoming Metal Clay in a Day, a book that combines metal clay with polymer, resin, and other mixed media. I've had a sneak peek at many of the projects and I can tell you they're all beautiful, interesting, and accessible. You won't need lots of expensive tools and equipment, just the patience to wait until June when it's available.

I'm feeling a bit guilty for being so neglectful of this blog recently. I've just had lots to do and sometimes life gets in the way. I'm looking forward to an afternoon of doing nothing but working with clay. Hope you get a chance to do the same thing soon!

I'm off to get SYNERGIZED!

I wanted to share the delightful work of mixed media artist Elsa Mora with you before I left. She's a Cuban born artist currently living in California. I'm enamored with everything she's doing. You can read more about her creative process on her blog and you can see more of her incredible artwork here.

I'll be back from the National Polymer Clay guild conference next week and I'll see you then!

Fresh from France

I adore Flickr! It's a wonderful tool for those who have an interest in photography or artwork of any kind. I've "met" so many talented artists through this site. One of my newest contacts is Marie Guiderdoni of Paris, France. I had never seen her work until just a couple of days ago and I'm very impressed. Marie has been working with clay for only about three years but I can see that she has already developed a style and voice all her own. She's chosen to concentrate on color exploration and the use of metals and other media in conjunction with polymer clay.

Her work with rubber tubing is innovative and very nicely done. She also incorporates copper spheres into many of her pieces and oxidizes the copper with a blow-torch.

Her rings are a wonderful representation of her skill in combining different metals with the clay. I love the rich color and texture she's achieved with these. Her website is packed with wonderful images of her work and there's lots available on Flickr, as well.

On a completely different note, I decided it was time for a change and got about 7 inches cut off my hair last week. And, after years of begging from my youngest son, I caved in and allowed him to get a mohawk. His style is all about being different and I never thought I'd say this about a mohawk but, he looks really cute! Personally, I'm not feeling all that cute but, I love having short hair. So, in the spirit of change, I decided to add a translator to my blog and also clickable links to different subjects I've blogged about in the past. I'm not sure if this is the best translator available so I hope my tech-savvy readers will let me know if there's anything better out there. If all the labels are distracting or if you find them useful, I'd like to know that, too.