The Greek artist Constantinos Karalis was born in Athens and has lived there all his life. Ever since he can remember, he has engaged in arts, handcraft and painting. In 1993 he first tried working with polymer clay in local courses for children. The experience was truly positive and he immediately fell in love with the material. Polymer made such a huge impression on him because until that moment only played with plasticine and what annoyed him was that what he was making could be ruined. When he realized that there is a plasticine - that's how he saw the polymer clay back then - with which he can do thousands of things, bake them in his mother’s oven and they will last forever, he was truly excited. Later on, Constantinos studied interior design and became involved in the design of spaces, useful objects and furniture. However, it was not enough for him - he was not satisfied with just designing an object. He wanted to see his designs being created from scratch and he wanted to know how to make objects. He started to visit and observe some local craftsmen, carpenters, and so on. He learnt the secrets of many crafts and worked on these for several years but his favorite hobby was there no matter what he was doing. So in 2013 Constantinos finally made the decision to turn his hobby into a full-time job and make a living from it. That's how his brand, Pilofori, was created. Constantinos did a lot of research on everything about polymer clay. He dealt with jewellery, its design and philosophy. He discovered people who were involved with it and a new world opened up in front of him. Constantinos attended numerous seminars and artists from all over the world who worked with clay. He learned techniques and started carving my own little path in this world. It took him nine years to make a living from his art. He currently has a network of stores in Greece that sell his jewellery and he feels grateful that people embrace his creations and try to find out what this material is. Having created Pilofori, he started looking for a way to improve his work in terms of materials. That’s how Constantinos discovered Kato Polyclay. He became an official vendor of Kato Polyclay in Greece and he runs a store that is dedicated exclusively to polymer clay. Constantinos says that from the creator's point of view, it was the endless possibilities that this material gives you what won him over. Just like every creator and artist who has worked with polymer clay, he has focused on a specific technique - the imitations of natural materials such as coral, wood, minerals. He finds it unique to be able to create something that brings to mind memories of a beach or a walk in the mountains and makes you forget about reality for a while. Among other things, polymer clay taught him to be stubborn and patient because the combination of these showed him that he can do anything he can think of and imagine. And there are so many things he would like to achieve. “If I look back, what I will say for sure is that since 1993 when I first learned about polymer clay, I feel like I'm still in the beginning and I still have so much to learn and discover,” he sums up his amazing adventure with polymer clay so far.

After a long break in organizing all sorts of events enforced by the pandemic, we’re really happy that this special polymer clay event will take place both offline and online. POP! Perspectives on Polymer is a five-day celebration of contemporary work in polymer, June 25-29, 2022, at Contemporary Craft (CC) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA). POP! will feature five days of in-person workshops, three evenings of virtual talks, an exhibition of small works in polymer, and a curated polymer feature in the CC Store. And our Lucy is going to be a part of that as well! There will be many renowned polymer clay artists teaching at the workshops, including Jane Pellicciotto, Jeffrey Lloyd Dever and Laura Tabakman. Each participating artist was selected for their unique perspectives on polymer and exciting ways they are moving the medium forward. The virtual talks will take place in the evenings and the speakers include Joseph Barbaccia and Lucy Štruncová. If you are interested in hearing more about the Polymer Week journey and Lucy’s story plus learn about visual identity, we would be happy to see you online during the event! The talks will be streamed in the CC studios to enable in-person workshop attendees to continue to work on their projects or to simply enjoy the company of their fellow attendees. In addition to the workshops and exhibition, Contemporary Craft is also expanding the polymer offerings in the Store. Work by a specially curated selection of artists will be featured and available for purchase. The creative force behind POP! is Contemporary Craft Education Manager, Allison Jones. Inspired by the breadth and quality of the polymer work in the CC Store, Allison began formulating plans for a special polymer feature. This idea grew from a feature to a week-long event celebrating the medium. “Throughout the planning process, we knew we wanted to feature this exciting medium in a way that is true to who we are as Contemporary Craft. We wanted to highlight artists who are taking the medium in new, fresh directions,” said Allison Jones. “All of the instructors were selected because of their contemporary approach to composition and their solid technique.” We would like to encourage you to find out more about this exceptional event and register at the event’s website.

Joseph Barbaccia from the US amazes us regularly on social media with his paintings from polymer. His technique is actually quite simple, in the technical sense, yet very time consuming. Joseph’s polymer clay art is based on the 19th century art movement’s “visible strokes of color” style. “However, instead of oil-based pigments, I use plastic-based pigments in clay form. A strand of extruded polymer clay replaces a brushstroke,” he explains. Joseph builds his polymer paintings based on images created in Adobe Photoshop. “When I’m happy with this image I make a couple of full-size prints and my work at the computer is done. For now,” he adds. After mixing colors of polymer, he starts extruding or cutting tiny little pieces for his new “painting”. “SummerMaze, my latest artwork is based on images of Block Copolymer Thin Film Nanopatterns. A block copolymer is formed when two monomers cluster together and form 'blocks' of repeating units. Investigation into their potential applications for integrated circuits, storage media, optical devices, human tissue interfacing, and other uses,” says Joseph about one of his latest artworks. Looking closely at this round, 33 cm polymer painting, you can spot tiny little extruder snakes creating an interesting organic pattern inspired by nanopatterns. “Of course, I'm predominantly interested in their visual appearance. The pattern is consistent while having a definitive unpredictability,” he adds. In his future work Joseph would love to bring more three dimensional form to the artwork while keeping the visual "feel" of the repeating blocks of shapes. We can’t wait to see what comes next!

For some people, creativity is something you can't get or learn, but to be a creative person, you must be born as such. That's the case of the artist Olga Purygina, a mother of two sons who has occupied herself with art of all kinds since being a child. During her life, she's tried many techniques, such as embroidery, knitting, drawing, beading, and sewing, but she was mainly astounded by creating from polymer. Besides that, Olga also engages herself in making graphic and artistic designs as she's studied both. However, she received the highest level of education in teaching and translation. It was a complete coincidence that she chanced upon polymer clay in 2009 on the Internet, where she found jewelry with motifs of cakes, and she knew right away that it was just what she wanted to do all her life! Therefore, she started finding more information about this artistic medium, but it was almost impossible to find any at that time in Russia. Also, not many courses were held, so Olga had to learn everything by herself. At first, she engaged herself in jewelry making with motifs of candy and transferred pictures. Years went by, and not only in Russia but also all around the world, the popularity of polymer was growing at a rapid rate. Much more courses were organized, and new technologies and tools were developed. According to her words, Olga herself tried many kinds of various realizations, from decorating dishes to creating characters. Nevertheless, she returned to what had brought her to the polymer at first - jewelry making. She likes to make earrings and brooches the most, but we also find bracelets and necklaces in her portfolio. In 2018, she received an unusual order indeed, earrings with motifs of claws. As she loves the sea and everything related, she was excited. And that's how her cooperation with a seafood restaurant in Moscow started, lasting successfully for four years now. During that time, she created over 200 pairs of these earrings that required a lot of work and cost her many sleepless nights. But it was worth it! Polymer clay has been Olga's great love for 13 years now and is growing every year. Still, she's not sure what direction to take in her creation. Perhaps, she should be making unusual jewelry, creating characters, or dealing with the theme of the marine world. Who knows? There's no other choice than to experiment!

The art of Meredith Dittmar may not be completely new to our readers - we recently interviewed her for Polymer Week Magazine. The artist has a background in engineering, computer science and sociology, but she embarked on the career of a full-time artist about ten years ago. Today we would like to introduce her recent collection titled The Texture of Awareness. Meredith has been working with various materials, such as paper or steel. Polymer clay, however, has remained her native medium of expression and she works with it freely to explore the present moment. She defines her visual language as arising from “a practice of sketching her feelings and sensations and shifting/playing with the location and borders of perception”. In her images, animations, installations and wall pieces Meredith works with complex composition and repetition of elements to create volume and rich texture, claiming to “bend the same element in multiple ways the same as our mind bends a singular infinite awareness into separate objects”. Her often monochromatic pieces certainly deserve thorough examination on the part of the viewer as there is so much to perceive and discover. If you’d like to see for yourself, visit Meredith’s Instagram account. In our opinion, it’s absolutely worth your time!

Maybe you have experienced it too - sometimes we have an idea, but the creative process takes us to a completely different place. The same thing happened to the Russian artist Valeria Erokhina. She first felt the impulse to create when she saw miniature roomboxes about seven years ago. Valeria desired to make such a miniature room for herself, but for some reason, she started sculpting tiny flowers and animals instead of furniture and home equipment. She was so fascinated by the activity that she hasn’t stopped yet. In fact, the artist devotes more and more time to her hobby as she strives for perfect results. And we must say that the level of execution is superb - her mini cats, squirrels, dogs, owls, orchids and other creations are so elaborate and lifelike that you almost expect them to start moving. It is not surprising that the completion of each of her pieces requires a lot of time. As for material, Valeria uses mostly polymer clay, wire armature and natural wool in her artwork. Despite the fact that her realistic sculptures are so labour intensive, Valeria really enjoys the creative process. “It's very exciting, and I'm always looking forward to the final result,” she asserts and we highly recommend you to show her and her cute creatures some support by visiting Valeria’s Instagram profile.

Colourful, bold, extraordinary, striking, original, one-of-a-kind - these are some of the adjectives we could use in an attempt to describe the jewellery made by Monica Suzette, or simply ‘Sue’ Savage, a Montana-based American artist. Sue describes herself as a woman of many roles. “I'm a designer, creator, lover of whimsy and creating my space, biker, skier, gardener, companion to four dogs and blessed to live with the love of my life,” she says. Feeling driven to express is a blessing that allows Sue to move beyond her self-censorship and find joy in creating. She speaks very fondly of her childhood spent with her parents and three siblings in Bozeman, Montana, and the love and adventurous lifestyle she experienced as a child undoubtedly laid a great foundation for her artistic endeavours. Sue describes her creative process as a combination of both ancient and modern techniques and materials. A closer look reveals that she draws on Mokume-gane, the 17th-century Japanese technique originally used in metallurgy. She always starts with a layered collection of colours, reflective of her surroundings, which are marred and hand-sliced to create the base pallet. Further steps include embellishment via drawing, riveting, lacing or adding semi-precious and precious elements and then mounting each piece to rustic metals. "My philosophy is to create elements of personal adornment emitting surprise and whimsy with attention to detail and craftsmanship," Sue explains, adding that she believes happiness is life's purest gift. “Sharing that emotion through my work is a fine honour," she concludes. You can explore Sue’s amazing pieces on the social media of her brand, Studio Picea. The bright colours in daring combinations and playful shapes may be just what you need right now to feel a little bit happier.

In her three-year long career of polymer clay artist she created numerous figurines of both ordinary people and celebrities, such as MBE Sir Eddie Spence (ex-royal baker to the Queen) or His Holiness Sadhguru. Rashmi Bhatia started her creative brand, Aura Figurines, only in 2018, but she has had a much longer history of working with different mediums. Rashmi has always had an artistic streak but for practical reasons she studied management instead. It turned out, however, that art is her calling, so she later received a degree in interior design, which was the beginning of her creative journey. At this point she was still far away from polymer clay, as she initially worked with pastry and her first creations were amazing cakes. She baked the first one from scratch when her daughter was a couple of months old and then there was no looking back. She mastered the decoration skills like icing, piping and sugar-paste modelling. She even went ahead to win The Homebaker of the Year Award, 2017, held in Mumbai by Hospitality First. Playing with sugar-paste awoke the artist in Rashmi and she moved on to sculpt people replicas in gum-paste. However, humidity and temperature changes used to ruin her work, making the hours she spent on the figurines futile. She happened to discover polymer clay and its benefits for sculping life-like figurines and immediately appreciated the versatility, sturdiness and durability of the cured medium. “My handcrafted polymer clay figurines have found loving homes in India and abroad, over the past three years. It gives me immense joy to recreate people’s loved ones,” she says. The Indian artist plans to create more artistic human sculptures, a challenge which - as she hopes - will push her skills further and bring more life into her work. Take a moment to appreciate Rahmi’s incredible sculpting skills on her social media.

It’s incredible that the Spanish artis Nepaim Hesev has been working with polymer clay for over 50 years. Like many children, he first started sculpting with plasticine and he used to spend hours and hours modelling his own toys. Later on he switched to polymer, a more durable medium, and became one of the first people in his country to work with this sculpting material. “My sculpting style is rather impressionistic, especially when I model with clay. But also in my wood carvings and my concrete and paper sculptures, unorthodox materials, but which have always attracted me,” says Nepaim, listing all the mediums he’s been working with. He always liked to make small animal figurines with a significant scientific approach and polymer clay gave him a chance to capture the wild creatures in a more permanent form. The artist prepares meticulously for each project, doing a lot of in-depth research of the given species before he proceeds to sketching. “My collection is mainly focused on mammals and they all have to be of the same scale,” he says. He chose the scale of 1:20 because it allows him to reproduce all animals from the largest mammal, the blue whale, whose size is 150cm, to the smallest, the pygmy shrew, whose model only measures a few millimeters. We don’t have to mention that the whole process is quite time-consuming and labour intensive. He mostly makes his models with a single colour clay and once baked, he paints them with acrylic paints. Sometimes, however, he sculpts the models adding small balls of polymer clay properly coloured in accordance with the part of the animal body. Then, once he makes the final texture, it is not necessary to paint the model. Nepaim calls this method “sculpainting”. Nepaim currently concentrates on reproducing the models of my animals. His initial goal was not selling them for profit, he simply wanted his hobby to be cost-free. However, given the people's interest in his figures, he has recently opened my small business, divARTsity, which is giving him great satisfaction and a little money.

The Italian-born sculptor, character designer and miniaturist Isabella Francione, also known as Isabella Ooak in the online community, creates what she calls "bipolar art". And indeed, her work is full of contrasts - it’s both dark and light, bitter and sweet, traditional and innovative. No matter the scale, her polymer clay sculptures are always very well-designed and executed, and often inspired by Isabella's passion for psychology and art. The artist admits that she went through a series of hard experiences and traumas in her life and it clearly shows in her artwork. Isabella’s, often female, heroines project delicacy and vulnerability as well as their dark underlying struggles. This potent concoction of contrasts is reflected in their facial expressions, postures and the props that often accompany them. Isabella describes herself as fully-self taught and adds that even though she has always been deeply interested in art, her professional artistic career started only in 2015. Her admiration towards great contemporary sculptors, art doll makers and conceptual artists motivates her to keep learning and improving. It’s worth mentioning that her sculptures have already enjoyed international recognition and between the years 2018 and 2020 Isabela was nominated for and won several art awards. One of her biggest aspirations is to share her love for art and positive vibes with the world through her soulful creations.

Mary Anne Loveless has truly fond memories of the beginning of her creative journey. She started discovering her creativity very early together with her mother, playing with salt dough in their kitchen. It was such a positive experience that she has actually never stopped creating since then, even though the medium has changed multiple times. “I will never forget the moment that she wrapped a green layer around a red ball of clay, then cut it open to reveal a watermelon! It was pure magic,” she describes her first encounter with polymer clay. Mary Anne also says that she feels the same amazement every time she opens a cane. Even though she says she’s not an expert caner, her complex canes with intricate patterns speak volumes about her skills. Among other things, we admire her sense of colour and Mary Anne herself admits that playing with colour is her favourite part of the creative process. Some of Mary Anne’s most beautiful pieces - her mosaics - show not only great attention to detail and meticulous execution, but also great colour combinations. The versatile artist now uses both ceramics and polymer clay to create jewellery and small objects such as vases and bowls, but she also mastered the technique of marbling and produces beautifully patterned marbled paper and silk scarves. You can explore all of her artwork on Mary Anne’s Instagram profile.

Today we would like to introduce a special art project to you - Mimicry. It started as a collaboration of two Russian artists - Kirill, a sculptor from Saratov, and Methodius, an artist from St. Petersburg. From the very beginning, their joint effort focuses on creating statement jewellery that emphasizes the "undeniable beauty of human nature,” as they put it. Their works are based on the heritage of art in general and samples of jewellery art from different eras such as Art Deco. However, the main storyline of their products is oriental, and - in particular inspired by Japanism. Each work is a small excursion into history, and an occasion to reflect on the beautiful side of a fragile human life. The main material that their team works with is polymer clay inlaid with natural precious and semi-precious stones. Both artists vow to guaranteethe quality, elegance and exclusivity of each work that comes out of their studio. They perceive themselves as observers, who are on an equal footing with their customers, whose support is also the main resource for development and constant improvement of their work. Take a moment to explore Mimicry’s social media and enjoy the beauty of their pieces.

Sandy Pflug might sound familiar to you, as she recently shared a wonderful tutorial on our Society membership platform. Her art skills are incredible and her way of creating the tutorial and sharing own knowledge as well. Let’s get to know Sandy more in today’s blog post. “I live in Ontario, Canada, and recently turned 61,” starts Sandy talking about her life. In her early adulthood she obtained a bachelor’s degree in fine art with a Studio Major, however, upon graduation she did not pursue a career in the arts. “In fact, I rarely did any drawing or painting for several decades and focused on other creative pursuits such as yarn and paper crafts, needlework and gardening.” In her late 40s, Sandy was introduced to polymer clay: “While browsing in our local library I ran across The Polymer Clay Cookbook by Jessica and Susan Partain. At the time I was an “at home” mom always looking for new creative media to explore with my young daughter,” says Sandy who started making little food charms together with her daughter. This story actually happened to many of the artists we write about! The children usually move on, but parents stay fascinated by the never-ending amount of possibilities that this material provides. Sandy later learned more from books and online and from making jewellery. Then she switched to the fairy world. “I eventually sold through local craft shows and a couple of shops. A pragmatic decision to diversify my inventory a few years later led me to creating some ”fairy” portals which have become my mainstay ever since,” she explains. “I have really enjoyed the return to a more sculptural approach which was where I began working with polymer clay. Through this type of “low relief” work, I have gradually awakened the technical skills that had unfortunately languished after my years in art school. I also like the challenge of incorporating symbolic references, often requested by the customer, in a meaningful way for an integrated design. Together these design elements are intended to suggest what may lie within or beyond the portal.” For creating such portals, Sandy tries as often as she can to experience the restorative powers of nature through activities like gardening, hiking and exploring the woods surrounding the lake where her family has had a cabin for over fifty years. “Typically, I strive for balance between realism and whimsy creating textures, form and colour that are rooted in nature but also allowing myself some creative freedom to make alterations if I feel they better serve the overall design,” says Sandy about her style. As most of her artwork is made in three-dimension, she has been discovering how best to build a core or armatures. “In this case I began with a tinfoil core for the mushroom cap, a foil and wire structure for the frog and a wire support for the chimney. Wire also provided a way to secure the frog and chimney to the piece by embedding the wire ends into holes in the mushroom and cementing it with liquid clay or adhesive,” explains Sandy her process. Sculpey Ultralight was applied as a base layer of clay over the foil cores and also to shape the mushroom stem around a small glass jar adding volume but less weight than with other polymer clay. “I used coloured clay to finish each of the components and create the smaller details working with mid-tones which were then shaded and highlighted with chalk pastels,” she adds. Chalk pastels are a staple in Sandy’s artistic process as they allow her to further define form and colour prior to curing. ”I also often use mica powders, acrylic and heat set paints, and inclusion such as glitter in my work,” shares Sandy more about materials she likes to use. Finally, the base under the mushroom stem was created over a thin disk of wood bulked up with some tin foil before covering it with clay. “Of course, I used repeated curing cycles throughout the process so that details were preserved. The final sculpture measures approximately 20 cm in height,” she adds. Over this year, Sandy has been inspired to learn more about the role of fungi in the natural environment, foraging for mushrooms and mushroom cultivation. “I’m certain that this subject matter will continue to be a part of my repertoire in the future,” says Sandy. We can’t wait to see more of her artwork with such precise and well-thought execution and wonderful details. Well done!

At Polymer Week, we are huge fans of clean, precise design with some original touches. In this case we have been fascinated by Tanya Mayorova’s brooch that she created as a class project for a Russian polymer clay event that is happening this year. Tanya Mayorova has been working with polymer for more than eleven years and her experience is well visible in all of her artwork. “I love and combine different techniques. I mainly create jewelry in ethno and boho styles,” she says. When it comes to the pinky leaf brooch, you might be wondering about the construction of this jewel. “The white part is hollow, so the brooch is also not heavy when wearing,” describes Tanya her project. It’s lovely how she added small non-regular dots on the white main part and the same pattern we can see also on the leaves with added texture. The connection of little leaves and the hollow part in U-shape is also very well done. Good job, Tanya!

Let’s dive into the magical world of mushrooms that Brenda West has been creating. Brenda started sculpting from polymer in her early childhood. Since 2018 she has enchanted her audience with little mushrooms for the first time. “Life has a way of bending and twisting around, so I had about a 15 year hiatus from clay before picking it back up again in 2017 while I was live streaming art on my twitch.tv channel,” says Brenda about her return to polymer. On the Twitch social media platform, she became connected with tons of artists around the globe and had started making sculptures of her friends' stream mascots. During that process she fell back in love with polymer clay and sculpting in general. With the first mushroom sculptures that Brenda created she realized how wonderful and charming they look like and started creating a collection. “Three years later I haven't stopped!! I started learning more about mushrooms to understand the beautiful organisms I was referencing for my artwork, and in that process I became fully enamored with mycology - the study of fungi,” explains Brenda of her passion. After absorbing a ton of information about mushrooms, she finally decided on a name for my creations and began writing a zine series titled "The Fantasy Field Guide to Funguise Friends" which is still under development. Over the time, Brenda has sculpted and hand painted well over 200 figurines! Each Funguise (pronounced Fun Guy) figurine is a one-of-a-kind numbered piece of polymer clay artwork. “My sculptures are a little bit different from most polymer clay art because I completely paint my pieces with acrylic paint. I use a variety of brands to accomplish this, but my favorite so far has been Golden,” Brenda shares more about her process of creation. As for the clay itself, she creates a custom blend of Super Sculpey Medium and Firm to make her figurines: “The blend I use is a perfect balance between the two, being soft enough to work with my hands but also firm enough to hold the textures that I love to carve into my work. Occasionally I will also work with Cosclay, which cures with more flexibility for delicate details such as snail antennae,” she adds. We are astonished by the dedication and passion Brenda works with. Recently she also started exploring new sizes with her work and released a few larger pieces in the 8 inch to 12 inch ranges. “These larger pieces are currently exclusive to the local gallery that I work with in Cannon Beach, Oregon.” Although her polymer clay sculptures are Brenda’s main thing to work on, she is also currently developing a kind of merchandise with her Funguise characters including a line of greeting cards, apparel, stickers,... “Also in the near future, I would like to start sharing more about the wonderful world of Fungi with my audience, because they're incredible organisms that I think are extremely misunderstood by most people,” says Brenda and we can’t wait to see more!

”I’ve always been inspired by nature. I think it’s so cool how things, such as leaves and trees shift during different seasons of the year and I wanted to recreate that in my jewelry,” says Una Mundzic, a fifteen year old clayer from Sweden. We were fascinated by her age and it reminded us of the early start of the Polymer Week company, as Lucy, our founder, started to work with polymer clay at twelve. Una grew up with art surrounding her all the time. Inspired by her mum's paintings and other crafts such as beads and origami, Una found polymer clay, a much better waterproof material for her ideas. ”I think polymer clay is such a fun material because you can literally do anything you want with it. No one has said that it’s easy, when I look two to three years back everything looks like crap, but that’s the thing. There’s nothing better than seeing an evolution in your own creativity and creations,” says Una about her journey. This young artist got inspired by the shapes of Ginkgo leaf and came up with an original design of polymer clay earrings that she successfully sells to people from all over the world: ”I think it’s so cool to look back just two years, remembering myself wishing a stranger would buy my jewelry one day,” remembers Una her dreams that definitely came true. “Recently several celebrities have been wearing my jewelry, also in a Scandinavian television program,” Una told us proudly. She usually tries to get in touch with celebrity stylists that she admires through Instagram. “It’s a very hard way because they normally don’t check their direct messages. However, I managed to do it and it worked.” Una puts a lot of focus on every single detail in her artwork, to make it as beautiful as possible. ”I carve every single leaf by hand. It’s hard and grueling, but at the same time so fun. There’s no better feeling than seeing your own creations coming to life, from a bit of polymer clay to a pair of earrings,” describes Una the process of creation. Currently, she is focusing a lot on developing her techniques and creativity: “I want to establish my brand, through my own ideas and style. I want to reflect who I am in every single piece, and therefore do it my way,” and we can’t wait to see this rising star in future.

Malia Davis just recently returned to creating art with polymer clay after taking quite a few years off. Her artwork is very cute colorful three-dimensional pieces that are interestingly placed on wood slices. “I actually never thought that I would be able to return to polymer because I have fibromyalgia, but I'm so grateful I have been able to,” Malia told us and we are amazed by what she can create. She started with polymer around 2014 and was originally focused on making jewelry, not much else. When she came back to polymer, Malia wanted to do more artistic pieces than jewelry: “I had grown to love nature during the pandemic because it felt like a peaceful escape to walk through the woods or sit by a creek. It was like a getaway for me. So I started making clay pieces based on things found in nature and really enjoyed it!” We fell in love with Malia’s fairy-tale artwork and its composition on wood, that together with clay, create wonderful wall art. But we were also curious how fibromyalgia disease affects her life. “It is a nerve disease that causes widespread chronic pain. Everyone experiences it differently, but my experience has been severe back, hip, and shoulder pain that radiates through the rest of my body on very bad days,” explains Malia who takes medication daily and gets acupuncture every few weeks to manage the pain. “Polymer clay is the perfect medium for me to create with because I am able to work on pieces for short periods of time over the course of multiple days or even weeks without the clay drying out, which allows me to work around my pain levels and hard days,” she adds. As a homeschooling mom, Malia is doing a wonderful job with her creations and has certainly a big plans for the future. “I hope to continue showing my art in galleries and create more work to open a web shop. I'd also love to get into teaching polymer clay courses online one day.”

If you know Bettina Welker’s artwork you might notice that she really likes the “engineering “ part of putting polymer clay jewelry pieces together without using too many pre-made findings or clasps. “I love to make it all from polymer. I always have a lot of fun coming up with useful connections and clasp solutions for my polymer work,” says Bettina. This bracelet is no exception. We were so amazed by this recent artwork that we had to ask Bettina about it and share that with you! “The individual elements are connected by small polymer rods that work as hinges and that are also part of the clasp,” she explains. When cleaning out an old jewelry box at her mom’s house, Bettina saw an old cheap bracelet that had this type of connection between the links. “I was wondering if it was possible to translate this into polymer. It obviously worked.” Bettina shares her design idea in a tutorial on Etsy that you can purchase and create your own. Her tutorials are well-known in the world of polymer and even though creating tutorials can take a lot of time, in this case several days, it’s truly worth it as many fans of Bettina’s work love to learn her techniques and construction ideas. With the situation we are in for two years already, Bettina also found herself in a strange mood. “I was in kind of a creative limbo for a good while - no inspiration, no focus, no ideas,” she says and is truly looking forward to the time we will be able to travel again. “I really don’t want to dive into the zoom world. Of course it helped a lot over the last two years but it’s just not the same. I need my students in the room, I need personal contact. Students should have the opportunity to come to me and ask questions and solve problems during a workshop, which is way easier in person than on a screen. It’s also not so easy to teach a class while dealing with the software all the time,” shares Bettina her feelings and we could not agree more. Let’s hope we will be able to meet with many of you during polymer clay classes soon!

A Siberian artist living in Moscow found herself making handmade things from clay and developing own technique of folding small swirling wearable sculptures. Let’s meet Alisa Lariushkina, who twists tiny pieces of clay every day and can’t stop. One day Alisa was surfing the internet one day while working in the office and suddenly saw the floral tree made from an air dry clay which actually blows her mind till now. Inspired by the new material, she gave it a try and after three years she was already satisfied with her own technique: „Step by step I started doing unusual flowers with curled petals until I made something that looked like a bird. I can tell you that I came to it quite spontaneously. Since then I have improved technology, found the best materials and made my products more durable,“ says Alisa whose work is often compared to paper quilling, but that’s far away from the truth. Alisa gained a huge community around herself on social media and has been recently creating much bigger pieces. “I promised myself to try something much bigger than an animal brooch and I think in the end it turned out successfully. Now I mostly make framed landscapes and underwater sceneries, still from my favorite Japanese air-dry clay,” says Alisa. Among her original works you can notice Van Gogh's paintings: “I love to recreate them. I also tried to recreate The great wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai. My next goal is Monet, we'll see,” she adds.

Dive into the world of German artist Florian Schäfer, a leading force behind Forgotten Creatures. Supported by the folklorist Janin Pisarek, Florian spends hours researching descriptions of supernatural beings - on the internet as well as in dusty archives and crammed libraries. In his myth studio, realistic replicas of ghosts and beasts are created. We are happy that in his fairy-tale sculptures, polymer clay is often used, especially for faces, skin and hands. “The sculptures are painted with acrylics. Hair, clothing and other accessories are mostly made from natural products,” says Florian who pays attention to every detail and collaborates with photographer Hannah Gritsch to capture his art staged at historical locations. The belief in nature spirits, in goblins and fairies shaped people's lives for many centuries. Many orally transmitted folk tales were written down in the course of history - which is also documented by the well-known collections of the Brothers Grimm. Fantastic novels, films and series are on everyone's lips and inspire millions of people every day. Despite the continued popularity of such media, knowledge of the cultural origin of these traditional motifs is waning in the general consciousness and Florian believes it’s time to revive the fascination with the almost forgotten legendary figures. With his team they currently focus on nearly forgotten spirits of German folklore. “With the project Forgotten Creatures we set ourselves the task of bringing the beings of “lower mythology” to life today,” says Florian. This is done in an innovative way. Florian creates sculptures in elaborate manual work, the appearance of which corresponds to the descriptions from historical writings. Then they combine art with cultural history and thus create a modern level of experiencing our own cultural past. In August 2020 a book "Hausgeister!" (Household spirits) was published featuring both in-depth information on cultural backgrounds and many photographs on nearly 200 pages. “It is currently translated into english and will be available in Autumn 2022 by the publisher from Canada,” says Florian and we are amazed by the work he and his team has done. Congratulations!