Claymagination 2011 Wrap-Up

New City, New Attitude, New Work, New Husband? Nah!

Moving used to be a breeze. I thought spring cleaning was "moving"! Now having lived in one place (Vancouver Island, off the west coast of Canada) for the past 15 years, I have learned how to spring clean. Unfortunately, I've forgotten how to move. It's kind of like being in labour (birthing, not working!) If you knew ahead of time what the pain would be like towards the end, you would keep your knees firmly together, if you know what I mean (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)

So now I'm in the eastern part of Canada, Montreal, to be precise, and it's time to start planning Claymagination 2012. We have some metalsmithing talent already lined up and I'll post the agenda for that class, with some pictures, as soon as I get them from the artist. April seems to be a good month. The Easter weekend seems to be on the 8th. Spring break for most of Canada is mid to late March, so maybe April 9th to 13th (Tuesday to Saturday) or 16th to 20th. Please post comments to let me know what dates would work for you all.

Meanwhile, here are pictures of the large-holed beads that are so popular right now. I'm working on setting up video tutorials for the following months. Let me know if there are particular things you would like to see.

 

 

 

 You can see the need to glue the eyelets in after baking in the above blue bead.

These were all made with leftover leaf canes.

  

The important things in life

Well, one more day and I am off.....so of course I am lazing around pondering what is actually important in life.....why you ask?

My suitcase sits in front of me and I have come to a very hard choice......do I need clothes or more clay stuff?  Choices, choices, choices.  On one hand I don't think you gals would appreciate me naked but on the other hand, the more stuff I bring, the less you will notice me at all!  LOL!

You know my priorities are right though when you open the lid to my suitcase and 3/4 of the space is my pasta machine, lots and lots of goodies......the remaining 1/4 is for my clothes.  You all won't care if I am in the same jeans and tshirt everyday will you?

I am so excited, can't wait to see you all! And to those taking the beginner class today, I wish you all the best.  And please, if anyone happens to have some pretty heavy tranquilizers handy (horse ones would work!) please bring them.....Vickie is just a tad excited these days.  (Just joking for those of you who might not know me or understand my sense of humour!)

Posted by Lisa

Boy do I work well under pressure!

Time is disappearing fast!  I swear I have lost a week somewhere.  I can't possibly be leaving for Canada in a little over a week......must be the age thing.....but if I am getting old then that means that Vickie is only getting older! Hee Hee!

So, here I am, trying to put together my class.  You see, I happened upon something by accident and that is what I am teaching as part two of the surface techniques.  But the problem is, an accident is just that, something that happens that you don't plan on.  Having accidents, at least for me, is pretty much a daily routine.  Trying to repeat an accident.....not so easy!!  But today I sat down and decided that today was the day, I was going to figure out my accident or die trying.  And guess what?  I am alive baby!!!  So, some wonderful pieces are in the oven cooking, instructions are being typed up and pictures have been taken.  Phew!!!!  I don't know if you guys will understand but I for one sure the heck don't want Vickie mad at me! 

I can't wait to meet you all.....I have heard wonderful things about the creative bunch up there in Canuckville!  I am also looking forward to getting out of this heat.....Vancouver Island here I come!

See you all in a little bit!  Be ready to have lots of accidents!  Because that is the only way I do things!

Oh and this blogpost was done by the one, the only, firstborn of Vickie the great.....Lisa Pakosh!!

4 Weeks to go!

I've had enough of the cold and rain and isolation and am REALLY looking forward to fun and laughter with y'all. Only a little over 4 weeks to go! 4 weeks from tomorrow the Beginner's/Refresher class will be held here in my studio (yes, I'm cleaning off all the work surfaces - no, I'm not vacuuming!)

As you know, your most valuable tools are your hands and keeping them in top condition is important to working comfortably with polymer clay. To help you with this I will recommend exercises from time to time.

The manual dexterity exercise for the next week is the "choke your mate" exercise. The key here is stealth. Walk quietly over to where your mate is sitting reading a slasher novel or watching a horror movie. Hold your breath; shape your hands into claws; from behind, bring them slowly in front of your mate's eyes and quickly grab your fingers, making a deathly rattling sound in the back of your throat at the same time. On second thought, maybe just doing the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" move is safer!

I have received almost all the payments, thank you very much. My VISA card thanks you.

Lunches:

Just a reminder that we have the option of bringing a bagged lunch or ordering lunch from the resort restaurant, the Landing Grill. That lunch will be delivered to our workroom so we don't have to waste time with restaurant protocols. Those of you who have had the opportunity to eat there in the past know how delicious the food is, so this is a very tempting option, at least for one of the days. 

Please Note: Because they are bringing any ordered lunches to our room they will not be taking individual payments. They will be billing me, so please bring cash or a cheque so that you can make a payment to me when you receive your portion of the meal bill, including your share of the tax and gratuity.

Saturday Dinner:

This meal is included in the fee for the full 5 day retreat. You will not be charged extra for this. 

Claymagination Store:

We are setting up an area of the room as a "store" so you can purchase some supplies that you may want for working at home after the retreat. We are making certain items available in smaller quantities, such as the new paint, so you can get an assortment of colours at a reasonable cost, rather than having to buy 5 to 10 different full-size bottles that will last you 20 years! There will be some jewelry supplies, including findings, chain by the foot and cordage, again available in small amounts.

There will also be "some" Kato clay available for purchase in 2 oz. packages for $2 each. I say "some" because I don't have the room to store a lot of clay. I have received some questions about availability of clay, so if you have a specific request, I will place an order in the next week so it has time to get here. I order from Shades of Clay, a Canadian company, and they give us a discount on the large, 12.5 oz bars. There will be tax on top of this and a share of the shipping charge, which is modest compared to shipping from the US.

To sum up, there will be clay available (approx. 5 packages of each of the 2 oz.colours & metallics plus a few more of the basics - black, white, translucent). If you would like some of the larger bars or would like to share some large bars with some others, please let me know within the next week and, if we get enough requests (6 or more), I will place an order for us. The price per 12.5 oz bar will be approximately $10.00 and for the metallic $12.30, including tax and shipping.

Charm/Bead Exchange:

I've had the opportunity to see the charms some of you are making for the exchange and they are wonderful - so creative. It never ceases to amaze me the different ideas artists come up with! If you don't have clay, feel free to make something in fibre or paper or whatever, as long as it's about 1" to 1 1/2" and has a wire, jump ring or hole so it can be hung on a bracelet or necklace. If you have no charms to trade, no worries - we'll trade with you anyway. There will be a total of 15 of us.

Thursday Evening:

If you have something specific you want to know or have a problem with, let us know before Thursday so we can bring appropriate tools, etc. to help you with your technique or problem.

That's about it for now. I'll send another email closer to Clay Day so feel free to let me know any other information you may need.

Keep your strength up and get lots of sleep.

She's Contaminated

She's finally finished!  I went to her this morning and had some ideas of things to add and when I looked at her, I knew - she was complete.

She's Contaminated took on a bit more of a somber tone than most of my other work so far.  Originally, as with most of my stuff, I was going to name her, however, right through her creation, no name seemed to fit.  Usually, a name will pop into my head that suits the character that I'm working on -  but not in this case.  Then I realized, it's because she's all of us.  She's not a specific character, but more of a spirit or feeling.  As her story goes:

"What were you thinking?

Such an odd statement used often with venom and sarcasm to cause one to second-guess their minds.

"She's Contaminated" represents that feeling that nothing you can do or say is right. Nothing comes out the way you planned. People keep looking at you out of the corners of their eyes, avoiding direct contatct at all costs.

It's that feeling of isolation when you just can't seem to connect to others...or others simply refuse to reach out and connect with you. "

Here are some more pics - I'm very happy with how she turned out:

I ended up adding some suede to her mohawk to give it a little more subtance, and I especially love the little steampunk cuff I gave her:

Here clothes were all hand-sewn...and lemme tell you right now, I don't sew.  Nope.  I don't do it.  I generally don't agree with it and it generally doesn't agree with me.  I think it turned out pretty good though, for a complete, rank, amature. :)  I even sewed the ribbons on because I was worried that if I glued them on, they would eventually come off - and I want her to last a long, long, time.

Anyway, I just wanted to share the completed project with you all.  On to other clay adventures!

Have a great and imaginative day!

Posted by Sandy not...

If I don't get these things out, my head will explode

Good Morning all my lovely clay friends out there!  I mean, friends who play with clay, not friends who are made of clay - though I do have a few of those too, but they have trouble reading - we're working on it, but phonics doesn't work well when you have no ears.  Ah, well.  In the mean time, let me introduce you to some of them.

First, there's Little Red.  She's another box I made to give you all an idea of a different direction you can take your boxes in:

I apologize for the lousy pics but I'm horrible at taking photos of my work.  I think maybe it's my camera - yeahhhh, that's the ticket!  It's the lousy camera.

So get those gears turning.  Start dreaming of characters, images, themes...whatever you think you might like to use to decorate your box come April.  Remember, we'll be learning how to do wire armature, so it makes it a bit easier to do a character with limbs and such.

My next friend to share is No Name.  She's an Art Doll that I am working on and haven't finished yet - thus the No Name, as I haven't been inspired to bestow a title on her yet.  It's the first time I've ventured into what I would consider true Art Doll territory, in that...well...she's big.  I've always seemed to work small-scale, but she's much bigger than anything I've done before.  She's still naked as I'm undecided on how to best cover her yet, but she's coming along and I thought I would share her "birth" with you all.

Please excuse the wire I've used to hang her from the door-knob...it was the best I could come up with to get some pictures of her (remember, I'm terrible at photography, so...).  Her eyes are some glass beads I had laying around and her hair, so far, is what I think is bear fur that I found in a fly-tying kit that used to belong to my grandfather.

I love her long limbs and "dangly-ness".  So far she has a butterfly "tatoo" on her back but that may get covered with clothes later.  I'm thinking I'll trim her mohawk quite a bit so it doesn't stick out so far...but I'm not sure yet.

She has another "tattoo" that reads "POISON" on her head.  The inspiration for this is the idea of someone who is being told that their ideas are not normal or acceptable - therefore her head is full of poison.  Perhaps she's a bit depressed?  Hey, it's Februrary - aren't we all? :P

Anywhoo, theres some little tidbits from me.  I know this is probably going to say it was posted by Vickie, but it's really Sandy.  Vickie gave me the user name and password for this blog so that I could add some posts here and there...I don't think she realized the Pandora's Box she opened up!  *Evil Grin*

Here's hoping your day is starting off in the most fun and creative ways.  So go.  Off with you.  Go get creating!

And have an awesome day!

This post has been published by Sandy
(ignore what it says below...computer dumb)