Circle Pin (011), 1997, polymer clay, 3 x 3 x 1/4", collection of the artists

We got an email today, confirming that the Tacoma Museum of Art has accepted a gift of a faceted pillow necklace from one of our collectors for their permanent collection.  That brings the count of museums that have our work to seven.

This fall, the Racine Art Museum in Wisconsin will have a major show of polymer work, including ours.  Called Terra Nova, the exhibition will run through February 5, 2012.  The show will have over 20 of our pieces and the museum will publish a catalog of the exhibit.  Dave and I plan to fly out for the opening on October 21.  Elise Winters has donated many pieces from her personal collection to museum collections to elevate the public profile of work made from polymer.  She was instrumental in convincing RAM to have this exhibit, and we thank her for all her efforts.

I have to admit that I am ambivalent about being identified primarily by our material.  I prefer to promote the vision of the ideas that we’re exploring through the things that we make.  Early on, it was just the opposite.  We promoted our work by promoting polymer clay; “hey, look at the tricks we can do with this great new material”.  As I get older, the same artistic and design themes pop up again and again in paintings, prints, drawings, fabric design, as well as our polymer clay work. It’s frustrating sometimes to not have any radically new ideas.  For better or worse, it also feels authentic.

Last week was our long-planned trunk show at the Harman Center for the Arts.  Building on last year’s experience, we organized something meant to be an alternative and an improvement on the craft shows that we’ve done for the last twenty years.

Generally speaking, the show was a a big success.  Although we tried not to have expectations, Dave and I admitted to expecting big, room-capacity-busting crowds.  After all, 20,000 people attend the Smithsonian Craft Show located just one short block away.  We think we got about 300 people over the two days of our event.  In hindsight, we should have included Saturday to be more easily available to working people, rather than just Thursday and Friday.  We were open long, 12 hour days, and that worked for at least one woman, stopping by to make purchases before work on Friday.   While our sales were up from last year, they were still a fraction of what we typically sell at the Smithsonian show.

The Women’s Committee of the Smithsonian was so gracious, helpful, and enthusiastic about our event.  Committee members came and shopped themselves.  They put out stacks of cards at the Building Museum, and encouraged their patrons to come see us at the Harman.  I tried to ask everyone who came through, how they had heard about our trunk show, and the majority said it was from seeing the cards at the SCS.  We took out a full page ad in the SCS program guide, mailed about 3,500 cards, sent email blasts, website listings, and everything else we could think of.  But the simplest, most direct, and most effective form of promotion turned out to be the display of cards at the SCS itself.

The staff of the Harman Center were also very gracious, helpful and supportive of this project.  They allowed us to approach play patrons waiting in the lobby above us, to invite them to come down before the seating began.  This resulted in at least one sale for Pam Bracci.  The theater audience seems perfect for what we were doing and in the future, we’ll do more to reach them to expand the scope of who we market to. Everyone who came, loved the location, and the room itself.  We had tables and chairs for people to sit and talk.  The atmosphere overall was much more relaxed, with less stress than a typical craft show.  Big thanks to the artists Pam Bracci, Jean Cho, Cecillia Fritelli & Richard Lockwood, Rob Greene, Valerie Hector, Mina Morton, and Dave & Roberta Williamson.  Many thanks to Julia and Tim at the Harman Center, and to all who attended the event.

All eleven artists agreed that the Invitational Trunk Show idea was well worth continuing.  Rob Greene described it best, saying it has “great potential”.  Having done it this year and last, we’re focused on what to change next year to grow that potential.

Steve Ford, Untitled, 2010, relief print and collage, 44 x 60"

Writing that last post, and looking at the wallpaper on my computer, I now see an obvious connection between the prints that I’ve been making and the hole punch jewelry.  The looping forms in the print to the left, what are they?  I don’t know how to explain them, except to say they appeal to me in some deep intuitive sense.  The thick and thin of the looping forms, how they swell and contract, seems similar to the hole punch pins shifting from tightly arranges circles to looser spread out ones.

My print compositions haven’t been very figurative in subject matter, except for these looping forms.  The same is true of the jewelry I make with David.  With the exception of the butterfly canes that we made as City Zen Cane, we never ventured into figurative subject matter.

Hole Punch Pin, 2011, 3 x 3 x 3/8", polymer clay, sterling silver

One day last week, I spent the afternoon mixing colors in gradation.  It wasn’t hard, in fact it was relaxing, and it reminded me of the early work we did as City Zen Cane.  One difference was that Dave usually mixed all the blends.  Then I wore out my grip with a hold punch, cutting thousands of small circles and organizing them into six egg cartons.  They was the type of carton that’s clear acrylic and has three folding layers to isolate each egg.  I thought it would be a safe way to carry the hole punches around, from home to studio, and not have them get mixed out of order.  The shades were close enough that I was sure that I’d never be able to tell one from the next.

In fact, I dropped the pile of egg cartons, and three of the colors got all mixed up among the 12 shades.  I could start over or I could sort them, and I chose to sort them.  I put on my favorite printmaking music, Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, and tried to sort 12 colors simultaneously.  Then I learned it was much easier to only pick out the lightest shade of color, and working from lightest to darkest, I was able to sort a few thousand hole punches with only three repeats of the Reich piece.

Maryanne made these large sterling frames last Fall, but I’m only now getting around to using them.  The width of the channel of silver is key to the woven look of clay work.

Hole Punch Pin, 2011, 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 x 3/8", polymer clay, sterling silver

The direction of the shift from dark to light, changes with each layer, and I’m having fun finding all the way that this problem can be solved.  I love it when the punches are tightly together, and then spread apart as if they are unraveling.  Also, I’m finding that the tighter the circle circumference, the harder it is to make the punches line up.  I’ve ripped out several sections to change the color choices.

So far, I have six large hole punch pins finished.  Dave and I would like to show them together as a group somewhere, perhaps on one wall at an upcoming craft show.  If you’re coming to the American Craft Show in Baltimore later this month, stop by  booth 429, and check them out.