The Solar Hotness!

Here's part two of my reversible choker tutorial. Its been so much fun planning and making my little films with my great friend Logan. Hope you enjoy them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiRrZKw-okw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Reversible Necklace-Make One!

Hi clayers! My first tutorial video on youtube got 1160 hits in under a week! Thank you!

The next vid will be about caning. We'll be making the cane seen here and part two will show how to make the reversible necklace.

We're shooting 10/20 and 10/21 so the tutorial should be available by 10/26.

If you like these vids please subscribe so you can be notified each time a new one comes out.

Clay on, my friends!

Easy polymer clay Beads

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJzkzmUlwWc&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Best Advice EVER

That's a photo of my Polyclay Idol, Christi Friesen, givin' the love to Old Pandora. Ms. Friesen gave me another gift that day and I want to pay or forward to my students.

Christi Friesen is one of the top polyclay artists in the world. And I mean WORLD. This is what she told me:

"Spend the same amount of time promoting your art as you do creating it."

See me hitting my forehead with my palm?  (And, no, I don't need a V8.)

For the last five years I've insulated myself in a blanket of inspired productivity like Whistler's Mother on Redbull. I've made hundreds of pieces with NO plan on how to sell them. I must have been thinking people would line my block, frantically searching for my tiny home, asking each neighbor, "is Pandora there?"

So now I put the clay on a high shelf, sit down at my keyboard and work. I show my art to people who want to see it. I write about it.

It's not easy though. Every artist would rather create art than create buzz. But what success is easy? Marketing is work.

I'm an avid reader of biographies; and guess what? The common denominator of everyone from Ghandi to Gaga is gigantic heapin' 
mountainous piles of work.

What a concept.

Bloggers Anonymous

If you ever want to express yourself with complete impugnity, start a blog.

I've discovered I can say anything I want, not because my vocabulary is unlimited, not because there is a vast world of potential topics, not even because of my unalienable rights as an  American citizen.

I can say anything I want because no one who knows me ever reads my blog. Ever. For instance, i could say, hey, maybe its a good thing I live too far away to babysit my little loved ones since they are percolating incubators of bacteria who seem to catch every vile malady that passes by. Or maybe, just for instance, I could marvel at the fact that my son has developed huge freakish thumbs from texting his friends incessantly, yet he has not a second available to actually answer a text from me. And there is nothing preventing me from mentioning that no one from my family has ever thrown old Pandora so much as a Like on facebook even though I've been posting pictures of my polyclay projects daily for four years straight - pictures that people in Madrid and Belfast and Queensland and Manhattan and Sri Lanka seem pretty enthusistic about. In fact, I think I'll go right ahead and say ALL that stuff! You know why? Cause they'll never read it. Sweet!

The "Scayne" Craze

So all you clayers, come clean with old Pandora.. Don't you ever ask yourself, "what will I do with all this cane?"

Its the making of the cane that makes us delirious with joy, right?  So sometimes its kind of a let- down when we have to figure out what to actually make.
Well, fret no more my darlings, "SCAYNING" is here!
Scayning is sculpting + caning.  All canes work for this technique. And you can imagine how fun it is to cut nice hearty slices of millefiore cane and then bend'em and form'em and create crazy martian greenhouses bulging with striped flying jellyfish and...oh, sorry.
Anyhooooo...check out my facebook page if you want to get your scayne on. Look in the mobile uploads. Facebook/busybusypandora.

What a Difference a Clay Makes

I had a friend over for a Clay- Date today. It was not only fun but eye-opening. I was helping her with a "scayning" (sculpture plus caning) project so we were using her cane, not mine.  Right away I noticed the slices lacked flexibility. When I tried to bend the flowers and form the flat leaf shapes into curved foliage the clay broke off at the pinch points and/or cracked. I knew the clay had been thoroughly conditioned already because it was Skinner blended.  So why was I spending more time repairing than creating? Then it hit me.

She had not used PREMO Clay.

I've been sold on Polyform products for years; but it wasn't until today that I realized I could not create the pieces I want to make without my Premo clay.

Who knew what a difference a clay makes?!