During High School, I was not one of the 'art kids' but kept to myself as my art was not considered mainstream. Everything I drew I put wings on if I could. However wings weren't 'cool' as I quickly found out. So I kept my wings to myself. I was in the art class though, and it was there that I first discovered sculpting and clay. Our classroom was equipped with several potters wheels, and I instantly fell in love. I had an inborn talent with the clay, and took advantage of every chance to go in and 'throw'. I hadn't discovered polymer clay yet, nor was I doing any figure sculpts. My work at that time was vessels, things created with the wheel, with earth based clay that required firing in a kiln.
After High School, my desire to create led me to jobs with both Michaels and Joanns, though the latter was several years later. Michaels carried polymer clay, but I never paid much attention to it. My love then was beading and scrapbooking.
Fast forward several years, when I got married, had 2 great kids, and simply didn't have much time to do anything but be a parent and work part time. I was still scrapbooking and beading when I could, which was mostly in the middle of the night when kids wouldn't go back to bed ;).
I tried to make a go at selling my jewelry and pre-made pages along with a few other things, but they would always fail and I would always go back to just creating for myself.
My real job was as a head cashier and customer service lead for a Joanns Superstore at that time. I was also doing in store demonstrations and teaching kids camps/classes for the education department for extra money. It was then that I was introduced to polymer clay through a store demo that included a small piece of black clay that you rubber stamped an image into, then glued it to the front of a card. I had to take the card kit home to make the example, and I instantly fell in love.
I had several other projects I had to create for the store out of polymer clay, and the more I worked with it, the more I became entranced. At that point though, the clay to me was kids craft stuff, with some potential for more sophisticated uses like the card kit. Cutsie stuff. Basic stuff. Kids stuff.
Then I got permission to teach a kids poly clay class, and I was responsible for my own projects. As I searched the internet for clay projects, I accidently stumbled onto the OOAK world.
My eyes couldn't get enough of the faries and mermaids and all sorts of fantasy, mythical things. This was the stuff of my childhood, the stuff that I was shunned into hiding my interest in showcased proudly by others for the world to see! I couldn't believe it and yet I was totally drawn into it unlike anything I had ever been drawn into before.
That was 5 years ago. Since then I have created multiple sculpts of people, fantasy beings, and other fun things. During that time I was creating only for myself and as gifts, with only occasionally attempting to sell to the general public. I rarely, if ever, took pictures (a regrettable decision now!).
So now, even with a few years of practice under my belt, I still consider myself a very beginning sculptor. There are so many things I still do not know about the medium I have chosen but am learning every time I sit down with the clay.
I decided to try the selling 'thang' one last time. This time with clay.
So, as a budding and hopeful commercial artist, I was in need of a place to really showcase my work properly. This is the first step in that process. At the time of this writing, I have only two scuplts in progress. I will showcase those in the next two posts.
I look forward to having this expand into something HUGE!
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