We made goddesses

The Victoria Hughes Class Report ;-)

I don't have pictures yet because I still have to paint, buff and polish. But everybody made goddess pendants, and we also made twisted trilobe thingies, and flat disk beads, and we did transfers onto cubed beads.

The goddesses? Not a major breakthrough for me, cause I make my own already, but Victoria has a different method of course, plus I got to play with adding a bit of Christi Friesen-esque doodads and decoration. One of my goddesses looks a little butch, frankly, and two are quite petite, so I'm calling it an alternative goddess family. ;-)

We had a lovely lunch at a cafe just down the street, and talked about developing your own artistic voice, acknowledging the history of your craft, and your teachers, the balance of influence vs. copying that will probably be discussed forever and ever and ever.

But I've realized recently that in both beadland and polymerclayland that there is a whole new "generation" of artists and crafters who perhaps don't realize that NONE of this -- the shows, the Internet groups, and many of the materials and techniques -- existed a few years ag.

So, in that light, here's a question for ya:

Do you know who originated the polymer clay
faux techniques such as turquoise, amber,
coral, lapis, and ivory?

If you guessed Victoria Hughes, you are absolutely right. Yes folks, many years ago, Victoria sat down with her own collection of antique and vintage gemstone goodies, and set about studying them, and finding various ways to recreate them through much trial and error. Then she taught the techniques all over polyclayland, and now, we tend to think of them as standard techniques, as though they were born spontaneously out of the clay!

And now, of course, people have expanded on those techniques and invented imitative techniques of their own. So, if you enjoy them, a tip of the hat to Victoria, PC Pioneer. Here's an article about her from The Crafts Report online:

• http://www.craftsreport.com/april00/onlineexclusive.html

Next week, how about Virginia Blakelock and Carol Perrenoud? Stay tuned, history lovers...