This week we bring you an interview with Tamara Marble, who created the company Design Canes. She makes very cute small canes, in shapes (no filler around the shape). For example, a fish cane would have the outline of a fish, a bunny will have a bunny outline, etc. She then bakes the canes and cuts them into 1 inch pieces that are sold on her site, www.designcanes.com, and at various retailers. We saw some at the Orlando show being sold by a company called Sparkle n’ Sprinkle (we talked about her millions of colors of glitter and embossing powder, which you’ll see next week in part 2 of our video tour of the show.

Tamara tells us how to use her canes, how she got started, and about her success. With a simple creative idea, this interesting lady has created a business – Think about what you could do!

Enjoy the podcast and be sure to visit Tamara’s site to see the hundreds of canes she has designed. If you live in her area, she is now teaching classes, too. Be sure to Sign up for our Newsletter, and you will be entered to win the generous prize Tamara gave to us this month- three sets of canes and a slicing board.

Judy is the current President of the National Polymer Clay Guild- npcg.org. She is very interesting and a great talker, so we hope you enjoy listening to what she had to say about her art, being the big-cheese, and the Synergy conference (where we will get to meet her!)

We also discussed her book and dvd, which she was kind enough to donate to us to watch and read, and she also sent a signed copy of each- which we will be giving away to two lucky newsletter subscribers, so make sure you sign up.

This week, we are talking about inclusions- that means putting something that is not clay, into the clay to change it. You can use lots of things- including baked bits of clay. Spices such as oregano and parsley create great faux stone effects. Make sure if you use anything organic (once alive, such as plant parts) that they are completely dried out before including them in clay. Otherwise the water content could bubble or cause "mooning," especially in translucent, which is the best color of clay to use with inclusions. You can tint translucent clay with a bit of colored clay, and then add inclusions. You can also use the following things to change either the color, or the interior look, of the clay:

chopped up crayons
play sand, or colored craft sand
inks- dye or pigment
powdered pigment, chalk, makeup, spices, metals
acrylic paint
glitter, metal leafs and foils
embossing powder
crystals, beads, micro-beads (beads without holes)

The way you add inclusions makes a difference too. If you mush and twist it in with your hands, you will get a swirly marbled effect. If you use your pasta machine and keep rolling, you will get even distribution. You can harden your clay in the fridge and grate it into piece with a cheese grater, then add your inclusions and mush it all back together just enough to stick- then you can create convincing stone-matrix effect that mimic marble, lapis, jade, and turquoise.

We decided to review Judy Belcher's book, Polymer Clay Creative Traditions. In it, Judy has created projects that showcase the incredible versatility of the clay. With practice, you can make polymer clay look like almost anything else, and you can emulate techniques used in different media, such as quilting, batik and fabric crafts, paper crafts, metal crafts, painting, stone and jewelry craft, enamelling, almost any other art media you can think of. The galleries in this book are amazing and there is plenty of inspiration here. We highly recommend it, and we thank Judy for sending us a signed copy.

This also led us into a discussion regarding the "value" of polymer clay artwork. Some people still see it as an intrisically worthless art media, saying things like "I can't bring myself to spend that much on something my kid could have made at summer camp." Well, we encourage an open mind when viewing all kinds of art- the worth of the materials used may be close to nothing- but the skill and creativity of the artist who made it may be priceless. Art is largely subjective- being an art teacher, I could say that I can objectively view a piece of artwork and tell you whether the composition, use of color, balance, harmony and unity are "good-" and even if they are, I might not like it because I don't relate to the message, or the colors, or whatever. When viewing or creating polymer clay art, think not only about the dollar value of the clay used, but about the color, the finishing, the overall presentation- is it worth something to you? Or does the artist need more practice? That is important- just because you can make something, doesn't necessarily mean it's ready to be sold. You need to be your own critic first. You can read a great thread over at Etsy.com regarding the value of polymer clay beads-
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5288983

Enjoy the show, and be sure to come back next week for the demo on Polymer Clay TV.