Angie Scarr
Angie Scarr lives in Spain and has a reputation for being a well known and incredibly capable miniaturist. However, her skills go far beyond that particular work for she is a fund of knowledge and expertise for anything polymer clay. And of course she is full of ideas that you might explore:
School holidays are here
I have always had ‘daft ideas’ or a lateral thinking, inventive creative brain as I like to call it. The problem is we’re all too often educated out of our ‘daft ideas’. But is creativity nature or nurture? The one thing that I am finding out from talking to my facebook friends about childhood memories of being creative, is that there comes a point in every creative persons life that a relative or friend of the family comes along with a paintbox, or a modelling material or a sewing box, and that these little gifts form lightbulb moments in our lives. And it seems that the best time to give these little gifts is between the ages of seven and nine. Its also clear to me that the child who you give them to will never forget you for it.
But I have also heard people say “I don’t know where it came from... Somebody just brought me a....and I was hooked”. Of course it was later in life that my mum brought me polymer clay when I was a young mum of a six year old son suffering my first of 2 bouts of post natal depression. But my lightbulb moment was at around seven, when my then teacher brought her childhood toys in and gave them at the end of each week to whoever had been the most deserving child that week. I know I was often a bit of a handful. Never quiet when I should be but the week my teacher brought in a big black reeves paintbox I was the best child not only in the class but possibly in the school. And when painting class came around I painted a tiger. Maybe ‘Miss’ saw something in the painting, or maybe it was the turnaround in my behaviour, but I went home with the paintbox and maybe I learned that week to be quietly creative. To take my ‘daft ideas’ and just express them in creativity?
Well anyway I don’t know if I was well taught or not because certainly I was never going to fit into a stereotype. I was possibly never going to conform to any of the rules and as long as nobody told me something couldn’t be done (and sometimes even if they did) I was going to try it. Now here’s the dilemma. Do we teach our children to conform and get their heads down and work towards a ‘proper job’ or do we encourage their daft ideas? I can’t really tell you that one because an artist’s life has never been easy or financially rewarding.
I think a change is coming, and its coming from the younger end of the artistic world. Because of the world of technology and social media, creators are valuing themselves more highly and selling their work and themselves more directly. Instead of having to go through shops and galleries and magazines and publishing companies. Platforms like Youtube and Gofundme and Patreon as well as electronic and print on demand publishing are giving artists the chance to carry on creating and not to be at the whim of one sales or publishing director. Some will succeed and some will fail but it does seem that the artistic mind unleashed will find its own level in a way never possible before. And it doesn’t matter how you cut it. There are still less of what our teachers used to call ‘proper jobs’ around and so art may well be coming into a new dawn.
So if you’re wondering what to get your seven or eight year old niece or nephew for a birthday or just to keep them quiet during the summer holidays A pack or three of polymer clay is not a bad choice! Just warn their parents that the kitchen drawer will probably be raided for appropriate tools. I find for children an old fashioned butter knife is absolutely the best choice! Encourage their daft ideas at least for the summer. They may never forget you for it.
Angie has joined the army of people who are using the Patreon model in order to share her work. For as little as one dollar a month anyone who can't get enough of polymer clay can be fed more and more (and more) ideas and skills on a regular basis through each month. I highly recommend that you join her. You won't regret it. Enrol here
School holidays are here
I have always had ‘daft ideas’ or a lateral thinking, inventive creative brain as I like to call it. The problem is we’re all too often educated out of our ‘daft ideas’. But is creativity nature or nurture? The one thing that I am finding out from talking to my facebook friends about childhood memories of being creative, is that there comes a point in every creative persons life that a relative or friend of the family comes along with a paintbox, or a modelling material or a sewing box, and that these little gifts form lightbulb moments in our lives. And it seems that the best time to give these little gifts is between the ages of seven and nine. Its also clear to me that the child who you give them to will never forget you for it.
But I have also heard people say “I don’t know where it came from... Somebody just brought me a....and I was hooked”. Of course it was later in life that my mum brought me polymer clay when I was a young mum of a six year old son suffering my first of 2 bouts of post natal depression. But my lightbulb moment was at around seven, when my then teacher brought her childhood toys in and gave them at the end of each week to whoever had been the most deserving child that week. I know I was often a bit of a handful. Never quiet when I should be but the week my teacher brought in a big black reeves paintbox I was the best child not only in the class but possibly in the school. And when painting class came around I painted a tiger. Maybe ‘Miss’ saw something in the painting, or maybe it was the turnaround in my behaviour, but I went home with the paintbox and maybe I learned that week to be quietly creative. To take my ‘daft ideas’ and just express them in creativity?
Well anyway I don’t know if I was well taught or not because certainly I was never going to fit into a stereotype. I was possibly never going to conform to any of the rules and as long as nobody told me something couldn’t be done (and sometimes even if they did) I was going to try it. Now here’s the dilemma. Do we teach our children to conform and get their heads down and work towards a ‘proper job’ or do we encourage their daft ideas? I can’t really tell you that one because an artist’s life has never been easy or financially rewarding.
I think a change is coming, and its coming from the younger end of the artistic world. Because of the world of technology and social media, creators are valuing themselves more highly and selling their work and themselves more directly. Instead of having to go through shops and galleries and magazines and publishing companies. Platforms like Youtube and Gofundme and Patreon as well as electronic and print on demand publishing are giving artists the chance to carry on creating and not to be at the whim of one sales or publishing director. Some will succeed and some will fail but it does seem that the artistic mind unleashed will find its own level in a way never possible before. And it doesn’t matter how you cut it. There are still less of what our teachers used to call ‘proper jobs’ around and so art may well be coming into a new dawn.
So if you’re wondering what to get your seven or eight year old niece or nephew for a birthday or just to keep them quiet during the summer holidays A pack or three of polymer clay is not a bad choice! Just warn their parents that the kitchen drawer will probably be raided for appropriate tools. I find for children an old fashioned butter knife is absolutely the best choice! Encourage their daft ideas at least for the summer. They may never forget you for it.
Angie has joined the army of people who are using the Patreon model in order to share her work. For as little as one dollar a month anyone who can't get enough of polymer clay can be fed more and more (and more) ideas and skills on a regular basis through each month. I highly recommend that you join her. You won't regret it. Enrol here