Polymer clay is the Rodney Dangerfield of the art world. Sad, but true: it gets no respect.

Most of the time, even people who have heard of it will often say, "oh, you mean that stuff that kids make refrigerator magnets from?!"---And those of us who love the medium and think it's the most exciting art form of the last century try to turn our pained winces into smiles.

And let's not even detail the dissing that it takes from artists working in other mediums; the painters and printmakers and yes, even the ceramicists, whose eyes glaze over when they hear that we work with the stuff. It's taken decades for it to be even considered worthy of museum and gallery exhibits--this despite the constant promotion of the luminaries of the of the craft--The Kathleen Dustins, Elise Winters, the Jeffrey Deavers. (See the top two illustrations: 1st is Kathleen,, 2nd is Jeffrey Lloyd Dever--they're like, demi-gods).

Polymer clay is the redheaded stepchild, relegated to leftovers in the kitchen.

Part of this is of course the fact of its youth--though the material itself has been around since the thirties, it has only become the voice of talented artists in the last twenty years or so, with the explosion of new colors and varieties. The internet has allowed the sharing of techniques and ideas, and the more people work with it, the more the knowledge of its infinite possibilities grows---it is fair to say that new ways of working with polymer clay expand at about the same rate computers shrink--my son carries the capabilities and capacity of my 2001 desktop in the the palm of his hand. Image sharing sites like Flickr allow artists to see what other artists are doing--and the ideas generated, the tweaks and variations on technique enrich us all.

In many senses, polymer clay is just like paint: the same materials go into the Picasso as the $19.95 sofa -sized genuine oil painting available this weekend only! What matters, of course, is who's wieding the brush. And yes, a lot of PC offered up every year is lamentably tacky--it is both the blessing and the curse of the material that literally anyone can produce satisfactory results without training or special tools. The skills needed to work with polymer clay are those from dozens of different disciplines that are already second nature to most people. Rolling, stretching, poking--we all know how to do this. Its basic simplicity is a big part of its problem--you don't have to suffer for this art or take years of lessons before you can produce recognizable work; it's just too easy, perhaps.

And like all simple things, it can be easily generated into incredibly complex forms--Just take a look at the canework of Carol Simmons, or Sarah Shriver. It's a lot like nature itself, a single cell mutliplied over and over; and that is one of the most exciting things about it--very often those of use who wake up every morning itching to get into the studio have no map of where we're going----we just follow the muse.

Which brings me to a point; polymer clay is above all things a delight to work in--it's colorful and sensual and fun. And even as we struggle to get the art the respect it deserves, we need to remember to not take ourselves too seriously. The act of creation should never be grim.

And every once in a while, we should allow ourselves to make the durn refrigerator magnet.

Namaste,

Randee