Episode 1 of Polymer Clay Podcast, a brief history and discussion about tools and clays.

Summary: Award winning Polymer Clay Artist Ilysa Bierer and Art Educator Kira Slye introduce you to Polymer Clay Podcast this week. We offer an introductory exploration of the history of polymer clay, the popular polymer clay brands, and the many tools that can be used to create art and crafts with polymer clay. A brief history: in the 1930s, a German doll artisan was looking for a new material to make her doll heads, hands, and feet. She explored the polymers that were available and was dissatisfied. Eventually she handed off the project of finding a new clay to her daughter, whose nickname was FiFi. FiFi developed the product we know today as Fimo, named after herself. When Fimo hit the artist’s market as a colored clay with no special kiln required to cure it, a few artists became involved in pushing it as a medium for more than doll art. Nan Roche wrote the first book on polymer clay as an art medium, and called it The New Clay. Now, in 2007, there are several brands of artist’s polymer clays available on the market. Some are easier to find than others, such as the Polyform brands of Sculpey, Sculpey III, and Premo Sculpey, as well as the Fimo brands called Fimo Classic (harder to find) and Fimo Soft. Cernit is a popular German brand that is only available from retailers who import it, all online. Kato Polyclay was developed by polymer clay artist Donna Kato and it is the newest formulation of polymer clay. Ilysa’s experiences with creating art with polymer clay focused mainly on Fimo Classic which tends to be a more firm clay, very good for canework which she excels at. Kira’s experience has focused mainly on Premo, which is a softer formula. In the podcast they discuss in depth why each of them has used their favorite brand of clay. Polymer clay has become a popular material for art and craft due to it’s working properties- you don’t need any special tools or materials to work with it, and most of them can be found in, you guessed it- your kitchen! But we caution that even though polymer clays are non-toxic, any tools, including ovens, that are used with clay should be dedicated to clay and not returned to food use. Polymer clay does release fumes during the oven curing process, and these will coat the inside of your oven. For this reason some artists will bake pieces inside an enclosed metal roasting pan, a dedicated toaster, or a dedicated countertop convection oven. Many professional artists prefer the convection oven because it has the most even cooking temperatures. We recommend that you purchase an oven thermometer to be sure your oven dials are accurate and that your clay is being cured at the right temperature. Some popular kitchen items that can be used with clay: marble rolling pins and cutting boards, garnishing tools, pasta machines, cheese graters, food processors, bamboo skewers, fondant shapers, and vegetable peelers. Other necessary tools include a work surface such as a tile or piece of glass, a sharp thin blade, an acrylic rolling pin, rubber stamps, texture sheets, interesting textured materials such as fabric or tree bark, inks, linoleum cutting tools and brayers, wax carving tools, wire, tinfoil, magnets, and leather tools. In fact, almost any tool that can be used to shape, cut, or impress can be adapted to use with polymer clay. Any material that can withstand the usual curing temperature of 275 degrees Fahrenheit can be stuck into the clay and baked along with it and a few artists have taken this technique to interesting limits. Gemstones, Swarovski Crystals, Pearls, glass bits, metal parts, and other found objects have all been baked into polymer clay artworks with great success. We hope you enjoy listening to our first podcast dedicated entirely to polymer clay. Make sure to come back next week and watch Polymer Clay TV- where we will demonstrate in detail the use of many tools we talked about today. Please subscribe to our newsletter as well, so you won’t miss a thing.