Raven Lunatic Studios! Don’t you love the name of Kamilla White’s polymer clay obsession? The Seattle-based artist is intrigued by crows’ keen intelligence and their intricate co-evolutionary relationships with human beings. You’ll find her sculptures for sale on the Artful Home site.

A further search for polymer clay on Artful Home will return a growing smorgasbord of work from Susan Kinzig, Carolyn Tillie, Bonnie Bishoff and J.M. Syron, Molly Thomas, Louis Fischer Cozzi, Sue Savage and others. So much to see!

You may have detected a bit of lunacy in my ramblings this week. Thoughts of the impending holiday season have me trying to resolve the tension between art, altruism and commercialism. I bounced between Niche, Nepal and Miami Beach with my antennae alert for answers. Have a crazy great weekend.

It’s time to revisit the fashion/fantasy work of Florida sisters Cleo and Cat Pieschacon. Their current collection, Drama, Fusion, and Nocturnal, pairs semi-precious stones, silver, gold, and leather with polymer clay in dramatic, oversize jewelry. The cuffs in the collection are based on jewel-encrusted polymer layered on large silver or leather bases.

Cleo and Cat’s website is glamorous. Their press clippings (read here and here) and this news video reveal marketing savvy as well as fashion sense. Both artists are design school graduates. Cat was a home furnishing designer for Polo Ralph Lauren.

Last spring the duo presented at Henri Bendel’s spring trunk show and their line was recently picked up by Nordstrom. The sisters plan to open their own Miami boutique in 2010.

All this talk of galleries, and museums and awards makes me hungry for something down-to-earth. Take a look at AColourfulJourney.com

The ladies of Nepal’s Sammunat Project tug at my heartstrings and remind me of other meaningful lessons that polymer clay can offer. Their fashion items become income, education for their children, food, medicine, and hope for a brighter future.

Australia’s Wendy Moore (these are her polymer dolls) has been spearheading this remarkable project with a group of Nepalese friends. The project assists abused women by teaching them beading and business skills. On the blog, they eloquently recount their own stories. (Disclaimer: I put the website together for them. The content’s all theirs.)

“We hope that each woman will understand that she is not merely a victim of violence but a talented, capable and valuable woman with strong inner resources and access to external resources,” says Wendy.

Please sign up for their email list so that you can be notified when they get through the bureacratic hurdles and hoops in the way of their online store. Clicking on the donation button will help too. Their tag line says it all…look good, feel good, do good.

Two more additions to the Niche nominees from Loretta Lam. Her finalists are Come Dancin’ in the polymer category (hey, we talked about that piece in August) and Hanging Basket (pictured here) in the fashion jewelry category.

Loretta says of all the entries, “Can’t you feel the winds of change? We will soon be sitting at the big kids’ table!”

Finding a subject to talk about has been easy as these award nominees floated in. I may have to return to regular research and web surfing for tomorrow’s news.

Jeff Dever belatedly checked his email when he saw that others had heard about their Niche Award status and found that two of his works have been selected. This one, Nestled Repose, is a finalist in the teapot category. It’s on display through November 8 at the Fuller Craft Museum.

The second, a basket called Tidal Ephemera, is in the running in either the mixed media or recycled category. Jeff felt that it was a good sign to see polymer artists, “….making inroads into categories that are not polymer clay exclusive.”

If you missed the Fuller Craft posts, check here. View Jeff’s video of his Edensong Reverie installation here.

A final not-so-scarey Halloween tribute from Kathy Penovich. Her needle-felted bat and cocoon characters with polymer clay faces look as cute as the kids on my porch last night.

See more critter instructions from mold and pattern creator Kathy Davis here. She shows even more of her work on her Flickr page. Felting is such a popular craft that I expect to see much more of this mix.

Look at these few posts from Debra Dewolff who adds polymer to her felted jewelry as in this pastel bracelet.

How we’d love to see more. Happy Halloween. Happy weekend.

A few more Niche Award candidates have surfaced. Sandra McCaw’s work pictured here has been nominated in the fashion jewelry category.

Sandra’s added some newer pieces to her CraftHaus page that you’ll want to catch. Her diamond-studded polymer earrings took top honors at the League of NH Craftsmen’s Fair in the Jewelry with Stone category.

Two of Elise Winter’s pieces were designated Niche 2010 finalists in the sculpture to wear and polymer categories.

Elise is campaigning in earnest for support for the Racine Art Museum’s (RAM) polymer collection. She tells us that a Pier Voulkos’ necklace is featured on the cover of RAM’s current exhibition catalog.

For a donation of $100 or more to the polymer collection, you will receive a copy of the catalog as a premium. (Scroll down to the donation button in the right hand column here and be sure to note “catalog premium” in the comment box.) The offer is only good through November 30. Read more about the project at the PolymerArtArchive.

Louise Fischer Cozzi’s Necklace Belt 2 has won a place among the Niche finalists in the costume jewelry category. This is not the category in which she entered the polymer piece but she’s not complaining.

The long strand of etched translucent disks can be worn as a belt or a necklace. Louise is famous for simple, gently-curved and repeated shapes. Here’s her Etsy shop. The Brooklyn-based artist also hosts classes at her summer home in Stresa, Italy.