Sunday, March 21, 2010

Featured Polymer Clay Artist of the Day--Deb Tuchsen, of RENGALSA on Etsy


One of the best things about joining an Etsy Team that helps you further your passion is the wonderful and talented people that you meet.  Deb Tuchsen is an inspiration to all of us on the PCAGOE Team.  Deb is relatively new to Etsy, having just joined last October.  Please visit her two shops at http://rengalsa.etsy.com/ and  http://rengaldesigns.etsy.com/.  Deb's three favorite forms of artistic expression include drawing, photography, and polymer clay.  Some of her artistic creations involve more than one of these artistic media at the same time.  For Mother's Day, Deb is offering custom made jewelry featuring drawn likenesses of your children transferred to polymer clay and made into jewelry.  Talk about one of a kind keepsakes!  What mother could resist a handmade, hand drawn likeness of their precious children made into a wearable work of art?  Deb is truly a wonderful artist and she has mastered capturing a likeness as you can see in the portrait above.  Having the portrait as wearable art that you can keep close to you always is something that every mother will appreciate.  What  a unique way to be able to show off your children!

Deb's expertise in polymer clay is really quite varied and comprehensive.  She carries an entire line of school spirit items for fundraisers, and as you can tell from the photo above, her designs are very intricate and precise.  It isn't easy to get this kind of linear design to come out true to form, especially when you start reducing the cane to make various sized items, but Deb seems to have it down to a science. 
It also speaks volumes that she created this line to help her children's schools in any way she could.  Deb has three children and it is easy to see her devotion to them.  All you have to do is observe the wonderful ways that she involves herself in their lives, including this line of jewelry to help their schools and the portrait jewelry pictured above.  She also has team spirit jewelry for universities.
And then there are Deb's Children of the World face canes.  They are available for custom jewelry for mothers and grandmothers who may want a different face to represent each child and grandchild on a piece of jewelry.  They are just so amazing on their own and in the above tin she has combined them with Love, Flowers and Peace canes for a truly amazing collectable work of art which will be for sale at auction for the PCAGOE June charity challenge.   Being a sixties child, I really love the nostalgic look of this tin.  And the technical expertise that it took to create it just blows me away.  All of the designs on the tin were created with polymer clay--not painted.  This had to have taken hours!  If you are unfamiliar with polymer clay canes, they are constructed from long strips of clay that are joined together in a certain way to create a cylinder of clay containing the design continuously through the entire length of the cylinder so that you can slice off pieces of the cylinder and have a repeating design.  It is similar to the millefiori glass techniques used by Italian glassmakers and it is a complicated and precise craft in itself. 

As this weren't enough, Deb has also recently started a new line of custom astrological sign jewelry featuring swirled lentil beads and disks with your astrological symbol on them.  These beads look like glass to me and I love the gloss and the depth of the designs in them.  Don't forget to visit Deb's shops.  You are sure to find something beautiful that you can't do without, and we all need to get started on our Mother's Day shopping!  Just imagine the look on Mom's face when she opens up that custom made gift!

2 comments:

  1. Very eloquently put, Deb is an inspiration to us all. I enjoyed reading your post.

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  2. Oh wow! Thank you so very much Janice! I'm without words! You and the rest of the PCAGOE team have become such wonderful friends to me - I am truly blessed to know you all!

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