Mask
While I am a firm believer that the best art comes from a burning desire to express something important to you, I'm also an advocate of playful exploration without direction or purpose other than to play. This piece falls squarely in the "playing around" camp.

My original intention was to create a butterfly mask with rich textured wings covering the eyes and cheeks of the mask. That piece may yet manifest, but this piece ended up as an exercise in patterning the polymer clay and in the application of those patterns to the form.

While the colors don't exactly fuse into a cohesive matrix, the mosaic effect of the central axis of the mask was fun and educational. You take small rectangles of colored polymer and stack them into the mosaic pattern you desire. By slicing of thin layers of the mosaic brick, you end with multiple "tiles" of art that can be applied end to end to create the illusion of a complete work. It takes a lot of patience and skill to get the mosaic to balance and connect end-to-end (skills I continue to work on).