By Nadine Kam

Donna Kato at home in her Colorado studio with some of her polymer clay creations.
If you want to tone up, just try working with polymer clay. I was in Donna Kato’s weekend workshop at the Linekona Art Center, presented by the Hawaii Stitchery and Fibre Arts Guild. Kato is a nationally known artist, author and teacher, who works in the polymer clay medium, i.e. Fimo, Sculpy and her own branded Kato Polyclay, a collaboration with Van Aken International.
What I was doing there I don’t know. I’m not particularly good with my hands, having been put on earth to appreciate artists of all stripes, from fashion and jewelry designers to visual artists. I always liked working with clay, though, both handbuilding and on a pottery wheel, so I thought it might be fun to explore a variation of the medium. I was also told that it helps to master polymer clay skills before tackling silver clay.

Sending white sheets of polymer clay through the pasta machine left me with a desire to make my own pasta.
During my interview with Donna, she kept referring to her pasta machine as key to working with her clay, and once I started working with it, I could see why. There’s no other way to pound it into submission. You have to flex, knead and roll it to get it into a thin enough sheet to fit through the pasta machine, and my abs and arms felt pretty toned after two days of working the clay. It was pretty slow going because we had to do a lot of conditioning of the clay, to get it into a factory-fresh pliable consistency, before even dreaming of shaping it into jewelry and other pieces.


At top are pieces made by Donna that would comprise the pin at top left. The pieces started with toner transfers from Xeroxed clip art. Above, once the pieces were cured once, the impressions left by the toner created images that could be inked over. Ele Clere applies ink to her pieces with her fingertips. Coincidentally, the colors and patterns she chose matched what she was wearing!
It’s an interesting medium because you can use several techniques to get it to mimic such raw materials as ceramic ware, bone, stone, ebony, ivory, glass and more.
Borrowing the glasswork idea of creating canes to replicate patterns, we created striped canes that would embellish bangle bracelets we were making. Once you start working with the polymer clay, you start seeing so many possibilities, but it probably does require a workspace that allows you to set up a pasta machine and dedicated toaster oven for curing small pieces.

My bracelet’s border cane. Layering the various colors of clay was like making maki sushi.

Here’s the way the cane looks when sliced thin and molded to black and giraffe-colored bangles, sitting on my Fighting Eel dress.
It’s pretty embarrassing to compare my bangles to hers, but hey, it’s years of experience vs. a two-day amateur. We only had time to make one bangle on the second day, but I noticed a woman wearing glasses that had a giraffe pattern on the arms, and I liked the color combinations, so hastily created that bracelet. Only, I didn’t have enough yellow clay after I finished making an orange-and-red cane, so my second batch of orange turned out more salmon color, which didn’t have enough contrast to make the brown giraffe spots stand out.

One of Donna Kato’s Art Nouveau pendants.
On my initial black bangle, I had a tribal pattern affixed in class but didn’t have time to let it bake. Once I got home, I decided I liked the plain, glossy black, which reminded me of the glosssy black-on-black work of the Martinez clan of New Mexico. So I removed the pattern and let it stand.
I love traveling in New Mexico and have quite a bit of the various pueblos’ pottery. I also love the red, shimmery mica clay there, and I guess those preferences and influences stay with a person, because the orange bracelet, with a touch of gold polymer clay, turned out to look a lot like the clay of Taos Pueblo.

Kato’s music pins, which we tried duplicating on Day One.
Only afterward, I noticed that the bangles were also perfect match for one of my Fighting Eel dresses, and the pattern on the black bangle would have matched the dress perfectly if I had left it in place. Oh well! I could add it back, but somehow, without the camaraderie of a class, it seems a much more daunting a task.
To find out more about the Hawaii Stitchery and Fibre Arts Guild, that doesn’t limit itself to fiber arts, write P.O. Box 235673 / Honolulu, HI 96822.