Polymer clay artist Melissa Terlizzi will be featured in a new show opening First Friday,August 2, at Artful Dimensions Gallery in Fredericksburg. The show, entitled People, Places, Things: A Whimsical World in Polymer, features a colorful mix of sculpture, wall art, boxes, and jewelry, all crafted from polymer clay.When asked to describe the pieces in this collection, Melissa Terlizzi explained, “When I began to compile the work for this show, I had a difficult time deciding on a theme. My imagination never seems to light on one thing for very long; as soon as I finish working through one challenge, I am off to explore the next. The end result is that my work includes a little bit of everything—people, places, and things—rendered in such detail that I hope people feel compelled to lean in for a closer look.” Tiny details are certainly a big part of the work in People,Places, Things, but so is color and humor. Each piece takes something familiar and changes it up in a way that will make you smile.Polymer clay is a man made compound—essentially ground PVC with an elasticizing agent to bind it together. It is available at craft stores, comes in a rainbow array of colors, and cures in an ordinary home oven instead of a kiln.Melissa Terlizzi calls polymer a “chameleon material.” She said, “I can blend colors and add textures to make the clay mimic all sorts of other things. In fact, that’s how I look at the world these days: I study objects and wonder how I could reproduce them out of clay. Everything from denim and leather to tree bark and fish scales can be‘faked’ convincingly with polymer! It’s like a puzzle, and so far I’ve been very successful at working that puzzle out.”The patterns and details in Melissa Terlizzi’s polymer creations are worked into the clay during the building process, rather than painted on after the piece is baked — unlike ceramic clay, which must be glazed or painted.Layers of colored polymer are stacked, rolled, manipulated, and reduced into complex “canes,” which can then be sliced and applied to sculptures, or finished as jewelry. Ms. Terlizzi said that creating the canes is the most challenging part of the process. Once they are completed, the fun begins and the piece comes together very quickly. The faces in People, Places, Things were created from slices of these canes, and according to Ms. Terlizzi,the eyes alone took over a day to create. Everything — from the glint of light in the iris to each individual eyelash— had to be planned and packed into the cane.Ms. Terlizzi is a relative newcomer to the Fredericksburg art community. A self-taught artist who got her star tin the fiber arts, she first began experimenting with polymer clay in 2011, when she set out to create pins and buttons to match hand knit hats and scarves. She was immediately astonished at the creative potential of the material. It wasn’t long before polymer clay took over her life: These days she uses her knitting needles to add texture and designs to clay creations, and her yarn stash is covered in a thick layer of dust.Despite having worked in clay for only a short time, Ms. Terlizzi has had work has selected for national shows at the Fredericksburg Center for the Creative Arts and published in Polymer Café Magazine. Earlier this year,her piece “Tako Takeout,” featuring an angry octopus in a takeout box of Japanese noodles, won 1st Prize in Libertytown Art Workshop’s annual Feast for the Eyes show. Ms. Terlizzi is a member artist at Artful Dimensions Gallery, and can be found there most days working in Studio #3, or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mlterlizzi.art. She lives in Stafford with her husband, four children, a cat, a turtle, a fish, and a fire-bellied toad.People, Places, Things runs through August 31 at Artful Dimensions Gallery. Artful Dimensions is located at 911 Charles Street in Fredericksburg. Hours are 12-6 PM Tuesday through Thursday, and Sunday. Fridays and Saturdays through Labor Day, open 12-9 PM. Telephone: 540-899-6319
