Clay Play

Sculptures by Jon Anderson.

Clay artist Jon Anderson’s Fimo creations are now on display at the Santa Fe Shop & Gallery in Fish Creek. He makes the polymer clay animals by hand, so no two are exactly alike. His technique has been honed by more than a decade of hard work, creative vision and dedication to the demanding art of polymer clay sculpture.

An accomplished painter, sculptor and jewelry designer, Anderson has lived among an incredibly diverse cross-section of the world’s people, from Central America to the Far East. His Fimo designs show the influences of classical Moorish motifs, Native American spirit figures, ancient petroglyphs, Celtic themes, and more.

The images and patterns of the sculptures are all created by hand. He begins by laying canes or blocks of different colors of clay next to each other, starting from the center of the design and working outward. Each of these illustrations in clay is the size of a large loaf of bread when first constructed, and the loaf is then stretched to double its length and cut in half. This process is repeated over and over, each time reducing the actual size of the original image or illustration by half until the final cross-section is the size of a small coin. The small canes are then thinly sliced into intricate tiles using a surgical scalpel.

This process is the same for each unique design, and each animal is made up of multitudes of different images, amounting to hundreds of these tiles being hand-applied to every sculpture.

The actual forms of the animals are created either from recycled hand-molded clay or hand-carved wood. Once the tiles have been pressed onto the form, the piece is cured and then fired for a period of hours, further reducing the images and tightening the spaces between the individual tiles. After cooling, the sculptures are hand-sanded, making them very smooth and silky to the touch.

Santa Fe Shop & Gallery is located at 4147 Main St. in Fish Creek. For more information visit santafeshop.com.