Clay guild meets for fun, friendship in Winter Garden

Pasta machines, cookie cutters, coffee stirrers and butter knives aren’t only for the kitchen. To a polymer clay artist, these tools are valuable and useful for manipulating the medium — usually Sculpey — to create decorative and functional pieces to adorn her home or give away as gifts.

When the Orlando Area Polymer Clay Guild sets up for a meeting, each member has her own space and her own set of tools that she will use for the day’s project. But it’s the sharing of those tools, as well as creative ideas, conversation and, of course, a few edible treats, that have made the guild the tight-knit group that it has become.

The OAPCG started about 12 years ago at a scrapbooking store in Sanford. Throughout the years, it relocated to a library, Denny’s and a trailer park until landing at First United Methodist Church of Winter Garden in 2011. Meetings are held each month at 9:30 a.m. on the last Saturday. 

Kem Eid, treasurer of the guild, lives about 75 miles away in Crystal River, but ever since her first visit to an OAPCG meeting, she has preferred it over a similar group that meets closer to her area.

“Everybody was so welcoming, so friendly, so supportive,” she said. 

At each monthly meeting, one member introduces her idea for a project everyone can create. She brings the necessary tools to share, whether those are stencils, molds or non-artistic items, such as kitchen utensils. 

But the guild members also contribute their creativity to three ongoing charitable projects: Bottles of Hope, Hearts for Heroes and an independent effort for hospice patients.

Bottles of Hope is a national project that benefits cancer patients. Artists decorate sterilized glass bottles that were previously used in hospitals for chemotherapy treatments. They take the completed bottles back to the hospital and give them to cancer patients for encouragement.

“Every time I take (the bottles), they’re just so excited,” said guild member Karen Hampton.

Hearts for Heroes is also a national project. Clay guilds around the country make clay hearts that can hook to the inside of service members’ pockets. 

To learn more about the guild, visit oapcguild.com.

11TH ANNUAL CLAY FANDANGO

Each year, the Orlando Area Polymer Clay Guild hosts a five-day retreat, which it calls Clay Fandango, at Lake Yale Baptist Conference Center in Leesburg. Next year’s Fandango will be Thursday, May 19, through Monday, May 23, 2016.

There will be three guest instructors. The first is Carol Blackburn, an artist from London known for making clay sheets of intricate patterns that can be made into beads and other jewelry. Next is Syndee Holt, a California artist who specializes in mono printing and laser transfers. The third instructor is Anke Humpert, who is traveling all the way from Germany to teach retreat attendees how to make transformer jewelry, which is a set of jewelry that also can assemble into a small box.

Registration for the 2016 retreat is open now, and there is a $50 early registration discount until December. Anyone is welcome to attend. To see registration options and learn more, go to oapcguild.com and click on “Retreat.”

Contact Catherine Sinclair Kerr at [email protected].