Peculiar Creature
Imagine if a modern artist painted on a three-dimensional canvas, and you'll get pretty close to Kathleen Dustin's mixed media productions. Dustin was one of the first to push the medium of polymer to its boundaries, constantly stretching and pioneering what polymer clay could do.
Now, with polymer, wood, and other materials, she plays off of her own iterations. From one series to the next, Dustin explores numerous inspirations in her own particular way. Some of her work is her own take on tribal art, finding its own unique expression through her hands, and in a contemporary medium. Sometimes plant-like seed forms and wild, spiky growths sprout into a necklace, but you're just as likely to find a nuanced play of colors shimmering above and beneath a translucent surface in a piece that wouldn't look out of place in a museum setting.