WOOD COMBINATION

Malia Davis just recently returned to creating art with polymer clay after taking quite a few years off. Her artwork is very cute colorful three-dimensional pieces that are interestingly placed on wood slices.

“I actually never thought that I would be able to return to polymer because I have fibromyalgia, but I'm so grateful I have been able to,” Malia told us and we are amazed by what she can create.

She started with polymer around 2014 and was originally focused on making jewelry, not much else. When she came back to polymer, Malia wanted to do more artistic pieces than jewelry: “I had grown to love nature during the pandemic because it felt like a peaceful escape to walk through the woods or sit by a creek. It was like a getaway for me. So I started making clay pieces based on things found in nature and really enjoyed it!”

We fell in love with Malia’s fairy-tale artwork and its composition on wood, that together with clay, create wonderful wall art. But we were also curious how fibromyalgia disease affects her life. “It is a nerve disease that causes widespread chronic pain. Everyone experiences it differently, but my experience has been severe back, hip, and shoulder pain that radiates through the rest of my body on very bad days,” explains Malia who takes medication daily and gets acupuncture every few weeks to manage the pain.

“Polymer clay is the perfect medium for me to create with because I am able to work on pieces for short periods of time over the course of multiple days or even weeks without the clay drying out, which allows me to work around my pain levels and hard days,” she adds.

As a homeschooling mom, Malia is doing a wonderful job with her creations and has certainly a big plans for the future. “I hope to continue showing my art in galleries and create more work to open a web shop. I'd also love to get into teaching polymer clay courses online one day.”