ST. PETERSBURG — Stephanie Parr dabs red underglaze onto her ceramic ornament, a palm-sized creature with bulging eyes. “It’s a demented elf,” said Parr, a 37-year-old artist at Creative Clay. “I get ...

She always begins with a smoosh of her thumb. Grace Vanderbush flattens a ball of polymer clay the color of the sky onto a round brass pendant. Then she starts to layer and sculpt a tiny scene — ...