Greetings!
I hope this newsletter finds you well and happy. Those are the most important things. But being excited about new projects and wonderful winter scenery are close to the top for me. I am really taken with the beautiful scenes this winteriest of winters has given us up here in very Northern New York. Recently I have been snowshoeing to get out into it since there is a very slippery layer of ice under the snow and a crusty icy topping on it as well.
In this newsletter I will be telling you about some good news for my pendants, showing you some new jewelry and telling you about some classes I will be teaching in the next 6 months.
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I am the current Featured Artist on Foremost Focal Beads, an internet site that sells handmade ceramic and glass focal beads.
They are featuring a selection of my handmade ceramic pendants and beads.
This is a great site that has recently been featured on the ArtBeadScene Blog.
Here is an excerpt of the article Foremost Focal is including about me:
Mary has been making artwork for most of her adult life. She began making ceramic beads and pendants in 1998 when she had the good fortune to take a ceramic class with Ann Burnham and renew her ceramic skills. Soon, Mary was continuously engaged by the excitement of each new kiln load of beads. She was first inspired at that time by the need for larger holed beads for the macramé jewelry she was designing. However, after seeing ancient beads in museums and on a trip to Mexico, she began to experiment with glazes and stains that would create the look of an archeological find.Out of this search she became very committed to using stains and smoke, along with some commercial glazes to color her beads and pendants. Mary feels that too much colored glaze removes the presence of the clay from the bead and no longer draws the eye into the clay to experience it. The viewer needs to enjoy the many nuances of surface, texture and aleatory (unpredictable) markings. She uses earthenware and porcelain clay fired at low temperatures to keep the clay open to receiving these stains, colorings and smoke.Mary's artistic influences have been such masters as John Cage, Marguerite Duras and Freda Kahlo and the folk artists she researched in Northern New York and Mexico. She grew up in the Southwest which has certainly had a lasting influence on her love for southwestern and central American art. Moving to New York State fulfilled a wish to live in a land with green meadows and lots of water. Her recent work of gathering the plants of the pastures of northern New York to decorate her ceramic pendants is a form of folk history that she has imaginatively interpreted by making colorful renderings of these resilient green beauties.
I am very pleased to have this opportunity and thank Chris Thommen the CEO ( Chief Executive Beader, as she calls herself) for finding me.
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News From My Studio
New Jewelry
I am featuring a few new piece of jewelry this month since I have been doing quite a bit of beading recently.
The bracelet below is built on a chain of right angle weave. As I was working on it, the picots on the sides began to look like fool's gold and the colors of the beads reminded me of the desert in the Southwest where I grew up. I have titled this bracelet Mohave Love. You can find more of my right angle weave bracelets in the bracelet section of my website.
If you are interested in learning this off loom beading technique I will be teaching it this summer. You can get details in the Classes section that follows.
 
This necklace is the one I submitted to the ArtBeadScene called Ice Storm on the Edge of Spring. It is made with my raku beads, a silver raku pendant and silver cube beads with Sterlinling silver spacers and bead cones. I think of the green cord showing through as the sign of Spring not being far away. We are all hoping that about now!! You can find more of my Silver Raku pendants and raku beads on my website.
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Classes
New Classes:
I will be teaching Right Angle Weave and Glazing Ceramic Beads at the Handweaving Museum in Clayton, New York on Wednesday July 16, 2008. You can register online or by clicking the above link.
These are half day classes. The Right Angle Weave is in the Morning and the Glazing Beads class is in the afternoon.
I will be teaching a class in Felted Bead Making at the new and wonderful Fiber Options store in April. More about this next newsletter.
I am also planning to teach a ceramic bead making and/or glazing class ( you can opt to take one or both days) at my studio in May.
A peyote stitch class is planned for the St. Lawrence Arts Council in the Fall. More details later on that one.
Please contact me by email mary@maryhardingjewelry.com if you are interested in any of these classes. For the ceramic bead making classes, I am open to suggestions about dates.
I hope you will check out the Designer Gallery and if you make anything with one of my pieces please send me a picture and I will be happy to include your work in the Designer Gallery.
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