Inside the Studio with Mary Harding

Each week one of our contributors gives you a sneak peek into their studio, creative process or inspirations. We ask a related question of our readers and hope you'll leave comments! As an incentive, we offer a prize each week to bribe you to use that keyboard and tell us what you think. The following week a winner is chosen at random from all eligible entries.

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Welcome to the studio of Mary Harding Jewelry.  I am delighted to host this week's Inside the Studio post.  July has been a busy month and I have been in and out of my studio teaching classes, and participating in a craft show for the first time in several years.  Last week I posted some of the raku beads that I  made as color samples for a collaborative Raku Bead firing one of my classes participated in. You can read all about it  here.  

Now that the classes are over and no shows are on my  horizon, I have been busy making some new toggle clasps with soft solder and copper sheet.  I really enjoy soft soldering because it is such an intuitive and impromptu medium.  I have been working on some clasps that are similar in feel to one that will be published next month when Stringing magazine releases its Best Beads of 2015 issue.  I called that one Poetic Grunge.  The series I have been working on is inspired by that clasp and by the book I have been reading for Andrew Thornton's Inspired by Reading Book Club---Swamplandia.  I wanted to capture my interpretation of what the author, Karen Russell, refers to as the Sawtooth Age.

So I used a saw type motif through out this series of clasps.  For the ones pictured above I flooded the clasps with soft solder and then added the copper saw tooth wire bits by placing them on the solder and then reheating it.  

For a more lyrical effect, I wrapped copper wire around the clasp after completing the basic soldering.  I think it almost looks like some kind of exotic tropical flower, as well.

I floated bits of copper in the solder to create the texture of the  alligator hide in the two clasps pictured above.

This clasp is more 3 dimensional and has two layers of saws.  The bottom layer juts out from the surface of the clasp but the saws are soft and smooth due to filing and tumbling.

I have also been experimenting with toggle clasps made from steel rebar wire.  I was inspired by Keith Lo Bue's online class Steeling Beauty and his lessons on playing with the wire.
I have tried out a few clasps by bending and forging the 16 gauge steel wire and plan  to continue on seeing what I can come up with.  Here are a couple of examples of what I have been trying out.

There is no solder on this clasp.  All the shapes are made by bending the wire with strong linesman pliers.

 A  square toggle clasp wrought from 16 gauge rebar wire.


Now for my question: Is making work in a series something you  like to do?  Leave a comment below related to this idea and you will be automatically entered to win a $20.00 gift certificate to my Etsy shop.
Thanks so much for stopping by.
Mary