Recently I went to visit my friend Mary Karg and just hang out in her cool studio. As always we just talked non-stop catching up on the months between visits. Now, Mary has some very impressive beads and finished jewelry. She works in glass and metal (and I suspect a bit of alchemy); I am seriously in awe of her work. It would be easy to say that she never makes a mistake but I know she has; occasionally I will see an wonky bead hiding in some forgotten place, but it is unusual to see one. You can check out her Artfire studio here to see some of her beautiful work. So as I was leaving I was checking out some of her recent beads and came across a truly odd one. Mary explained she was trying new mandrels that allowed you to blow up a hot bead in order to make it hollow (and lighter weight). Usually it works but in this one case it was like a tire blow-out and the bead lost its integrity. As I was musing over it Mary gave it to me charging me to figure out a way to use it. We both were thinking some sort of jewelry, however as I was just smooshing (technical term) clay in my hand I came up with a different take on it. It isn't a finished piece, just a preliminary work up.
 Here is the hollow bead with the "blow-out" shown at the bottom. It is still an interesting bead even though it didn't come out the way Mary intended. |
 ...and here is what I was thinking of making with it. I didn't even mix or color the clay the way I wanted, just started mashing it around and it came out like this. The more I look at it the more I like it. After I work out the color I need to figure out what to do with the mandrel holes (mid shell). I'm thinking some sort of bling - what do you think? |
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