My name is Mary Harding. I'm an artist and I living in St. Lawrence County-- the Northeastern tip of New York State. My studio is a renovated old barn, located close to my home-- about fourteen miles from the Canadian border. The Oswegatchie river, a tributary of the Saint Lawrence river, runs through our one hundred forty acres of farmland and wool-lots. My husband and I live about seven miles from town.

After waiting for several years for high-speed internet, we finally decided to contract with Hughes Internet and now we have an amazing satellite dish through which we can communicate with the rest of the world through a high-speed satellite internet connection.

I've worked as an artist in a number of media: photography, illustration, fiction, poetry, retablos, and painting, and of course ceramic beads.

In the mid 1970's I received a grant to document Folk Art in the region and interviewed many wonderful local artists. I had to seek these artists out as if I were a detective--many of the people creating what I consider art didn't consider what they were doing art at all. These amazing works they made, they made just because they like to create. The works were almost an afterthought. Some people might think of this concept of creation as a Zen principle of creating by not creating, or as John Cage once wrote: "I have nothing to say and I am saying it...."

I don't presume to have approached any way near this level of mastery. But I think that having my life in England, Germany, New York City, and now Saint Lawrence County that after a time one does simply learn to be. And I would like to think that this spirit spirit of living and creating is what informs my work, or perhaps leaves my work in some ways sophisticated and in some ways naive.
This geographic region (and artistic region as well) is often referred to by the indigenous people simply as the North Country. This "region" locates a unique blend, or perhaps intersection. of communities and identities.

When I was a child my parents practiced medicine and every few years we drove (at thirty-five miles per hour) to a new isolated area where my father and mother could serve as physicians to the community. One of the places that I remember best is Juneau, Alaska. Partly because the drive was excruciatingly long for a young girl used to exercising and riding horses. But also because I would look at the streams of river after a heavy rain and think about the gold particles and the mystique of the Klondike and and the mystery of the many things I will not ever know and the infinite desire I felt--I feel--to create.

Here, as in Alaska, many people seek the spirit of the place, to feel possessed and swaddled in Nature, or to feel cleansed of their cultural and social constructs, or, maybe to simply pursue an intuitive need for solitude and silence. Or maybe, like myself, they are passing through this area, after returning to American from England and experience the epiphany of lost identity after gazing up into a dark sky filled with more stars than they have ever seen before. And maybe, and as if by gazing upward to join them and contribute a small candle to that great light, they become wholly transfixed by the amazing power and stillness of the region..

Yet at the same time we are within a two hour drive of Ottawa, Canada. And at least four colleges are within a twenty mile radius of my home. And the Fort Drum military training camp is within fifty miles of our home. I remember the incongruity of looking up from gathering clay down by the river bank and seeing a pair of F-16s chasing each other just above the treetops like a pair of Monarch butterflies fluttering around a milkweed flower.

But if you are mostly interested in the artwork, let me keep you waiting no longer. I think I've set the stage well enough to give you a sense of what you are getting into.

Simply put:

• My recent creations include neckpieces, cuff bracelets, and strung handmade ceramic bead bracelets and necklaces
  I have a local reputation for my specialty in freeform peyote stitch cuff bracelets. I make my Freeform Peyote Stitch Cuff Bracelets with an early Native American off-loom bead stitch called the peyote, or gourd stitch. In recent years, beaders have rediscovered this art form and it has become popular throughout the beading community. The forgiving and creative nature of free form peyote makes it a wonderful medium for artistic expression. As I have already tried to warn you, each bracelet becomes a meditative journey that is enjoyed for the adventure in the process and the delight in its final destination. Some embarking on the creating of such a bracelet is not a venture to undertake without due care and preparation and a healthy respect for the unknown. These bracelets are not planned, but rather emerge. And so each bracelet a records the unique and singular process that is the story of its creation.
• Raw Materials. The banks of the Oswegatchie river contain a unique clay from which I create my ceramic earth beads, pendants, and vessel pendants. I offer these works individually and I also use them as elements of her strung necklaces and in her freeform peyote stitch creations. I create both slip cast and hand built beads.
• Each bead is individually decorated with stampings, multiple stainings, firings and glazing often resulting in an ancient or primitive look.
• Recently I created impressions from wildflowers and plants that blossom in the summer by the river, in the meadows, and in the woods. .
  

You may contact me by writing by standard mail to:

Mary Harding
C/O Mary Harding Jewelry
162 CO RD 14
Rensselaer Falls, NY 13680
USA

By email:

mary@maryhardingjewelry.com

By telephone:

315 344 7252 (between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time)

Shipping Information:

Your order will be shipped out within 2 business days after it is placed. We send orders by First Class Mail with Delivery Confirmation. You may request Priority Mail for an additional charge of $3.50. Orders ship within 24 to 72 hours of receipt.

Refund, Returns and Cancellation Policies

All orders can be returned for full refund and one way shipping. Please call or email us to let us know that you are returning or exchanging an order. Please keep in mind that you must notify me within ten business days if would like to return or exchange an item. If you have any questions about the store's return and exchange policy please feel free to ask.