Inspired By Reading Book Club: Where Did You Go Bernadette?

                         Where Did You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple   Close up of its book cover

Just a few days ago, the Inspired By Reading Book Club had its 4th Birthday.  I  have enjoyed being a member since day one but have to admit that I have not participated much in the last year.  I wanted to post for the March selection, partly because it was my choice for one of the books this year, and also because I just loved reading this book and was inspired.  My inspiration came primarily from the part of the book that had to do with Antarctica.  It was my favorite part and the landscape I knew least about.  It seemed so surreal and so very QUIET.  During this time I had come across a ceramic blue glaze that I thought was the perfect color for Antarctic ice in sunshine.

.  I checked out some pictures and there it was that ice cold beautiful blue in the water around this iceberg.
                                       I made the beads out of porcelain ceramic clay.

                                         Iceberg blue ceramic beads by Mary Harding

The story of the rest of the inspiration for this necklace is rather long but I will keep it short. My fellow team mate at Art Bead Scene, Michelle McCarthy  of  Firefly Design Studio came up with a challenge last month based on a necklace designed by Lorelei Eurto in the book she co-authored with Erin Siegel: Bohemian-Inspired Jewelry. You can see that post HERE. I was intrigued and purchased some ultra white peanut beads and some white O rings. Then the light went off: I could use them with these blue beads and create a cold antarctic atmosphere. I more or less did that. I changed up Lorelei's design by making some handmade chain with soldered links that looked ice like as well. When I put it all together, I folded the necklace in half to intensify the juxtaposition of the icy elements and here is what I got.

In case you noticed the two toggle clasps, that could be an error or it could be a nod to the zaniness of Bernadette, the main character  in the story!!
Where Did you Go Bernadette is a fun and heart warming read.  I hope you will try it out.  You can check out the other creations this month in the Inspired By Reading Book Club Facebook page HERE.

Thanks so much for stopping by.
Mary

Swamplandia August Selection Inspired by Reading Book Club

                                    

Swamplandia by Karen Russell is the August selection for the Inspired by Reading Book Club.  I read this book when it first came out. I was so engaged by Karen Russel's lyrical prose and lush descriptions of the flora and fauna of the Everglades that the book has remained a favorite of mine. I also found the story of grieving and survival compelling.  The book has been on my mind for some time and a way to capture the book and the setting in jewelry has been as well. So you could say I had a head start on being inspired by this month's selection.
Recently I made a series of toggle clasps inspired by this book and Karen Russel's phrase "A Sawtooth Age."  And since I have begun a series of copper beads on the same theme but they are not far enough along to photograph.

I also blogged about some of  these clasps on ArtBeadScene  Toggle clasps inspired by Swamplandia  and the phrase  "a sawtooth age."  by Karen Russell.

To see what the others made, please check out Andrew Thornton's post for today. And the list of participants below:

Mary K McGraw

Jeanne Steck

Sarajo Wentling

Ann Schroeder

Mary Harding

Alison Herrington

Andrew Thornton, Amy Roadman, Dawn Berkebile, Terri Greenawalt, Laurel Ross, Nancy Noyes-Ward, and Marie D'Onofrio

Proust's Overcoat: Inspired by Reading Book Club Blog Hop

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Proust's Overcoat by Lorenza Foschini is the November selection for the Inspired By Reading Book Club.  It is a true story.

I began reading this book on my ipad in a Kindle version, an excerpt, that included the first chapter or two.  Once I had gotten that far, I knew I had to have the book in hand.  So I purchased the hardcover edition, which is a small, slim book.  I am so happy I did, as one of the most moving and charming parts of this book are the photographs, beginning at the very start of the story with pictures of Marcel Prout's actual overcoat, the one he wore in bed as he wrote his maginificent, genial opus, In Search of Lost Time. Having the physical touch of the paper pages of this book was such an important part of this reading experience.  Much as Prouts' books are about associations, memories and the senses, Foschini"s book captures that essence in this short work about Jacques Guerin and how his love of books led him to preserve so much of Proust's legacy.  I was enchanted by the story and the pictures.  I was enriched by my own associations and remembrances of how I felt when I first read Swan's Way in my early twenties.  I was further enriched when I learned that Guerin helped the struggling writer Violette LeDuc by arranging for the publication of her work.  And then once more when by chance watched the movie, Violette, which my husband had included on our streaming list and I realized it was the same person.  And still more as I reread parts of the book again and again.

image from the book Proust's Overcoat 

When I think back on what inspired me to make what I did, I think it must have been this photograph in the book.  The buttons on Proust's overcoat.  I did not in any way attempt to capture the feeling of Proust.  I simply was inspired by the idea of making a piece with buttons.  I started out with the plan that I would crochet a string of small white buttons I had on hand, in the manner I learned from Stephanie Lee's Homesteader's Metalsmithing Revamped.  They came out fine but just didn't work for what I had in mind.

buttons linked together with crochet chain

Then I decided to use some very handsome stoneware buttons I had been given by Canadian artist Mary Anne Robblee recently.

Stoneware buttons by Mary Anne Robblee

I attached them with Sari Silk to a re-purposed  cord I had hand felted some time ago.

Close up of wire wrapped buttons 

Buttons attached to Felted Cord 

Necklace by Mary Harding--Inspired by reading Proust's Overcoat

Once again, I am so enriched by participating in Andrew Thornton's Inspired By Reading Book Club.  Thanks so much for doing this Andrew!!

Next month we will be reading Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.  You can join in by visiting the Inspired by Reading Facebook page and asking to participate.

Thank you for visiting my blog today!!

Please stop by and see what others have created for this blog hop:

Sarajo Spurgeon Wentling http://www.sjdesignsjewelry.blogspot.com/

Andrew Thornton  his post includes his work and that of Laurel Ross and Allison Herrington

Inspired by Reading Book Club Interpreter of Maladies

                                          Mrs Sen's  Short Story  by Jhumpa Lahiri

For April we read Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri for Andrew Thornton's Inspired by Reading Book Club. I have read several books by Lahiri:  The Namesake,  Unaccustomed Earth and part of the Lowlands ( that was in the New Yorker Magazine) so I thought I was ready for this book of short stories.  I especially admire Lahiri for her eloquent prose, articulate portrayal of anguish using the smallest details of daily life, poetic story construction and array of  interesting characters.  But I was not expecting to be ravished by the beauty, the sadness, the prose that is so engaging that one is no longer reading but being, and the images of landscape, dress, hair, weather, and the inside of feelings made into tangible objects that I found in Interpreter of Maladies.  Caught up in all of these experiences, I created the fish in the picture above and from there went on the create a necklace inspired by the story, Mrs. Sen's.
A brief summary would be that Mrs. Sen, a young married woman ( about 30)  is missing her homeland of India,  feeling isolated and lonely and unable to find her way.  The loosely parallel situation of Elliot, a young boy she is babysitting after school  propels the story.  About halfway through the story, we learn through Elliot that there are two things that make Mrs. Sen happy:
the arrival of a letter from her family and fish from the seaside.  How letters from home and fish play out determine the remainder of the story.  I chose to make a necklace with fish because I felt it was the best way I could portray the poetry of feelings in this story.

                                                Polymer Fish  Mary Harding

                                     Polymer Fish  Mary Harding


 I call the necklace Mrs. Sen's Fish.  I made the fish from polymer clay, my now go to medium for creating 3 dimensional images of the imagination.  This fish just sprang from my hands and I felt that Lahiri was guiding me all the way--that is how deeply her work has been affecting me for the past weeks.

But as usual for me, the making and the thinking are different and I have struggled to turn these fish into a necklace that at least comes close to what I wanted it to be.  I knew from the beginning that I wanted the  larger fish to curve around like a necklace so I constructed a framework out of 10 gauge copper that I annealed and forged and then wrapped in linen.

                                               Copper frame wrapped with linen

Copper frame for necklace

I had originally planned to have the clasp in the middle of the back of the necklace but soon learned it would seriously throw off the balance of the necklace so I chose a side clasp which surely worked better.

Early on I decided to change the linen wrapping for a Sari silk dark burgundy since it showed off the focal fish better and I liked the idea of making a reference to how Mrs. Sen dressed:  " a different Sari everyday."

                                          Fish on dark burgundy Sari silk


The necklace went through several other changes but in the end I went for a slightly asymmetrical simple design and two different Sari silk wrappings of the forged copper frame.  Here it is:

                                 Mrs. Sen's Fish  Necklace by Mary Harding


Thank you once again Andrew for creating and continuing to lead this wonderful book club Inspired by  Reading.  I am looking forward to another year as I realize that Interpreter Of Maladies was the last book selection for this one.
Thank you for stopping by. I hope you will check out what others have created.  You can find a list of who is participating here. and below:
Jenny Davies-Reazor http://www.jdaviesreazor.com/blog
Sarajo Wentling http://sjdesignsjewelry.blogspot.com/
Jeanne Steck http://www.gemsbyjeannemarie.blogspot.com/
Mary Harding http://www.maryhardingjewelrybeadblog.blogspot.com/
Karin Grange http://ginkgoetcoquelicot.blogspot.fr/
Ann Schroeder http://www.beadlove.wordpress.com/
Mary K McGraw http://www.mkaymac.blogspot.com/
Rachel Stewart http://www.bluefinchjewelry.blogspot.com/
Christine Damm http://storiestheytell.blogspot.com/
Andrew Thornton, Laurel Ross, Alison Herrington, Terri Greenawalt, and Karen Hiatt http://andrew-thornton.blogspot.com/

Inspired by Reading Book Club: The Enchantress of Florence and Difficult Loves

Andrew Thornton's Inspired By Reading Book Club  selection for January was The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie.  We  have doubled up for this month's blog hop and are also including the current selection for February Italo Calvino's Difficult Loves.  I found inspiration in both books but favored the charming slightly surreal stories of Italo Calvino in  Difficult Loves.  I had never read any of his stories, except the Fairy Tales, and was surprised and very pleased by their simplicity, charm and unusual imagery of bugs, sea creatures, and beautiful plants.

For today's blog hop I am sharing the necklace I made inspired by Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence.  I have found during this year of creating jewelry related to the books we have read, that what I choose to make often comes to me as an almost full blown vision when I come across a passage or idea in the story that "speaks to me."  I think these epiphanies are what make it so exciting to participate in this Book Club and undertake the reading of books I might never have chosen myself.  I was never sure it would happen in The Enchantress of Florence but persisted (due to my personal connections to Florence and Renaissance art), until I came across the following passage:

"According to legend the Medici family possessed a magic mirror whose purpose was to reveal to the reigning Duke the image of the most desirable woman  in the known world."

It seems that after some time the mirror no longer worked and "fell dark."  And then after the election of Pope Leo it began to work again. In order to find the beautiful woman revealed in the magic mirror, the famous painter Andrea Del Sarto was summoned by the reigning Duke to paint the likeness within the mirror, but it only reflected back  an image of the artist, as the mirror was not so easily tricked. 

The idea of Andrea Del Sarto's reflection in the mirror sparked the idea for me to make a  Florentine  Mirror with an image of one of Andrea Del Sarto's art works, since he is an actual painter from the Renaissance period.  When I looked him up, I was captivated by one of his chalk drawings of a young girl. I fitted a copy of the drawing into a shallow bezel cup that I had tinned to a piece of copper and made an ornate bail for, and then I poured resin into the bezel.

I used a simple Vintaj etched brass chain, added a couple of ornate copper beads from Fusion beads and a decorative oval toggle clasp that I made from copper clay to reflect the classic necklace style of the time and to focus attention on the marvelous image in the mirror.

                                                 The Mirror of Andrea Del Sarto Necklace        

                                                               The clasp

As I mentioned, Italo Calvino's short stories are charming and full of wonderful unexpected imagery and are often happy and pastoral in feeling.  I liked many of them but was captured by The Adventure of a Reader.  Funny and lighthearted, the story poses the question of what is more real and more desirable, the story or real life.  I have not yet finished my piece for this book but hope to at some point in the future.  

Thank you Andrew  for continuing the book club on into next year.  We have only 2 more selections for this year, March  is  An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor and April is The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri.
Thank you for stopping by.  Since this is a blog hop I hope you will take a look at the wonderful creations of the other participants:

Sarajo Wentling

Jeanne Steck

Mary Harding

Ann Schroeder

Rachel Stewart

Andrew Thornton, Laurel Ross, Alison Smith and Terri Greenawalt