| Let those who love Your name be joyful in you. PS 5:11 |
| Maris Efird |
Maris Designs uses a wide variety of glass rods which are imported from Italy, Germany and American made
glass. Each glass maker has well guarded formulas for a wide pallet of colors. Sometimes in mixing the
different metals for the formation of a color, a "mistake" is made, such as too much silver or gold. This can
result in a beautiful and unique new color. These rods are highly prized and sought after. Beads blown
from these rods are truly one of a kind.
As a beadmaker, Maris Efird has now come full-circle. When she was a child, she was always fascinated
with teh color and form of glass. Later, she used that fascination to create simple jewelry designs.
She later studied art at Parson's School of Design in New York City. Going from student to wife to mother,
the artist in her has had to evolve from photographer to graphic designer and finally back to glass bead and
jewelry creator.
Maris sculptures her unique glass beads one at a time using an age-old method called Lampworking.
For thousands of years, glass beads were a precious commodity, used in trade form continent to continent
as a valuable currency. For hundreds of years the technique with working with glass was a closely guarded
secret, shrouded in mystery within artisan families. Not until the 17th century did this closely controlled craft
escape outside the glassmaker's clutches. Today, glass is no longer a precious commodity reserved
exclusively for the elite, and no longer is the glass making method a jealously guarded secret.
Using glass rods, Maris heats the glass to a molten state using an oxygen and propane flame. She then
forms the molten glass into sics, cylinders, bicones, and other shapes by winding it onto a metal rod. After
basic shape is formed, surface decorations such as dots, spirals, and stripes are applied to the not surface.
Each bead is then slowly cooled down and removed carefully from the rod to be used later in a jewelry
creation. Intricate and unique patters are endless making a one-of-a-kind bead, and a one-of-a-kind
handcrafted piece of jewelry.
glass. Each glass maker has well guarded formulas for a wide pallet of colors. Sometimes in mixing the
different metals for the formation of a color, a "mistake" is made, such as too much silver or gold. This can
result in a beautiful and unique new color. These rods are highly prized and sought after. Beads blown
from these rods are truly one of a kind.
As a beadmaker, Maris Efird has now come full-circle. When she was a child, she was always fascinated
with teh color and form of glass. Later, she used that fascination to create simple jewelry designs.
She later studied art at Parson's School of Design in New York City. Going from student to wife to mother,
the artist in her has had to evolve from photographer to graphic designer and finally back to glass bead and
jewelry creator.
Maris sculptures her unique glass beads one at a time using an age-old method called Lampworking.
For thousands of years, glass beads were a precious commodity, used in trade form continent to continent
as a valuable currency. For hundreds of years the technique with working with glass was a closely guarded
secret, shrouded in mystery within artisan families. Not until the 17th century did this closely controlled craft
escape outside the glassmaker's clutches. Today, glass is no longer a precious commodity reserved
exclusively for the elite, and no longer is the glass making method a jealously guarded secret.
Using glass rods, Maris heats the glass to a molten state using an oxygen and propane flame. She then
forms the molten glass into sics, cylinders, bicones, and other shapes by winding it onto a metal rod. After
basic shape is formed, surface decorations such as dots, spirals, and stripes are applied to the not surface.
Each bead is then slowly cooled down and removed carefully from the rod to be used later in a jewelry
creation. Intricate and unique patters are endless making a one-of-a-kind bead, and a one-of-a-kind
handcrafted piece of jewelry.