There's just something about glass....

One of my great passions is making glass beads, which is called 'lampwork'. There is just something about taking a substance,

various beads by Cate Gundlah



changing its composition and manipulating it to

make something beautiful. I get much of my

inspiration from nature, or sometimes while

reading a magazine or watching TV- seeing how

colors work together, or not. Some of my ideas

come from the glass itself. Different processes

produce varied results. Some glass colors will

react when they touch each other; sometimes

Necklace, eye canes inlaid on
wound glass matrix, Iran, 1st
half of the millennium BC.
copyright Corning Museum of Glass



providing good results and other times not. Some artists produce glass rods super-saturated with silver and other metals, which produce beautiful reactions.

Glass beads have been made at the flame since

about 1700 BC. A more modern technique was

developed by Angelo Barovier on the island of

Murano and created what he called 'cristello',

which was a clear, soft, soda glass. As the art

and science progressed, chemist's realized that

by blowing a stream of air into the flame of an

oil lamp, the flame would become hotter. Initially

mouth blown air was used- which resulted in a

lot of light-headed lampworkers.

Then they stared using a hand bellows.

Bicone beads, 3rd century BC
to 1st century AD. Hellenistic
or early Roman. Translucent
and opaque glass wound on a rod
with pre-formed bands of cane.
2 and 2.5 CM
copyright Corning Museum of Glass

But that must have been  tricky since

lampwork requires two hands. Then someone developed a foot bellows, which allowed the worker to use both

hands. By the late 18th century the industry had sprung up all over Europe.

Nevers, France produced small glass figurines of people and animals. Lauscha, Germany made Christmas ornaments.

And Venice, Italy produced beads and millefiore,which are small chips of glass that look like flowers (like the top picture above, bottom bead). During this time glass rods, sometimes called canes, were produced to be used at the flame, and the process has not changed much in 200 years. Today, many glass rods are produced by machine. But some are still "pulled" by hand. This involves attaching a large gather of glass on either end with stainless steel rods, and the hot molten glass is pulled apart to form a long string, or rod, of glass. The rods are then cut into usable lengths.

These days the flame is produced with propane or natural gas. The oxygen is supplied by tank, or oxygen concentrators or generators, widely used in the medical field. Once a bead is finished in the flame, it should be garaged in a kiln at 960 degrees for a minimum of 30-45 minutes. This lets the molecules in the glass re-align themselves so that when the bead cools it will not crack and break apart.

Lampworkers are a very small community of artists. I'm very lucky to be a part of it.