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About My Sculptural Lampwork Beads
My signature bead is the Encased Sculptural Lampwork Bead. These beads are essentially a small paperweight with a bail,
making it a pendant that can be worn on a chain or incorporated into a necklace design. They look great on a slender
snake chain. The hole in the bail is 1/8th of an inch in diameter.
The design of the these beads sprang from a paperweight making lesson given by Loren Stump. The paperweights were placed in the
kiln with the punty mark still visible. After annealing, the mark is ground off and the flat spot polished. I wanted to develop
a bead that came out of the annealer ready to wear. This presented several technical problems, mostly associated with getting it
off of the last punty and into the kiln withour marking the bead or leaving any of the Pyrex punty behind.
The clear encasement glass became another issue. The paperweights were made using gobs of Schott glass, which are amazingly clear
hocky puck shaped hunks of glass. Sadly the Coefficient of Expansion is 109. This incompatability with Effetre(formerly Moretti) glass (104 COE) is
fine for the paperweight shape, but since I would be adding an Effetre bail, it would not work for me. The inclusions inside
the beads are made with Effetre glass, with it's great palette of colors. The Efferte clear is another matter. It is
inconsistant at best and unusable at it' worst. I tried some German clear, but it had too many internal bubbles. The Murano glass company
makes some great clear glass. All of the clear comes with surface imperfections that translate into scum if not removed.
I peel all of the surface of the glass leaving a crystal clear piece of glass for encasement.
The inclusion are the creative part of the process. All of the beads get a piece of my signature cane. It is tucked away on the
side of the bead and can not be seen from face on. I also currently have ladybug and butterfly murrini that appear in some of
my beads. Floral inclusions are what I currently like making. Here is a photo of one of my iris inclusions:
The inclusions are welded together using a Little Torch. Here it is with the flame hovering just above a penny. The flame is the same size
as Lincoln's nose. The tiny flame is deceiving, it will mow down arm hair from six inches.
After encasing the inclusion I apply a background.