My Sculptural Lampwork Beads
I began making my Signature series of Lampwork beads a few weeks after I attended a week-long class with Loren Stump. I wanted
to produce a unique, collectable and functional 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. I worked
several weeks honing the technique, making simple buds at first, then irises, hyacinths, calla lilies, and orchids. The inclusions
are the creative part of the process. Here is one of the iris inclusions:
All of my beads are properly kiln annealed and signed. The sculptures are made in the torch using Moretti glass then encased
with clear. The encasing clear is scum free as the glass was carefully peeled of any impurities, which produces a very clear
quality to the glass. They are slightly larger than an inch wide. The hole in the bail is 1/8th of an inch.
They are signed with my signature murrini. The signature murrini is a black SW in a white field, wrapped in a blue covering.
It does not show looking straight at the bead, it is tucked away at the very edge of the bead. It can be viewed by
holding the bead and looking over the inclusion from the opposite direction of the signature cane location. For example,
if the cane is in the 11 o'clock position, look from 5 o'clock across the top of the inclusion, holding the bead flat,
just looking through the clear. Here is one in the 5 o'clock, looking from 11 o'clock.
As you can see from the photos, these beads are hard to photograph. Since they are a domed paperweight shape, the lights reflect off
of the sides of the beads. You can almost read the label on the light bulb in some of the beads. These are guaranteed to
be better looking in your hand, or your money back.
A little more detail into the development of the series:
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 without marking the bead or leaving any of the Pyrex punty behind.
The clear encasement glass became another issue. The paperweights from the class were made using gobs of Schott glass, which are
amazingly clear hockey puck shaped hunks of glass. Sadly the Coefficient of Expansion is 109. This incompatibility 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 Effetre clear is another matter. From
the factory it is almost unusable for encasing. I tried some German clear, but it had too many internal bubbles. The Vetrofond Glass
company makes some great clear glass with the same surface imperfections that can translate into scum if not removed. I peel all of
the surface of the glass leaving a crystal clear piece of glass for encasement. I gave up the secret to doing this in one of my
tutorials listed in the menu.
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.
