Anyone for beads?

Be it that I have moved into other fields of working with warm glass, bead making is still fascinating as it can truly be regarded as a "homebusiness"and has been (and still is) done by many cultures and communities in the traditional way.

The technology for glass beadmaking is among the oldest human arts, dating back 30,000 years Perhaps the earliest glass-like beads were Egyptian faience beads, a form of clay bead with a self-forming vitreous coating.

Glass beads are usually categorized by the method used to manipulate the glass. Most beads fall into three main categories: wound,drawn and molded.

Probably the earliest beads of true glass were made by the winding method (lampwork) . Glass at a temperature high enough to make it workable, or "ductile", is laid down or wound around a steel wire or mandrel coated in a clay slip called "bead release." The wound bead, while still hot, may be further shaped by manipulating with graphite, wood, stainless steel or marble tools and paddles. This process is called marvering, originating from the French word "marver" which translates to "marble". It can also be pressed into a mold in its molten state. While still hot, or after re-heating, the surface of the bead may be decorated with fine rods called stringers of colored glass. See how lampworking is done.

The drawing of glass is also very ancient. Evidence of large-scale drawn-glass beadmaking has been found by archeologists in India, at sites like Arekamedu dating to the 2nd century CE. The small drawn beads made by that industry have been called Indo-Pacific beads, because they may have been the single most widely traded item in history--found from the islands of the Pacific to Great Zimbabwe in Southern Africa. There are several methods for making drawn beads, but they all involve pulling a strand out of a gather of glass in such a way as to incorporate a bubble in the center of the strand to serve as the hole in the bead. In Arekamedu this was accomplished by inserting a hollow metal tube into the ball of hot glass and pulling the glass strand out around it, to form a continuous glass tube. In the Venetian bead industry, the molten glass was gathered on the end of a tool called the puntile, a bubble was incorporated into the center of a gather of molten glass, and a second puntile was attached before stretching the gather with its internal bubble into a long cane. The pulling was a skilled process, and canes were reportedly drawn to lengths up to 60 m long. The drawn tube was then chopped, producing individual drawn beads from its slices. The resulting beads were cooked or rolled in hot sand to round the edges without melting the holes closed; were sieved into sizes; and, usually, strung onto hanks for sale.

Today the drawn bead process has been mechanised and beads are extruded by machine. We know the resulting product better as seed bead, a small type of bead typically less than 6 mm, traditionally monochrome, and manufactured in very large quantities.

Pressed or molded beads have always been popular in Eastern European countries and are made by heating thick rods of glass to the molten thick honey stage and fed into a machine that stamps the glass, including a needle that pierces a hole. Like the drawn bead method, the beads are rolled in hot sand to remove flashing and soften seam lines. One `feed' of a hot rod might result in 10-20 beads, and a single operator can make thousands in a day. The Bohemian glass industry was known for its ability to copy more expensive beads, and produced molded glass "lion's teeth", "coral", and "shells", which were popular in the 19th and early 20th century Africa trade.

Some artists have also gone the route of using lead and borosilicate glass tubing (like they use for for neon signs) to make hollow blown beads .

Modern Ghana and other countries in Africa have a lively industry in beads molded from powdered glass. Women use powdered glass, grinded from commercially available glass seed beads and recycled glass, to make colourful beads. The molded ground glass, if painted into the mold, is called pate de verre, and the technique can be used to make beads, though pendants and cabochons are more typical.

Beads have grown in popularity and are widely used in a great varity of applications, far beyond the traditional concept of jewellery. Fashion, art, functional art ... the versatility of the humble bead ensures it will be around for another 30.000 years.

Development of Studio Glass

Glass art is that part of the glass industry where glass gets used as an artistic medium. Applications can include stained glass, working glass in a torch flame (lampworking), glass beadmaking, glass casting, glass fusing, and glass blowing.

As a decorative and functional medium, glass was extensively developed in Egypt and Assyria, brought to the fore by the Romans, who developed the art of glassblowing, with the stained glass windows in European cathedrals as living proof of spectacular art and skill. Great ateliers like Tiffany, Lalique, Daum, Gallé, the Corning schools and Steuben Glass Works took glass art to the highest levels.

(Tiffany, Lalique, Steuben)

Glass from Murano (also known as Venetian glass) is the result of hundreds of years of refinement and invention. While there are currently more hotshops and glass artists working in Seattle (USA), Murano is still considered as the birthplace of modern glass art.

Prior to the early 1960s, the term "glass art" referred to glass made for decorative use, usually by teams of factory workers, taking glass from furnaces with a thousand or more pounds of glass. This form of glass art, of which Tiffany and Steuben in the U.S.A., Gallé in France and Hoya Crystal in Japan, Royal Leerdam Crystal in The Netherlands and Kosta Boda in Sweden are perhaps the best known, grew out of the factory system in which all glass objects were hand or mold blown by teams of 4 or more men. The turn of the 19th Century was the height of the old art glass movement while the factory glass blowers were being replaced by mechanical bottle blowing and continuous window glass.

The United States has had two phases of development in glass. The early and mid-1900s had a number of factories such as Fenton, Stuben and others turning out both functional and artistic pieces. The second phase of glass in the United States happened in the 60's when Harvey Littleton, Dominick Labino and Marvin Lipofsky kicked off the studio glass movement by creating small-scale furnaces for the use of glass as an artisic medium. This modern studio glass movement caught on in design schools and Littleton would go on to found the first fine art glass program at the University of Wisconsin at Madison; Marvin Lipofsky, founded the second university-level glass program at the University of California at Berkeley in 1964; and Dale Chihuly initiated the glass program at the Rhode Island School of Design that same year.

(Harvey Littleton, Dominic Labino, Marvin Lipofsky, Dale Chihuly)

As more artists learned from artists before them, a growth of studio art glass spread across the country, with the largest concentration of glass artists working in Seattle. The Pilchuck glass school near Seattle has become a mecca for glass artists from all over the world. Students, who may actually be college students or established artists, have the opportunity to attend masterclasses and exchange skills and information in a environment dedicated solely to glass based arts.

Recycled glass art.

Although my initial starting point to get involved with glass has shifted from beads to other methods of working with warm glass, I have kept an interest in beads, as I can see their use in combination with other glass techniques.

I've also had an interest towards sustainabitity and was (and still am) always looking for projects that could be developed into community based job creation projects.

On one of my many researches into sustainability and ecological responsiblility I started getting various information about beads made from recycled glass.

Although there are many websites that sell the recycled glass beads, one of the most informative sites was the eshopafrica where they actually take you step by step through the process how various sorts of recycled glass beads are made in the typical West Africa tradition.

In Swaziland, South African, a glassblowing hotshop Ngwenya Glass (the Siswati name for "crocodile") uses only recycled glass to create their enchanting glass animals.

My husband and I saw a similar set up on the Island of Mauritius, where glass blowers were also making a variety of products using only broken coke bottles. I couldn't resist the glass dodo's!

For the people in these communities, the hot shops are the lifeblood and offer not only job creation and skills training , but also focus seriously on preserving the environment and creating a sustainabille industry for the future generations.

Glass is Glass is glass is glass.....?

When I first started being interested in glass, I bought several books, subscribed to magazines AND hit the thesaurus / dictionary button on my computer. It became very clear very fast that one needed first to get to know glass properly before attempting to start working with it.

One of the great producers of art glass is Spectrum and they have extensive knowledge of not only the different types of glass but also the background, technique how these particular glass varieties came into being and application.

ANTIQUE
Term applied to art glass produced by the historical mouth-blown cylinder method. The craftsman blows a glass cylinder which is annealed and cooled. The cylinder is then scored lengthwise, separated, re-heated and folded out into a flat sheet. Common characteristics include attractive linear striations and a very pristine surface.

BEVEL
Cold glass (usually clear, thick plate) with edges that have been ground and polished to an angle other than 90 degrees. Transmitted light is refracted and a prism-like effect results. Bevels are available in a variety of sizes, shapes and geometric configurations (called "clusters") for incorporation into leaded glass work, as this example shows of Shengda Glassware Products.

BILLET
A glass ingot, similar to a dalle, used in glass casting.
CATHEDRAL GLASS
Describes transparent glass that is monochromatic -- i.e., single color sheet glass, with smooth or textured surfaces.
CATSPAW
A surface texture resulting from the chilling of hot glass on a cool table. The appearance is likened to the paw prints of a cat.
CONFETTI
Paper-thin elements of glass that can be incorporated into a fused or blown glass design. Also called "shards."
CRACKLE
The hot cylinder of glass is dipped in liquid, causing radical, random fissures in the glass. The cylinder is then reheated and further blown to heal the surface fissures.

DICHROIC
Commonly used term to describe glasses that have been coated with one or more ultra-thin crystalline layers of transparent metal oxides designed to enhance reflections at specific wavelengths of light. The process occurs in a vacuum chamber at elevated temperatures. The resulting effects are striking and brilliant color reflections at varying angles of incidence.
FLASHED
Glass of one color with a very thin layer of another color on one side. Flashed glass is often used for etched or sandblasted glass art. When sections of the thin color layer are removed, the base color shows through.

FRIT
Ground glass, ranging in particle size from gravel-like to a fine powder. Frit is sometimes used as a raw material in glass manufacture, and sometimes as a coloring agent or for decorative effect in hot glass crafts like blowing and fusing.

IRIDESCENT
Surface treatment in which a layer of metallic oxide is bonded to the hot glass surface just after sheet-forming, resulting in a colorful, shimmering effect.
MILLEFIORI
Italian for "a thousand flowers." Commonly refers to glass objects made from masses of murrini slices, sliced from a cane.
CANE Glass cylinder consisting of groups of rods of different colors, which are bundled together and fused to form a design that is visible in cross section.
MURRINI
A thin slice of complex glass cane that can be used as a component in another glass object.

cane, murrini, millefiori

NUGGET
A small, irregularly shaped "glob" of glass, flat on the bottom, rounded across the top. Nuggets are made by literally dropping a small amount of molten glass onto a flat surface. Frequently called "globs," they are often incorporated into leaded glass artwork.

OPAL or OPALESCENT
Said of any glass into which a material has been introduced at the raw materials stage (usually fluorine or phosphorus) which causes a degree of crystallization to occur, and creates opacity in the glass. Reflected light is colorless, therefore white. The degree of opacity (and "whiteness") is variable depending upon composition and temperatures used in the manufacturing process. Commonly then, white glass is called "opal."
RODS
Used to describe cylindrical, pencil-thick sticks of glass used primarily in flameworking and glass bead making. They are available in a wide color range and many expansion coefficients.
STRINGER
A spaghetti-like glass shape used as a decorative element in the hot glass arts.

The other 2 giants specialising in fusible art glass are Uroborus and Bullseye Glass , who have developed glass with the studio artist in mind and also offer a wide variety of glass products, machinery, tools and more.

Glass and Fire

When I first saw a Chihuly chandelier (be it on a picture) I fell in love with contemporary warm glass there and then.

In the past few years I have been working with warm glass and learned to apply various techniques in order to create what was in my mind.

I still battle with them and it made me realise even more that working with glass is more than just bringing the image in your mind to life in a tangible form. To work with glass is so much more than expressing your creative inner self onto canvas with paint or other media.

To work with glass requires a serious degree of technical knowledge of the glass, the equipment and the temperature have to be perfectly insync. What is thermal shock? Wat is devitrification? Why is it important to know what COE means? Why is annealing crucial? I found lots of valuable information on the Warm Glass website and only one glimpse at the table with the various kiln forming processes and their respective temperatures gives an idea how one has to keep a cool head with kiln work. Another Q&A website is Glass Fusing made easy, which also looks at q&a when things go wrong. The Glass Art Techniques website elaborates on both hot and cold glass working techniques, the last one not only used to shape a work in its own right - even if no hot working techniques were applied - but also indispensable in many cases for the finishing touch of the work.

In other artforms, the artist can choose the time spent on the work, go away to reminisce and reflect, come back to add a detail or change colours or images, sometimes taking months or years to bring the work to completion.

With warm glass, one has to visualise the finished work and travel back in time to the starting point. From the initial creative idea, before you even start cutting, there is more technical planning and execution involved than I think in any art form. If one piece of glass is cut wrong, ... if it was from the wrong sheet of glass with a different COE, .... if the temperature has been too high, low, fast, slow,.... These are only some of the factors that can make or literally break the work.

Even though there are many books, websites, courses, etc that teach you step by step, it eventually comes down to test runs and punctual record keeping. If you know how the various techniques like slumping, fusing, tack fusing, casting work , refine the techicallities to suit YOUR kiln. A difference in make, year of fabrication, size of kiln, all play a vital role in the particular work performance of your kiln and to get to know this like it was another child will ensure less frustration in the future.

This is an example of a plate where I found out AFTER the firing that some of the Bullseye glass used was a striker glass - one that changes colour during the firing process.

Only when the kilndoor opens, you know if all the steps you planned were right.

European Glass 1

With my family living overseas, it's only natural that we've visited Europe regularly and especially since I started my glass studies, I've been making an effort to visit as much glass events, galleries and studio's as possible, when I'm there.

When we were there a few years ago, we took our children to Venice. For us (hubby and I) it was like coming full circle, as we had been here on our honeymoon. We have a small glass piece of a man/woman embrace (about 20cm high) that we bought from the glass blowers on Murano.

Murano glass embrace.

It was my (our) first experience of a hot shop. Looking back after all these years , the work that those glass blowers do is far removed from the glitz and glam of renowned glass artists.

The number of "workhorses" far outweighs the number of famous glass maestro's like the Lino Tagliapietra's of this world, who wows audiences around the world with his virtusos technique and understanding of the traditional Venetian glassblowing techniques. He has been a king pin in a new renaissance in glassblowing and contemporary studio glassmaking and has been pivotal in helping to raise the international standards of glass craftsmanship.

For the normal workers,glass blowing on a popular tourist island like Murano it's a cut throat business. There are many hot shops and glass studios on the island and they all vie for business: the more people visit YOUR hotshop for a demonstration, the more people will possibly buy YOUR souvenirs. And there are just so many hot shops one will visit ! These people work for hard earned bread and butter and have to turn out the same little souvenirs over and over again. The Tourist industry is a great job creator.

While we were there with the family, we wanted a souvenire just like any other tourist, but couldn't afford something really spectacular. So eventually we decided on one of the typical tourist souvenirs that are made with the millions in Venice: the Murano Glass Sweets. We all chose a personal favourite and they're a reminder of a family holiday with a difference.

Glass maniac

Since doing my B Tech degree at the NMMU (actually from before that time) I was labelled (by my family members!) maniac. I took it in my stride because if maniac means an unstoppable fascination with the subject, then that's all right with me.

In the course of the past 5 years I have bought a small library of books regarding various specific hot and cold glass techniques, but I also bought books that were great for inspiration regarding design ideas: form, colour, shape ... .

I eventually also subscribed to various top glass magazines: Neues Glass, Fjoezz (which used to be "this side up"), Glashaus and Glass Art (which has stained glass aspects over and above the kiln working glass techniques.) Some magazines focus on the artists, feature interviews and description of their work, other magazine add articles and photo instructions about techniques. Only one would not be enough to grasp the great possibilities of working with glass, as many glass artists combine techniques to bring out various characteristics of the glass.

Even though I'm not full time busy with my glass (due to circumstances), I still get a thrill every time I grab a book and I can't wait for every new edition of my subscriptions.