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Back-issues: Volume 21 Index |
April/May, 2008 - Vol. 21, No. 6.
(This issue will be available online after the printed copies are sold.)
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In This Issue
- What I Tell My Students Part II - by Paul Stankard – This essay focuses on my years of flameworking floral designs encapsulated into clear glass, and the trials and errors associated with finding a personal voice.
From the beginning of my career in the studio, I’ve thought of myself as a monk, dedicating my labor and creative needs as a prayer. About 10 years ago, during early morning meditation, I felt a strange confidence about my flameworking skills. The feeling that I didn’t need more hand skills to express what I wanted to say in my art was wonderfully eerie. (This eeriness has touched me more than a few times over the past forty seven years as deja vu.) This realization led to a stronger commitment to exploring alternative glass-working processes, such as casting, fusing, and enameling, in combination with my hard-won flameworking techniques. This approach has been responsible for inventing new illusions in glass that, in combination with my hand skills have facilitated an evolving visual vocabulary...
- Simple Cross Bead - by Jo Hoffacker – Satake glass is wonderful to use when you want soft, gentle, translucent colors. Here we use them to make a simple cross with vines and flowers...
- Sea stone Unusual shaped glass bead - by Ikuko Suzuki – This article was originally printed in the Japanese magazine LAMMAGA, Vol. 3....
- Making a petal murrini - by Sheila Morley – Making a petal murrini with soft glass is an amazingly rewarding experience. Not only do you end up with a decent-sized amount of material, but the possibilities are endless. A simple petal can be transformed into an intricately detailed butterfly, a fish, or maybe a feather, and whatever else your imagination can come up with. The techniques used in this tutorial are derived from the knowledge I have gained by studying glass murrini with Loren Stump. I hope this is helpful and inspiring to you....
- Using Mica in Borosilicate A Simple Pendant Project - by Corinne Winters – I was first introduced to the use of mica in soft glass a few years ago by Brett Young of Hot House Glass. I was in Las Vegas for a marble show when he showed me one of his beautiful off-hand glass marbles with flakes of sparkly mica floating within it. I was curious about the use of mica in borosilicate; Brett gave me some advice as to its use in soft glass and a small bag of mica flakes with which to experiment. Upon receiving the mica, I was excited about trying everything! However, many of my experiments were not successful. The tiny, thin flakes would always burn out, leaving an interesting but dull snowflake effect, or the piece would become very bubbly. I eventually found the best method for encasing these troublesome flakes...
- Girls Rock! At the Second Annual Female Flame-Off - by Corinne Winters – The second annual Female Flame-off, held at Philadelphia Glassworks from October 5-7, 2007, brought together women glass-workers from all over the United States and as far away as Germany and Spain! The event was organized by glassworker Roze Chikiar. Glass and supplies were donated by UST glass, Glass Alchemy, and Philadelphia Glassworks, with a torch donated by GTT.
I arrived at Philly Glass early on the morning of Friday, October 5. I was impressed by the clean, well-set-up work spaces and the gallery full of awe-inspiring works of glass art. As we started preparing for the competition, more and more women arrived: some familiar faces, and some I’d never met before. There were 28 competitors. Four stations were available for us to work at. Each person would have a total of two hours to finish her project(s). The categories for competition were functional sculpture, sculpture, wearables, and marbles...
- Redefining the Basics - by Jesse DeMoss – I really enjoy combining and adding to techniques to come up with new designs, or at least a new look to old designs. With all of the cheap imported glass flooding our market, it is much more important now than ever before to improve upon our techniques. We need to make our glass something that people will want to spend a few extra dollars on. Anyone can get a cheap Chinese or Indian mushroom pendant. Let’s show them there is a reason we have the best glass artists in the world...
- Skull Marble - by Harry Kravet – While browsing through a local flea market, Harry Kravet came across an antique skull-shaped wine-bottle stopper made of metal. He had the idea of incorporating the skull into a marble. He was able to do this by using an impression of the skull.
The process for making a skull marble is as follows...
- The Fun and Folly of Making Chameleon Colored Glass - by Richard Clements – In 1992, I looked at my almost-full scrap bin and thought it was such a waste to throw it away. I thought, maybe I could make it into colored glass. Little did I realise that thought would lead me down a path that I knew absolutely nothing about. I knew nothing about chemistry, I have no engineering or technical skills, and, to cap it off, I knew nothing about furnaces or crucibles; all I had was a handful of very basic formulas for colored glass that I had been making on the bench for many years. One thing I did have in my favor was that I have a philosophy that “I do not need to know anything; all I need is to know is somebody who does...
- Torching on Borrowed Time - by Amy Sutton – Don’t quit your day job. And that’s what I’ve been telling myself—at least not until I’ve established a certain comfort zone with my foray into glass. Don’t get me wrong—I love my day job, but there’s something to be said for the idea of being able to stay home. Allow me to explain...
- Glassified Ads - April/May, 2008 - Vol. 21 No. 6.
- Workshop Calendar
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In This Issue
- Creating an Optical Air-Trap Implosion - by Raj Kommineni – In this article, I will demonstrate how to create and air-trap in front of an implosion. This creates a miniature implosion within the air-trap bubble. This marble is made with a tube implosion technique. The bubble is then added by condensing the extra tube in front of the implosion...
- Painting with Glass - by Adam Sultan – One doesn’t need to wonder why, after all, the human body is regarded by many artists as the ultimate example of nature’s beauty—since the earliest days of humankind, people have been drawing other people. I’ve been drawing people from the moment I could put crayon to paper. Like most kids, I enjoyed drawing cartoons throughout my school years. However, it wasn’t until I first started taking drawing classes in college that I really started to look at the human body as a template for honing my own skills. I learned quickly to draw what I was seeing and not what I thought I was seeing...
- FIchimatsu Mosaic Cup - by Ryoko Miyashita – This article was originally printed in the Japanese magazine LAMMAGA, Vol. 2....
- Making Crayola (striped) Beads - by D. Lynne Bowland – I started working with flat glass in the early ’80s, but I actually made my first “glass panel” in 1969 while attending an English school in Zurich, Switzerland. My father was on sabbatical in Zurich from the University of Alberta, and I was in grade 7, which was the highest grade at the British School. My homeroom teacher thought the art teacher was teaching us “irrelevant rubbish,” so he took over the bomb shelter in the basement of the building and set up a craft studio! I spent every second I was allowed down there; there was a pottery wheel, photo enlarger, copper enameling kiln, glass cutters, glass stains (transparent glass paints)... My first year out of high school, I took fashion design at a technical college, but since I couldn’t draw the human figure... I ultimately got a degree in Geology and moved to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. I took a stained-glass class there in 1981, but it wasn’t until 1988, when I took a fusing class from Gil Reynolds, that I truly got hooked on glass....
- What I Tell My Students Part I - by Paul Stankard – I share with my students that being creative in glass will teach them about themselves and allow them to express their authentic interests. I talk about surveying art history, visiting museums and staying close to a community of professional artists to enhance their artistic maturity. It’s about seeking out respected art on the cultural landscape, knowing what it is that resonates on a personal level and understanding why.
My hope is to challenge people who haven’t benefited from formal art training to reach a little higher. I hope to encourage people to embrace a journey made more difficult by competing with the best from the past and the present...
- The Importance of Keeping a Sketchbook - by Denise Koyama – In Art School, my teachers used to always say, “It’s vital to your growth as an artist that you all keep a sketchbook!” I took it to heart that to be a good artist I needed to draw every day. So, inspired, I went about it as if it were a lifelong assignment. I worked at keeping a sketchbook with me and drew diligently, filling many books, loose papers and post-its. I took copious notes at lectures and jotted down ideas that I thought would be helpful. I sketched all sorts of things, from different angles, and drew people wherever I went... Somehow, through it all, I had the feeling I was missing something—I wasn’t fully “getting it”. Yes, I understood it was helpful—it has helped me so much throughout my career—and yet, I didn’t feel it was a vital part of my arsenal of tools. What was the secret and why was it so important?...
- Working with Florals: Perfume Bottles by Roger Gandelman - by Roger Gandelman – Back when we were four years old, scampering around on a sunny spring afternoon, enjoying all the magic sights and smells that older folks tend to take for granted, we would see flowers. They looked beautiful to us all. We liked dandelions as much as roses. Dad didn’t like dandelions, but we did. When we looked at flowers, we had no thoughts of Mother’s Day, of funerals, of brightening up the kitchen, or of centerpieces at weddings. We just thought they are a wonderful part of this new world we were exploring...
- Steven L. Gruba—Sculptures in Glass - by Lynda Roberts – Steven L. Gruba is a 42-year veteran of the intriguing theater of glass art. His contributions are included in the record of glass art, beginning before the time of Christ, that is chronicled by Robert A. Mickelsen at his fascinating website, www.glass.co.nz/lampwork.html. Mickelsen accounts, in great detail, the story of glass from ancient times through the present, including the history of Gruba’s line of artiste expertise that comes in the form of lampworking. Mickelsen’s narrative of glass from household use to royal jewelry is a grand read, and Gruba’s role in that narrative is a lively element of it...
- Thinking Outside the Box, The Artwork of Robin Foster - by Robin Foster – many yearsYou might be wondering what that has to do with glasswork. Our past experiences, skills, training, and viewpoints all affect our artwork. I have certainly been influenced by my engineer husband, who works in the aerospace industry, as well as my own 10 years’ experience in aerospace configuration. I have also been a computer programmer, network engineer, kennel manager, waitress, and mother.
During all those various careers, I continued making things, but in my own way. I worked in ceramics, silversmithing, lost-wax casting, weaving, and silk dyeing. Then I was introduced to quilting and fell in love with the interplay of color and pattern. Quilting eventually led to original—some might say weird—cloth art dolls. My older sister, Wendy, took one look at my dolls and said they were cool but they needed beads. She had been infected by bead obsession while living in Florida and she dragged me off to a bead show where Kristen Frantzen Orr was demonstrating glass beadmaking using a torch. I was amazed and fascinated.- The Hollow Heart Necklace - by Danny L Sullivan, Nevada Glassworks Ltd. – I had the opportunity this past spring to take two bead classes that have helped improve my skills at lampworking. The first was a class with renowned bead artisan Kristen Orr that I attended locally. Kristen has repeatedly shared much of her skills and knowledge, and I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to participate in two of her classes. One of the techniques featured in her intermediate class was creating hollow beads using the traditional mandrel technique...
- Volume and Placement: The Byzantine Bead - by Larry Scott – I have never gotten past them. The beads, of course, became more complicated and, after a while, I realized it wasn’t the dots I was interested in, but the patterns that they formed. It is the interplay between the geometric shapes that form and the negative space left between them that still intrigues me. A bead with perhaps four dots on it can safely be called a “dot bead.” A bead with 200 carefully placed dots is something different. I prefer to call it a “pattern bead.”
The volume and the placement of the dots largely define the pattern that emerges. Volume determines how far and deep the dot will spread, and placement determines the shape and regularity of the geometric pattern that develops. That is the simple explanation. Volume and placement, of course, are intertwined. Perfect placement means nothing if volume is inconsistent—and perfect volume also means nothing if the placement is faulty. Volume and placement are co-dependent...
- Glassified Ads - February/March, 2008 - Vol. 21 No. 5.
- Workshop Calendar
(This issue will be available online after the printed copies are sold.)
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In This Issue
- Fluid Forms - by Fran Scherer – Steve Scherer is a seasoned lampworker of 34 professional years, currently working in south-central Kentucky. When he was a senior in high school, he and a friend learned the basics of Pyrex glasswork from his friend’s father, who was a research chemist and made some of his own glass lab apparatus. Since then, Steve has been largely self-taught. His main tools are a Carlisle CC burner and National 3A hand torch. Working with borosilicate glass and specializing in natural and fantasy figures, ornaments, goblets, shot glasses, marbles, and earrings, Steve has sold at science fiction and fantasy conventions for many years...
- Distilling Emotion, and Pouring It into Glass - by Angela Greer Garren – Distilling emotions and using them to create powerfully raw pieces of art is not an easily defined process that can be broken down into precise steps. It is something that “just happens” after lots and lots of experimenting, thinking, playing, and “wasting” glass. It doesn’t happen every time I torch, either. This is what makes melting glass so addictive for me—the thought that I have occasionally made evocative beads and sculptures, and the possibility that I might do it again. If you like the pursuit of these elusive glass moments as much as I do, then this is the article for you. No step-by-step instructions will be dictated, but lots of meandering thoughts and ideas will be shared. Ideally, these will inspire you to look in a direction or two that you’ve not yet explored...
- Making Satake work for you - by Jo Hoffacker – I started lampworking glass in 1992 on a lark, with a three-hour class at a local bead shop. Even though my beads were the ugliest, most misshapen, sootiest things you ever saw, I was hooked. I’ve been either working with glass, or pining for it, ever since.
In my day job, I’m a mathematics professor at Clemson University in South Carolina, but my spare time (what little there is anymore) is all about the glass. Like many, I started out with Moretti and, from there, my glass life expanded to gaffer, Vetrofond, Satake...
- Boro Warriors in Japan - by Paul Trautman – The event was held on Rokko Island, at the Kobe Fashion Mart. It’s a massive metal and concrete structure, with a central hall that was at least nine stories high in the center. It was very open; Marshall and Robbin’s stepson Kyle found it a great place to fly paper airplanes. The light in there was beautiful, and we didn’t have to worry about burning anything down during demos and open-torch time. The first two days featured 50 to 60 display booths in one area, ranging from commercial bead sellers to artists selling their handmade lampwork and beads, to suppliers selling lampworking supplies. There were also demonstrations in another room with a separate admission fee. People came from all over Japan, and paid the equivalent of about $100 a day to see the artists work hot glass. One of the things they did for the crowd was team collaboration. For example, Suellen made a bird, Robbin did a hand and they put them together as “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”...
- Doted Geometric Design - by Akihiro Ohkama – Step-by-Step on making "Doted Geometric Design" bead...
- Fusing Sculptures - by Zac Gorell – One technique that has allowed me to do what I want is fusing—specifically tack fusing. It is the process of bringing glass up to a certain temperature in a kiln where the glass gets just “tacky” enough to form a bond but not so hot that the glass slumps. This process lets me assemble the pieces for my sculpture together cold and, once I am satisfied, I just pop it in the oven and fire it to fuse the pieces into one. It has really let me do things that I could not do hot and it also slows down the whole process so the piece has time to evolve...
- W. Brad Pearson’s Marble Process - by Bandhu Dunham – I was privileged to be invited to the International Lampwork Festa in Kobe, Japan, this year as a demonstrating artist. One of the perks of attending such events is the opportunity to photograph and document the demonstrations by other artists for use in my future books—and for articles like this. Brad Pearson’s marble demo was a tour de force of effective masking technique. It was fun to watch the pattern develop from simple to complex in relatively few steps. Photo 1 shows some examples of Brad’s work...
- Bernd Weinmayer Austrian lampworker - by Bernd Weinmayer – My workshop is located far away from civilization. This is a big advantage, because, during the week, there are no visitors or other people to disturb me while I work, but it can also be a little problem with marketing at the beginning of a career. The Internet is the main way I get and keep contacts with customers.
When I work, I almost become one with my objects. Sometimes I work the whole night to put my personal feelings at that time into the glass. Even when the personal feeling is fully loaded with aggression, the glass result produced in this condition is pretty amazing. An example of a work in such a situation is the bottle “U.S.-Vampire.” It shows a hungry vampire skeleton hanging in a bottle. The bottle is the coat and the skull is the bottle stopper...
- Feathered Friends - by David & Rebecca Jurgens – Although many artisans attempt to define their work in the relentless pursuit of perfecting a single component of creative style, I find myself not only trying to perfect our style, but forever eager to explore a multitude of ideas and mediums. Perhaps this is just my nature, as the relentless search continues to keep my artistic juices flowing; I graduated through a variety of artistic mediums until stumbling on lampworking 10 years ago. It was an interesting time, as a recent household move rendered my palette of paints and canvasses in a state of disorganization, and then my husband decided to haphazardly embark upon a journey into lampworking...
- Paul J. Stankard - Interview by Mark Lammi – For me, it has truly been a great honor to share some of his thoughts and ideas. I recommend this book to any artist working in glass today, as it is both inspiring and an invaluable resource for the lampwork enthusiast.
Paul is known around the world for his incredibly detailed paperweights that seem to be teeming with life at every angle. His inimitable style and technical mastery of this artistic medium are unrivaled. Paul has been the recipient of numerous awards and special honors, and his work can be found in countless public and private collections as well as various museums around the world...
- Frolicking Snowmen - by Cassie Donlen – Tis the season... for snowmen! Lots and lots of snowmen!
My eye is drawn to fun, whimsical beads. I love bright colors with dots, flowers, swirls... Anything that is eye-catching and unusual! These snowmen are right up my alley. They can be made fairly fast and, when wired up into a pendant, make a perfect gift. Especially for teachers...
- Now What? Tips for Enhancing Your Beads - by Kim Vredenburg – You’ve taken your beads from the kiln... now what? This is intended to be a general article for those of us who do not have ready access to a sandblaster. It has been written to suggest possibilities and to get your brain churning. What follows are some favorite techniques for design elements that lampworkers have developed over time and that work for me. You can adapt many of them to your particular situation and tools. Please consider this a starting point for you... take my words and fly with them...
- Glass Comes to Life for the Holidays - by Deb Manning – In the following steps, you can create your own version of this keepsake. You will need to choose your rod colors for the face, lips and cheek color. Create a stringer for the eye color—in this process, I made a multi-colored twist-tie, a clear stringer, a white stringer and a hair-thin black stringer...
- Glassified Ads - December/January, 2007/08 - Vol. 21 No. 4.
- Workshop Calendar
(This issue will be available online after the printed copies are sold.)
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In This Issue
- Layers of Inspiration - by Lydia Muell – Lately, many of the focals that I have made have featured 6 “panels” of double-plunged florals, so I’d like to attempt to walk you through my method of creating them in this tutorial. There’s no fancy twisty cane to pull, just layer upon layer of beautiful glass. Should you attempt this, my best advice is to be as patient as possible and let the glass do the work for you. It only needs a push from you. Glass is smart, if led correctly, it will do most of the work for you. One of the biggest...
- A Beginner’s Perspective; Akihiro Okhama at Newport, Oregon - by Amy Sutton – My first thought as I walked into the classroom was, “What am I doing here?” Everyone seemed so at ease; many had met before. They all seemed have more experience at the torch than I did. So, what was I thinking when I signed up for this class?
I’d reasoned with myself that, because we would be working with a different type of torch and different type of glass, that we would all be on a level playing field. The B8 torches are something not many of us had worked on before. Plus, it would be a good experience to get another class under my belt, get to know other people and learn a few more techniques to take home with me. And what an experience it was...
- Perfume Bottles - by James Minson – I generally begin with 38mm heavy-wall tube, but this is arbitrary and depends on the size and nature of the job. I almost always coat the outside of the tube with colored rods, but sometimes I place a few crystals of silver nitrate inside the tube to fume it yellow, as this adds a good opaque base for overlaid transparent colors. Sometimes I tip frit or powder inside for an inner color lining, but...
- Constructing an Apache Helicopter - by Rosanne Palumbo – The construction process remains the same for airplanes as it does for helicopters. Never forget your artistic license when you have gotten to the end of your detail rope. I use it lavishly.
An example of another scale ship I make is the Hughes 500 helicopter (see photo 2). I use the same techniques as described here for that build. The Hughes pictured measures 7” long by 3 1/2” tall. The Apache I built for this demonstration is 6” long by 2 3/4” tall. Both are of borosilicate glass...
- Art Glass Invitational – 2007 (August 20th – August 25th) - by Deborah Carlson – The main demonstrators and lecturers this year included Roger Parramore, Bandhu Dunham, Deborah Carlson, Robert Mickelsen, Doni Hatz, Matt Eskuche, Marcel Braun, Ed King, Barry Lafler and Scott Seidler, from Loctite Corporation, teaching us about glass adhesives. Those small classes gave everyone new tricks to learn, new equipment to try and new ways of looking at things. There was the dedication of “The Robert Mickelsen Bar and Grill,” under the watchful eyes of Lewis Wilson, who entertained the group with demos in the building named after him. There was the incredible food of Kevin Beecher, who made us all aware that a great meal can be created out of a random selection of donations, and, with the help of a giant boro tube from Barry Lafler, created a sausage dish that truly was the best dinner ever. There was the great music of Eddie Pickett, who drove all the way from Atlanta just to play at the closing night party. By the way, the closing night party and the Great Poker Game alone are well worth the week’s investment, for they both show diverse sides of all the participants. This multiplicity of person is something you may never experience during a competition or weekend class.
But, as always, the true heart of the camp happens on the side, not always within the view of everyone. These events are the true soul of the camp; the reason everyone comes back year after year. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, so be it. Let the photos convince you of the Art Glass Invitational’s greatness in a land without time, where everyone is equal and the world is, once again, where it should be...
- Creating an Encalmo Graal vase on the lathe - by Brett Hoerr – I have been blowing glass since 1999 and currently run Unbroken Glass in Peoria, Ill. I have taken classes from Robert Mickelsen, Mike Plane and Steve Sizelove, which all have all helped in the production of these styles of work. In this article, I will describe the steps for producing an Encalmo Graal vase on the lathe. I hope you will get some ideas and techniques from this article...
- Mark Lammi - An Interview by Josh Sands – I’m here interviewing Mark Lammi, an emerging artist developing imaginative works in glass while making a name for himself in this industry. Whether teaching here or abroad, Mark has had a large influence on many artists and students of art, including myself. Furthermore, his own series of interviews in Glass Line has left us all with greater insights into the lives of working artists and the glass art world, and this interview is a tribute to that hard work.
Mark has taught classes and performed numerous lampworking demonstrations throughout the United States, Canada and Japan. He is an adjunct faculty member at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, OR, and an Artist Ambassador for the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia, PA. He has also served as a teaching assistant for Robert Mickelsen, David Willis, Bob Snodgrass and Freeman Corbin. Mark’s work can be found in numerous shops and galleries, as well as public and private collections around the globe. His work is also on display at the Kobe Lampwork Glass Museum in Kobe, Japan, as part of its permanent collection. For more...
- Tombodama Step by Step - by Yoshiko Shiiba – This bead is easy to make yet looks fantastic. The techniques and tools are very simple. You can make it at ease so you can have some attention to spare for things like the color balance and the placement of the components. I'm sure that you can make a wonderful piece with your originality added. Relax, and let's start!
—Yoshiko Shiiba has been working with mainly Satake glass for more than 29 years. She works from her studio/gallery in Kasugai City, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. For more info, visit her website (Japanese)...
- Sinbad's Glass Castle - by Blair Greene – I have noticed that there still seems to be a great deal of interest in the spun-glass technique, so I have decided to offer a thorough tutorial on one of the basics of that technique: fundamental lacework procedures. This process can be modified to the artist’s personal ambitions and used to make virtually anything that is imagined or desired.
We will learn by starting off with a basic project, “The Castle.” You will find that, with practice and repetition of your new skill, the process will become easier as the project develops and evolves to the final masterpiece...
- Finders-Keepers Series; Unexpected Art in Unexpected Places - by Jesse and Shelly DeMoss – The idea first sprang to life while reading a thread in the online glass forum called the Melting Pot. The thread posed the question of what various artists did with broken pieces of art. One member mentioned that he would place the piece out in the woods for others to find. That resonated with me. I decided that I would expand that idea and leave finished, unbroken pieces of art that could be kept to be treasured by the finder.
My first four such pieces were made as marbles, sans rock, and packed with me on a month-long adventure to South America...
- Written Implosion Marble: "I’ve Got Balls of Glass" - by Erin Cartee – First I pull stringers for the border and letters. Keep in mind that the stringer for your letters needs to be very thin. The thinner it is, the more letters you can fit. The stringers for my border are a good bit wider than the ones I do the lettering with. There are endless possibilities for your border pattern and color choices. Use your imagination...
- Glassified Ads - October/November, 2007 - Vol. 21 No. 3.
- Workshop Calendar
(This issue will be available online after the printed copies are sold.)
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In This Issue
- Marble Flame-Off - by Chad Trent – Legendary lampworker Barry Lafler was the Flame Master for the contest - not only overseeing the competition, but adding his own brand of humor, and even videotaping the event. Up for grabs were prizes donated by Carlisle Machine Works, Carlisle School of Glass Art, Glass Alchemy, Winship Designs, and Origin Glass. The marble makers had one and a half hours to make a marble. The only guideline was that it had to be under...
- Formalist Glass - by Chadd Lacy – So one of the first changes I sought to make in my work was to find a design series of vessels that fit into the ideas of the arts and crafts movement, rather than being a sort of glassophile’s dream, full of frilly Italian cane or thick optic glass. The arts and crafts movement was rich with insight into design theories and ideas. I often found designers...
- Vortex Wine Stopper - by Cuatro Kruse – Greetings fellow glass addicts! Today I would like to share with you an alternate method of creating glass wine stoppers. Using this technique, you will be able to incorporate many new designs into your stoppers that aren’t possible when using a mandrel. Vortexes, implosions, inside out work, mushrooms, jellyfish, canes, and textural twists are some of my favorites...
- How to make a Loop for a Pendant - by Lewis C. Wilson – Many flameworkers make pendants and other items that need to have a secure loop or hook. This article will show three ways to make a simple loop...
- Adapting designs to your own requirements - by Richard Clements – For some reason, along with the freedom of ideas there is intense competition in the glass movement. Flameworking is no exception. Along with the desire to get bigger and better is the development of Boro glass. I think flameworkers will no longer be thought of as second cousins to people who work at the furnace. Who wants to sweat a lot to earn a quid...
- Gardening In Glass - by Anna Lea Duhame – So you want to make flowers, but where do you start? Research! Really lifelike floral beads, or even more stylized flowers get a huge benefit when the artist takes the time to research the type of flower they want to make. Gardening catalogs are a wealth of ideas. Not only are they usually free, but they have been beautifully photographed and show the flowers at their most glorious state. If you like rose...
- Finding Your Niche - by Jason Brennan – Describing her specific style is difficult because it is ever-changing. Maloney says that she is drawn to all things imaginative and creative and is then inspired by them. “Inspiration can come from anything, such as a natural rock on the ground or a circus clown’s costume!” She has created various collections of jewelry that are composed of natural tones and subtle textures...
- Global Warning - by JDC Roman – Glass has an amazing way of teaching you as you go, like evolution unfolding before your eyes. Each shape taking on new form. Each form blending into the next for ever expanding growth. Pay attention as you go, and you’ll see its malleability right away. If you can imagine it, it can be done. We are working with the physical world around...
- Conscious Work - by Bryan Ratcliffe – I found my answers after working glass for eight years, attaining my BFA, witnessing and participating in the first Flame off and working beside killer pipe artists. I learned that excellent glass art is the product of: artistic message, intense effort, experience, forethought and attention to detail. When I started incorporating these qualities into my work, I started to look for these qualities in all of the things I consumed in my every day life...
- Freeman Corbin - by Mark Lammi – Freeman Corbin began Lampworking in the summer of 1996 on the coast of Oregon. Soon there after, he moved to Eugene setting up a small studio at his house. Along his artistic journey he has apprenticed, taught and helped many individuals in their careers by inspiring them with his true love and appreciation for art. Throughout the years he has refined his skills and works in most mediums and facets of glass. Freeman persistently searches for new knowledge and insists on expanding his abilities and creativeness as much as possible. This attitude greatly contributes to his abilities as an artist and the appreciation of his work. The precision of his work and making sure every piece holds a standard has made him the respected artist he is today...
- An Interlocking Chain of Glass - by Deb Manning – I soon grew impatient with the pace of a Hothead Torch, moved on to a Smith Little Torch and then upgraded to a National Torch, which I still use. I have spent countless hours practicing, trying new techniques, testing different glass reactions with one another and keeping plenty of notes. Each and every time I sit down at the torch, I learn something new! It never ceases to amaze the endless possibilities that can be encountered and achieved when melting glass.
I would like to share a technique with you, in creating a long time favorite bead of mine, and seems to be very popular in the bead world, my interlocking bauble beads...
- How To Build A Star Shaped Murrine Cane Using An Optic Mold - by Eric T. Nelson –
• Optic mold designed for lampworking use (available from Steinert Industries at www.steinertindustries.com).
• Two foot piece of 5mm clear rod.
• Three color rods (one three inch piece of color puttied onto a 6mm clear rod and two regular length color rods) For this project
I am using Northstar Teal, Northstar Butterscotch and Tecnoboro Dark Cobalt Blue.
• Two 19mm punty rods. A useful method to save strain on your back and arms is to take two to three inch sections of the 19mm and weld them onto 9mm “handles” so that there is less weight for you to hold.
• Carbon marvering surface, either attached to torch or on your worktable next to optic mold...
- Rod Warmers - and why you need to use one - by Lewis Wilson – What is a rod warmer? A rod warmer is an elevated rack that holds glass rods in the back fire of your torch flame. The idea is to use the heat from your back fire to warm up rods so that they are pre-heated when you pick them up. This will allow you to get to work faster and have less of a need to pre heat rods directly in the flame. It is a major time saver.
There are three main reasons why you should use a rod warmer. More money made per hour; saving critical seconds on certain types of sculptures; and putting less stress on your body...
- Elephant Rhino Candle Holder - by Joshua Opdenaker – Why sculpt large work on a torch with boro when an artist could easily make larger scale pieces with soft glass and a furnace? The answer is vast and each lampworker will tell you something different. Personally, I cannot afford to rent hot shop time, I cannot sculpt as detailed as I can in boro, and most importantly, why not...
- Glassified Ads - August/September, 2007 - Vol. 21 No. 2.
- Workshop Calendar
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In This Issue
- Letters to the Editor - by Suellen Fowler –
Dear Editor,
I read Mr. Henry Grimmett’s article about R&D in manufacturing boro color (February/March 2007) with some interest. I am writing to correct a number of mistakes in the story regarding the history of borosilicate color from the ’60s through the ’90s. I realize that was not the crux of his article, but the errors were misleading to the casual reader...- An Old Dog Teaches New Tricks - by Bill Rasmussen – This Old Dog has worked in clear boro for more than 60 years. I moved kicking and screaming, to working with colored boro about seven years ago. Most of the colors came out to look like “baby poop”. It didn’t seem to matter what color I used, it was just poop. I’ve sat thru a few of Henry Grimmett’s lectures on “making crystals” and “fleets of sailboats” and...
- My Glass Life - by Momka Peeva – After my experience in the local glass business, I founded my own company. Momka’s Borosilicate and Soft Glass is a new business, but we already have more than 60 boro colors and we are working on some soft glass product. My goal is to develop and continue this line of new colors. Geo, my son, has been instrumental in developing our multi-colored rod series. This complicated cane is created through numerous rod pulls and recombinations to create a truly unique...
- Keith Bryan - An Interview by Mark Lammi – Bryan is an extremely talented lampworker who is known for his detailed sculptures in both clear and colored borosilicate glass. I was lucky enough to meet with Bryan in Japan in November 2006 while attending the Japan Lampwork Festival in Gifu...
- Color - by Sabina Boehm – I want to talk a bit about color—not only how to work it but how to take it to new levels. It is mind blowing how much color has changed in the past 10 years, and I think everyone can agree that we now have an abundance of amazing resources. Competition among color companies has resulted in broader palettes, as each company strives to offer more and more options. Colors have developed and become more user-friendly. Torches have evolved to...
- Imagination Creates Fantastic Beads - by Margie Huebner – The stories behind the beads are a huge part of my beadmaking. While I am designing a bead, I often give it a title; then while I am working on the bead a story seems to form. Often the story is about how I found the creature while outside or about the creature’s world that humans aren’t even apart of. By the time I go to sell the bead, the story is as important to me as the finished piece, making the bead its own and no longer just a piece of glass, almost as if it could just get up and walk away and go live the life of the story. I believe the story creates a bond with the prospective buyer, allowing them a glimpse into...
- Two Marble Backing Patterns: Fish Scale and Triple Dot Pinwheel - by Raj Kommineni – After you have created a marble, choosing a backing design can be difficult. In this article, I will explain how to do two backing patterns. Adding a nice backing pattern adds another dimension to your marbles. It creates another piece for the beholder to admire. Backings can also complement the front of the marble. These patterns can be used to back a marble or create a fully worked surface marble...
- Monster Beads - by Lewis C. Wilson – Borosilicate Sculpture Beads. The main advantage of making boro beads is that you can add a sculpture to the beads with relative ease. Boro is a glass that is user-friendly when it comes to doing sculptures in the one-half inch – two inch size. These sculptures can then be added to a bead and you end up with something that is truly unique. Most old school flameworkers grew up doing small sculptures of animals or fantasy figures. Now, after working glass for more than 30 years, I find that adding these sculptures to beads gives me a very marketable bead that is highly collectable...
- Loren Stump featured at 2007 International Flameworking Conference - Stump, a Sacramento, Calif. native, is known for the innovative technique that involves the manipulation of a two-dimensional murrine slice into a three-dimensional form. Stump is also recognized for his large-scale lampworked sculptures made of soft glass. His progressive methods and expertise, along with his use of his own inventive tools, make him a highly sought-after glass artist and instructor. SCC honored Stump for his extraordinary contributions to the glass art world. “I was very flattered to be honored by my peers,” said Stump, who added, “Salem definitely holds a remarkable Flameworking Conference.”...
- How to Build Your Own Dragon - by Dwyn Tomlinson – I like the Nile Opalino (As shown in most of these photos) for its resemblance to jade, or the Rose Opalino for its resemblance to rose quartz. While the Nile Opalino can develop sooty lines, they fit with the carved stone look of this particular bead—appearing as if impurities in the stone. The heating and cooling of this bead make striking colours also work very well for this. The newer opaques, with their added stiffness are also good, as are the Lauscha colours. Other natural looks that I might use as a muse are Turquoise, Malachite, Amber, or Lapis Lazuli. (This is how I justify my growing collection of gemstones. “Oh, the opals? I need them—they’re models for my next bead.”) Go find an actual piece of stone and think about how to replicate those colours. For the first bead, however, I recommend that you use a colour that you are very familiar and comfortable with. No point in trying to learn a new technique and a new colour at the same time...
- Vacuum Cleaner Encasement Cane - by Jason Howard – I originally developed this technique as a faster way to pull large amounts of 2mm stringer. In doing so, I found that it actually gives much better quality glass, sometimes rendering a useless batch of bubbly color into material perfection. Also, it doesn’t hurt that it’s infinitely more fun to do it this way, cuts production time in half and uses up a ton of scraps or shorts. With a little practice, the whole process takes about 30 minutes and yields about 60 ft. of stringer, or one 12-inch bar of 19mm rod or cane...
- Making Big Hole Lampwork Flowers - by Cassie Donlen – My sole motivation for learning how to make lampwork beads was seeing a bead ring that a friend was wearing at a dinner party. I loved it. I wanted it! When I asked how much she paid for it, I was like “No way! My husband would never let me spend that much for a bead ring!” So, I decided to try lampworking and make my own bead ring. (He should have let me buy my own bead ring. It would have been much cheaper in the long run!) And thus, I found my passion...
- Large Cane Building - by Kaj Beck – I am always bouncing around with my work, currently focusing on graal, zinfirico canes, and carving. This is where I find the beauty in working with glass; any imaginable design can be achieved with persistence...
- Glassified Ads - June/July, 2007 - Vol. 21 No. 1.
- Workshop Calendar
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