1.) Glass begs to be touched therefore, lampwork beads beg to be touched.
2) Glass can be shaped and formed in an endless variety of sizes and shapes.
3) The beauty of glass in the sun cannot be compared.
4) Realistic looking flowers can be encased in the glass making you believe they are real.
5) Silver wire can be added to a bead as decoration. Think about that when you see those beautiful droplets of silver.
6) Beads can be made from extremely tiny and detailed, to very large and detailed.
7) When properly annealed, glass beads will last for centuries, literally.
8) Lampwork beads can be strung on beading wire, leather, metal wire, Euro style bracelets and look great!
9) Lampwork beads can be combined with other types of beads, but they will be the beads that are noticed.
10) Lampwork beads are handmade, individually, by the artist.
11) When you buy an artisan handmade lampwork bead, you are supporting the arts and encouraging artists to push themselves and improve the quality and type of lampwork bead that they make.
12) Bead artists put time, effort, and talent into each bead they make.
13) Bead artists don’t accidentally make beads. They make beads because the love the medium, the techniques, and the heart of each bead.
14) Making lampwork beads is very difficult. Most lampwork bead artists take a life time to perfect their art. This is an ongoing process that requires time, money, classes, and a lot of glass to perfect your skills.
15) One of the most common phrases used in lampwork bead making is “practice, practice, practice,” and it’s true!
16) No matter how skilled the artist is, there will be “failures” when making lampwork beads. These failures do not stop the artisan from continuing. Their continued work improves their skills.
17) To become skilled in lampwork bead making does not take hours or even days to learn. In order to become skilled, a lamp worker must work months or even years to make certain types of beads. It took me two years to learn to make a particular style of bead. Even then, it wasn’t perfect. I had just mastered the technique and not the skill.
18) Learning how much you do not know, when making lampwork glass beads, is as important a part of the process as knowing what you can make.
19) To be a successful lampwork glass bead artist, you must not only know how to manipulate the glass in the flame, but you must learn what each type of glass does when it is in the flame and how it reacts with other glasses.
20) Learning to make lampwork glass beads is a process that must be repeated over and over and over again. Artisan made beads aren’t mass produced in factories.
7 comments:
Thank you for that wonderful explanation. It does help to know how long it takes to acquire the skills, and all the heart that goes into the work. Have a wonderful day!
I love the way a glass bead by an artist feels. You can almost feel the love emanating from it, something you don't get from a cold piece of glass from a factory.
Thanks for sharing this! Enjoy the day, Miss Mallory!
Erin
21. Because handmade anything looks and feels so much nicer/better than factory made.
:)
Great post. Here is another one for your list. There are companies out there, one in particular from Canada, where they do not anneal the glass once the beads are made. This leads to breakage. Always buy from a true bead artist.
Nicole/Beadwright
Well said, Nicole! Well, said!
Glass is eternal - When an artist knows their materials and lends their skill to creating a work of art with it - that bead (or painting, or whatever) could endure as an heirloom for centuries. Maybe someday a person will be excavating glass beads made in this century - what a wild thought, huh? And they won't be the mass produced variety.
What a beautifully written blog post. Thank you from a striving lampwork artist!
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