Happy Accidents

Sometimes you just have to let things happen.

I have been working on a new series of beads that I call my Nautilus beads. They are derived from my donut beads; the differences being they have a smaller hole in the center and the twisted cane wraps around the bead in one spiral. I usually make them with a transparent center and this invites you to look inside the bead in between the spiral wraps.

These start out as a pretty large (in diameter) disk bead, but with a very small width or footprint on the mandrel. This puts a lot of stress on the bead release holding the glass onto the mandrel, so if I am not very careful, the bead will break loose and I cannot continue to work on it. Sometimes it is possible to perform a rescue using a temporary bridge of glass to stabilize a bead to keep working, but I was not successful doing that with this type of bead.

Now, these beads take a long time to make, and when this happens, it is not a very happy moment. So, when it happened, I stubbornly decided to rescue it another way.

I puntied it onto a clear rod of glass, and pulled it totally off the mandrel. The hole had a bunch of bead release stuck on it, so I pulled that off with tweezers. I then let it droop and added some decorative blobs of glass on the bottom. I reamed the hole larger. In other words, I tortured that poor piece of glass.

This is my favorite piece that I have done so far! I have had a couple of opportunities to make more after this one, but this one is special, because it was first. If I would have dunked it in the water jar, because things did not go my way, this would have never happened.

Rosemarie Hanus is a glass artist who writes from her studio in Bath Township, Ohio. Her website is www.SpawnOfFlame.com.