Working With Color And Form

Each year I make several trips to Corning to just breath in the glass and to leave inspired. I don’t have to tell all of you that inspiration is everywhere and you just don’t know when you will be bitten by THE thing that lights your fire.

I love books and probably have more than I’ll ever need or use. Being an art teacher, collecting books is part of the job description. At Corning, I purchased a book titled, Fire, by Dale Chihuly. He is America’s most recognizable glass artist and his work can be seen practically everywhere.

After picking up this book I also received a magazine at school that spotlighted his work. Thumbing through the many images, I was then inspired to try and capture something Chihuly “ish” in a neckpiece. Since I chose to discuss Chihuly’s Sunset Boat sculpture with my art students, I decided to limit my color palette to only the warm colors as he did. These are the wavy, ripply floral cups I made dozens of …..they became my starting point.

Although I had plenty of these floralish pieces, I still hadn’t settled on how I was going to proceed. I continued looking at his work and noted what appealed to me.

This image I really liked since I recently made headpins with a similar feel. I made spiraled cone headpins and these, along with the plain round headpins, became the centers to my Chihuly flowers. Suddenly things were taking shape.

Here is my Sunrise Neckpiece. It took a minor direction change at the very end during construction but I think it was for the better. I plan on doing a series of pieces based on this concept. I hope you like it as much as I do.

You can visit my website at www.lindasbellabeads.com, my blog at www.bellabeadjewelrybylinda.blogspot.com and my etsy shop at www.bellabeadjewelry.etsy.com

A new direction emerges. Disk Mania.

Whew, I was beginning to think I was never going to have something worthwhile to contribute to this group again… But after a six month break from all things bead related, I’m back and excited about where I’m going with my beads and jewelry!

When I last made beads, I was having fun with hollows. I love building the disks, pushing them together and watching them inflate with the hot air being trapped inside. But they take a little longer to make and being a bit impatient, I wanted to come up with something quicker. I mean, it’s been six months, I had some catching up to do! That’s when I realized I could just leave them as disks… duh!

So, I started building disks. I can actually get five of them on a mandrel if I’m really careful and pay close attention to what I’m doing. And if I keep them simple, I can make quite a few in a fairly short period of time. In the pieces I’m making, they don’t have to be perfect, in fact, I don’t want them to be perfect. I want them to look edgy and unplanned, giving the necklace or bracelet more visual impact. I’ve even come up with a name for the series that is floating around in my head, something else I’ve never done before… Dsk! Dsk! Dsk!

So here I go, moving in a new direction, thrilled to have another chance at creating! Sometimes taking a break isn’t all bad (although it feels pretty bad when you’re going through it)… Sometimes it lets you open yourself up to new possibilities…

Nancy Sells Puffer is a lampwork bead/jewelry artist from Grand Rapids, MI. Check out her very own blog here and visit her website at www.nancysellsglass.com

My Lampwork Addiction - Why it Persists

I think it’s safe to say that lampworking in not a terribly common hobby, so connecting with other people who share this interest is not necessarily easy.

When I started lampworking five years ago I quickly found the online community to be a great source of information, camaraderie and support. I’ve occasionally noticed lampwork forum posts by people I perceive as “long time beadmakers” where they state they haven’t made beads in weeks, or months, or even, years. This really surprised me, because since I started lampworking I have taken very few breaks.

I had to take a break the first year, because my fireworks torch quit working so I had to wait until my new hothead arrived. Then of course there were a few vacations scattered here and there, and of course you can’t make beads when you are away from the studio.

I don’t make beads every day, but for the last 5 years I have fired up my torch every couple of days, or at very least, weekly. How many of my other hobbies have engaged my attention for so long? I’ve been doing stained glass since my college days, I’ve sewed since I was kid, and done various types of needle work.

I’ve enjoyed all these activities, and continue to do all of them from time to time, but I’ve not done any of them as consistently for as many years as I’ve been doing lampworking.

So what is it about lampworking that has kept my interest for so long? One thing I think is the near instant gratification. I really love to do stained glass, but depending on the size and complexity of the project, it can take hours to days to weeks to complete a piece. The same is true for many sewing and needlework projects (especially knitting, I’m such a slow knitter). But a bead is completed in one session, taking anywhere between a few minutes to over an hour. After the annealing session in the kiln (usually at night while I sleep) I have a completed little jewel.

A second thing that keeps my interest in lampwork so fresh is its unpredictability. With my other hobbies after making a plan or a pattern careful execution can usually yield a consistent result. If you do make a mistake they can often be undone and redone.

I don’t find that to be the case at all with lampworking. Mistakes are not easily undone, molten glass can be a difficult to control shape shifter. Getting the right combination of heat and flame chemistry to get consistent results from reactive glass and metals is also challenging.

A third thing that keeps bead making so fresh and challenging is the extensive palate of available colors and types of glass. Couple that with seemingly never ending choices of shapes, styles and techniques, lampwork beadmaking should be able to supply a lifetime of challenges. No wonder beadmaking has so easily captured and held my attention!

Linda beads and blogs from her home in Salt Lake City, Utah!

Pets and Portraits in Glass

I get a lot of requests from people asking me to create a bead that looks like their favorite pet or grandchild. Nothing makes me happier than when I really “nail it” with a favorite pet. Kidlets are pretty generic, of course. Blond hair, check. Blue shirt, got it. Strangely enough, people are way more particular about getting a puppy bead that actually looks like their dog. Maybe this says something about human nature? LOL.

I love getting photos of pets from my customers. It makes it easy to pick features that really define a breed or even an individual pet’s personality. I especially like tongues, for example. They’re fun! Lots of times, however, I’m just told the breed and then I let the muse do the rest of the guiding. I usually sketch out the bead before making it in the flame, especially if I’ve never done that particular breed before. Sketching helps my brain figure out proportions and it also helps me figure out the order in which I need to add the features. I learned that in a Sharon Peters class I took long ago.

Most dog beads start with a lentil bead base, believe it or not. I find the somewhat flattened shape to be good for pendants and the face features can be easily added to the base lentil. The bead pictured above is a Westie. I built up the features as large dots - two for the ears and three for the muzzle. Then I covered the whole bead with ‘furry cane’ which is a stringer containing white and grey, encased in clear. Next, I shape the ears with tweezers. Lastly, I add the nose, eyes and tongue before popping it into the kiln.

As for my muse, that would have to be my dog, Puppy. She’s a wonderful 8 year old dachshund that has very recently developed a back problem. We are waiting a few weeks to see if the problem gets better or worse since we don’t want to put her through a risky surgery unnecessarily. She still walks pretty good but her climbing and jumping skills have suffered. Keep good thoughts for her, if you can.

Returning To The Old Things

This we be the first post in a series of two or three post I will be writing about combining techniques. This post will have no photographs but I will post photo examples in my next two posts.

I started out in glass art doing kiln work. I had no interest in glass beads at all. In fact I would absolutely say that when it came to beads, I just didn’t get it. I couldn’t understand what all the hoopla was about those round little bits of glass. I wanted to make sushi plates, candle stands, platters and slumped, fused glass art. I was well on my way to understanding the process and starting to make some pretty decent fused pieces.

Then, one day at the museum glass co-op, someone brought in a Hot Head torch and some glass rods. I wasn’t really interested in lampworking but I thought I would give it a try. Maybe I could incorporate some lampwork elements into my fused projects. If nothing else, I could at least say I tried it.

So, I sat down in front of the torch, stuck a rod into the flame and in just a bit, the glass I was holding actually started melting and moving. WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Look at that glass I thought, look what it is doing! Those first couple of minutes on that Hot Head torch changed my entire outlook on glass. I knew then that I was going to be a lampworker from that point forward.

I gathered the tools needed to do lampwork and started in like a mad scientist experimenting every day and working into the darkest hours of the night. Unfortunately I didn’t have anyone nearby to teach me lampworking so I decided to jump into it and teach myself as much as I could.

I completely stopped doing any fusing and slumping. The only thing the kiln was for now was annealing. I had forsaken fusing and slumping and dedicated myself to the torch. I am not a fickle person by nature but I had completely changed tracks in no time at all.

Fast forward several years now and I was out in my studio in the wee hours of the night working on teaching myself a new technique, new to me anyway and then it hit me. Hey, this would look good if I combined it with some fused work. Could it be? Did I actually say that? Yes, this piece would look really nice if I combined it with some fused work. So now I have to figure out how to do it. I am hoping it will turn out as nice as I think it will. When I get it worked out I will post photos of it.

It has occurred to me on more than one occasion that each and every artistic media, technique or style I have ever learned, even though I may not have continued with it can always be combined in a totally unexpected way. I know most of us have worked in other media. I would encourage you from time to time to sit down and think about the different techniques you used and how they may be applied to the current media you are working in now. This can really help you think outside the box and possibly point you in a new and exciting direction.

Otter is a glass artist that blogs from the Pacific Northwest.