Sculpture tools

Sitting at my torch with my pointy little tools at the ready I feel like I'm in the operating room readying for surgery. "Scalpel please, knife please, scarey pick please.....) Only I have no one to hand them to me. The Very Best Tool is the little brass knife. In its other life it languished in a kitchen drawer as a mustard knife- a very useless existence. Doing hot glass sculpture means lots of tools and there are still many I don't YET own. Here are some more pictures of sculpted glass.

Moving on from "round" beads

Starting out, beadmakers focus on round beads and learning to work with gravity to make that perfect roundness happen. Then it's on to pressing beads in a brass press shaped like a lentil, button, or nugget. So what follows? usually it's doing sculptural work with the taffy like hot glass. This opens up a whole new realm of possibilities! I'm adding some pictures of my forays into sculptural glass but I have many more ideas yet to try.....

This is Gaia glass.

This is an experimental oddlot no longer available.

This is Terra, no longer available.

This is newly released Aurae.

This is an experimental oddlot no longer available.

95% of the glass sold is imported from Europe- Italy and Germany. But in the past 2 years American glassmakers have begun producing silver laden glass that has zoomed in popularity despite its' high price- $100 a pound!! Glass composition is all about chemistry and silver is one metal that reacts to heating and cooling cycles as well as increased propane to produce some incredible and unpredictable colors. Double Helix is the big name here with new colors introduced every few months.

The heartbreaker is that many named glasses have one release and if you don't manage to "invest" in some of it initially ,you miss out. Some glass formulas they can't seem to replicate. The price goes up way past $100/lb. for the rare glass.....

Here is part of my glass supply. I must have over 200 colors. I use transparent and also opaque glass. These cost about $40 a pound. But I also have been "investing" in silver laden glass that is $100 a pound. Almost all glass colors are imported from Italy and Germany but now a few American glass makers have started up.

This is my lampworking space, AFTER cleaning up all the dozens of rods, stringers and tools. This is one artistic endeavor that needs lots of gear! I work with a 2 fuel torch that uses tanked propane and oxygen supplied by an oxygen generator.

This is the "before" picture. When the used rods get this deep I'm forced to clean up and put away. I sometimes use brass tools for pressing beads into a lentil or square nugget shape. You can see one set with the wooden handles facing up.

I've just taken my first workshop from a very famous beadmaker, Kristina Logan.She is justly called the queen of the dots! I'm inspired to try a new look, lots of dots.

I haven't taken a workshop before because I am ambivalent about being affected by another lampworker's style. I usually work in a solitary fashion making the beads that come into my imagination. With these new beads I see them as "Kristina" beads and quite unrelated to my style.

But they were fun to make, she helped me with heat control and the idea of multiple layers. She was a delightful personality and her beads reflect it. I will try to find a picture of one of her famous and expensive beads to add later.

I've discovered that I most enjoy the fine detail work of using "stringers" to create my floral beads. Both sides of the beads have different flowers and in a set I don't repeat a flower.In the box lids are some of these finely pulled strands of glass. They are thinner than spagettinni!!! To make them I pull a very hot blob of glass with tweezers in opposing directions until it is as thin as possible.

These miniature garden beads have become my trademark. Now I only make a set each month because they are so time intensive.

When making beads almost daily I have ended up with lots of extras. I realized I've created a ranking system without realizing it. Rank 1 beads go into sets to be sold in my Etsy shop, (or for me to wear). Rank 2 beads go into my bead bowl to be sold in destashing groups, usually by color. Rank 3 beads I give to my daughter to take to the beach when she's surfing to toss along the shoreline. Rank 4 beads go into my garden between the bricks in a walkway. Rank 5 beads are those that turn out ugly so I take my tweezers and pinch and pull out noses, ears, mouths, then add eyeballs. These I call My Mad Monkeys ,( after the first one I made looked like an infuriated monkey.) I string them up casually on clear stretchy elastic and wear them for fun. I especially like looking at them when I'm stuck in traffic or a red light- ALWAYS brings a smile to my face.