Lampwork beads are probably the very few kind of beads which have stood the test of time in its durability, demand and staying power along with crystal glass beads.

What makes these wonderful beads so wonderful and colourful that one look and people fall in love with these beads. Many people and artisans offer different explanations for the uniquesness and mass appeal of lampwork beads but in my opinion the top reason would be that these beads are truly unique and individual in its design. No two lampwork beads are the same – to the naked eye they will look the same but in reality there will be small differences which will truly reflect the mastery of this art and the artisan behind a lampwork bead.

Lampworking is simply a technique in which glass is melted using a torch and then it is shaped into different patterns and designs. Its origin is in Murano, Italy and goes back as far as the 14^th century and even to this day Murano beads are still the premium and highest quality lampwork beads. In France the idea was extended to making paper weights which looked like our modern lampwork beads and the practise still exists till this day. When I was a kid I remember these beautiful floral heavy paper weights which probably are not used anymore in Australia but the first time I got in beads businness and started playing around with lampwork beads, reminded me of those old paper weight.

Though most artisans today use torches which use propane or natural gas, in the older times lampworking was done using oil lamps and by blowing air into the flame through a pipe. Different types of glass is used to for making lampwork beads but the most common one is soda lime glass often called “soft glass” and sometimes using borosilicate glass or “hard glass”. So at this stage you must wonder how does the colour comes into these wonder lampwork beads? Well, different colour of glass rods are combined to achieve the different colour combination but care must be taken that these different colour glass rods are compatible with each other both at the chemical level and also at the thermal level. If non-compatible glass rods are chosen then the result might be small cracks or bubbles appearing. I wonder if cracked glass beads (often known as crackle beads)  are created using mixing two incompatible glass rods or some chemical is introduced to get that “cracked” illusion?

 

Once the beads are sandblasted using a number of different techniques, one of these techniques is “Furnace glass” which is really an advance version of the old seed beads techniques. Chevron beads is another particular kind of beads whose technique was derived from the lampwork beads which is to use multi-layer beads by using hot-shop techniques. This technique is now extending by lampwork artisans to create multi layered beads or beads where several different layers are visible to the naked eye.

By Sam Roberts