Glass & me –The first time I saw lampwork beads was at this funky little place in WI that had this great scrap metal yard art all over their yard that the husband did. His wife had this cute little hobbit like building for her studio. She did a lot of spinning and weaving and had gotten into lampworking also. We watched her making beads for a while – I was really impressed. Later that year I was in a local stained glass store for some Christmas shopping and noticed they offered a beginning one day lampwork class. After thinking about it I signed up – and was hooked! That was about 4 1/2 years ago.
I work on a hot head so unless I’m feeling incredibly patient I tend to work small. My style – I don’t think it’s anything too original. I tend toward different kinds of dot beads and lately have been playing with reduction frit reactions. I think many of my organic attempts look like a big pile of mush so I don’t do a lot of them. I’ve also been playing around with disc beads and shapes and some dreadlock beads.
In the next year – let’s see. I have a new cricket torch that I haven’t set up yet – need to do some remodeling in my work space (maybe even turn it into an official studio not just a corner of the basement) like getting a gas line to that end of the room and better ventilation. So hopefully that gets done soon and I’ll be trying some new stuff – maybe working a bit bigger and maybe playing with some of the silver glass.
In 5 years – hopefully still making (better) beads, maybe design another tool or two, still enjoying glass and the wonderful friends I’ve made thru this journey.
You can see more of Barb's work at her Artfire Shop Rivers Edge Glass
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