Glass
This page features my flameworked glass beads, which I made from the late 80’s until 2002. I used metal foils to create all the colors on the surface of the glass, a technique I’m still using in some of my enamel work today.
I discovered glass in 1978 while I was still working as a criminal trial lawyer. I left law practice not long after that and glass became the artistic focus of my life. In my architectural stained glass business, I explored just about everything I could do with glass and heat: slumping into molds, fusing, making and coloring my own glass in the kiln, casting, and sandwiching metal foils between fused glass.
In the 80’s, the glass aesthetic emphasized seductiveness: intense colors, transparency, light going through it in a myriad of ways. Bigger was better, the goal was to knock your socks off. But I saw glass as more translucent and mysterious, like the agate and chert pebbles you’d find on a beach. (Quartz is just silicon dioxide: glass in its purest form.) Occasionally there were things coming out of my kiln that had the appearance of more neutral colored stone-like materials. I wanted more of that.
I experimented in the torch with colors derived from copper, silver, iron and gold on the surface, and started making glass beads. Beads provided a small canvas that could let me do whole range of color and visual texture experiments in a few hours. The idea of “visual hybrid” began to emerge, something that was definitely glass but resembled other materials too.
A collection of flameworked beads from the “Stonework” series, 1995-2001. These colors were all created by using copper, silver and gold foils on the surface of white glass, with a little iron oxide in some pieces. Color variations could be achieved by varying the oxygen and propane mixture of the torch. The longest bead is about 5cm. (Photo by Hap Sakwa)
Most of my early beads had a satin surface and were very tactile. They were designed to be explored with the fingers as well as the eyes.
When I started coloring my beads with metal foils, I worked with a neutral palette of colors and a “pebble” theme. The glass was pressed into various asymmetrical shapes using handmade brass molds.
“Pebble Beads”, mid 1990’s. Sizes range from 1 - 4 cm in length. I achieved subtle color variations by using different white glasses and changing the atmosphere of the fire. (Photo by George Post)
Beads from the “Aerial View” series, late 1990’s. Copper, silver and 24K gold as colorants. They were inspired by the crop patterns nestled against the Rocky Mountain foothills, viewed from the air. These were among the most difficult beads to make. Longest bead 4 cm.
Later the beads became more structured and regular in shape. I started working much larger, so there were more opportunities to explore pattern. I also began to incorporate more gold.
“Confetti Gold” beads, colored with gold, late 1990’s. Controlling the fragmentation of the gold was a special challenge. At random times the gold would color the glass a pinkish blue or hues of coral red, something that actually seemed to depend on the weather! Longest bead about 3 cm.
Eventually I began making one of a kind beads on stainless steel tubing which left a large hole when the bead was completed. These took the form of large donuts and taller “vessel” forms. I also started overlaying thin blown colored shards over each other.
Two tall vessel beads, 2001. These had rims and large holes, and were built on stainless tubing. Tallest bead is about 6 cm.
“Ruby Donut Bead”, 2001, with fine silver and 14K gold. Beads in this series had very large holes and were given a high polish on the inside using diamond tools. A polished silver tube was set as a huge “rivet”, causing light to reflect through the transparent glass, illuminating the color from the inside. Bead is about 3.5 cm diameter.
All of my colors had been developed on white glass, but now I wanted to see them on black beads. The metals wouldn’t color black glass in the same way, so I used tissue thin colored shards that were almost invisible on the black. They accepted the metal colorants differently, and created a patchwork of neutral colors on a black background. In addition, black glass does ethereal things with silver and heat, so there were many additional colors I could achieve with just a few ingredients and by varying the atmosphere in the torch. Colors could be nudged in a direction but not completely controlled.
“Red Bronze Beads”, oval lenticular shapes with silver and gold colorants, about 3 cm. 2001.
“Amethyst Lake Beads”, vessel and oval lenticular shapes, with copper, silver and gold colorants. Longest bead about 4 cm. 2001.
“Nebula Black Vessel Beads”, with silver and gold colorants, tallest bead about 3 cm. 2000-2001.
“Black Lagoon Beads” oval lenticular shapes with silver and gold colorants, tallest bead about 4 cm. 2001.
The 15 year period that I made beads was in the heyday of the “art vs. craft” debate. I thought a lot about the value of beads as an art form, because it seems they’re commercialized more than almost any other craft, the bottom of the food chain. But a tiny object with a hole is a universal human creation. The earliest known “beads” are over 40,000 years old, and every known culture has made them, often inscribing them with some important iconography. By making beads I felt I was wading into an ancient cultural river. There’s an intimacy and power in beads that few other objects possess - they have a strange hold on us.
I made my last flameworked beads in 2002, putting aside my torch to focus on photographic imagery in copper with champlevé enamels - glass in another form. But I’m still drawn to beads, and the magic of coloring glass with metal foils.