Lose Those Expectations!

You could be amazed at what comes of it.

Desert Sunset

Think about it, as lampwork bead artists we often get sucked into the latest new release of glass. We see the pre releases of the paddles used to show us the colours & effects that can be achieved & our minds run amok with ideas & the potential of the colours that call us personally.

Perhaps while visiting the forums we stumble across images from certain artists that can make the glass sing an aria like that of a Prima Donna.

This is particularly true of the silver glasses for a lot of us. We are teased lured & tempted by their mystical, ethereal qualities & before you know it we have spent far more than we intended on the latest test batch or oddlot.

Some of them work for us & produce fantastic results instantly, & others don't. Some of them produce results that are dependant on what heat your torch setup is capable of generating, or a certain flame atmosphere & others are largely dependent on patience & skill.
Some are just very expensive (US$100.00 per pound) mistakes...or so you think at the time.

I made one of those 'mistakes' early last year. I was pretty much burned out by trying to work the silver glasses with no real appreciation of different flame atmospheres, & a lack of confidence in my ability to get anywhere near the results that others did anyway. When a new batch of oddlots came up I snapped up a few that were different to the blue-green lustre effects & raku with attitude glasses that had previously been predominant.
I played with them a few times, kind of got a colour similar to the paddle out of one test batch, but couldn't repeat the result, so I then put them aside in disgust.


You see it was all about expectation. I'd seen sample paddles that appealed & expected that I would get those results, of course conveniently forgetting that a paddle is created in a vastly different way to a bead & that, in some instances, a paddle will produce results that beads wont.

Petrified Desert

I recently looked at theses glasses in a new way, through new eyes.
Knowing what I was capable of achieving with the glasses I had purchased, & putting all expectations of getting them to look as they do in the paddles, I wondered how they would lend themselves to something more simple & earthy than the shimmer & shine normally associated with the silver glasses. I imagined them without the shine & looking more like natural stones & semi precious gems - perhaps even partially etched. With that in mind I went to the torch & played.

My "Desert" series of accent beads was born.

Da Bracelet

"Out of the Blue"

This week saw my first real comissioned piece of jewelry <--- I like to spell it the US way, less typing than 'jewellery' & it suits my style - no frills!!! lol! When I say comissioned - it was really a favour returned.

I have been extremely fortunate for a lampworker stuck down here far away from the hugely talented USA hub of lampworkers.....& equally as important lampworking supplies. I have made friends who have aided, abetted & sometimes just blatantly outright enabled me in getting things I would not have been able to otherwise. I'm eternally grateful to those people - but sometimes whilst wistfully longing to get to the USA & meet some of these awesome people & attend a class or ten, I can forget that there are some closer to home that have helped me out also.

One of these people is my cousin who runs an engineering company. He has helped me so much when I think about it. He's given me leads on the best places to source hardware, came up with a great alternative for a holding tank (when I discovered that it was more expensive to buy air carry tank here than it was to buy a compressor), he's made me tools, frit trays , a kiln rack & even converted a piece of machinery to make me a press for fitting silver cores into the big hole beads for European style bracelets - when I discovered that piece of machinery was going to cost more to get shipped than the actual cost of the machine itself. What's more he has done it all willingly, with a smile & always made sure that whatever he's made, has done the job I require of it - to perfection.

At one point when I asked what I owed him - he said he'd get me to make a bracelet for his wife's birthday. I asked him her wrist measurement - when he responded with "small" - I gave him 'the look' & told him the way to go about getting it.....without her knowing.

Sometimes we just have to make it easy for men - so I explained that the best way was to wait until she went out, raid her jewelry stash & look for one he knew she wore a lot & measure it end to end. In true male fashion - he did this....eventually. You know - like well after I had forgotten all about it & had no idea when her birthday was.

At the beginning of this week I got a phone call giving me the measurements in time for it to be ready by the end of the week - lol! Hey - I'm just impressed that he knows when her birthday is ;o)

Anyway the bracelet above is what I came up with - I hope he likes it, but what's more I hope that she does.

Eye of the Dragon

"Eye of the Dragon"

This week that has flown by far too fast!! In fact I feel it should be given a ticket for excessive speed in a built up area ;o)

Going back to work for three days has left me with little time for torching & deal with other things soon ate that time up - quick smart!

A fabulous occurance came from going back to work though - so I can't get too eaten up about my lack of torch time this week.

I finally found the courage, after some gentle nudging from a friend, to post a bead in the daily Show & Tell on LampworkEtc. This is no small task - as often you find the best of the best that the international lampworking community has to offer displayed in the daily 'S&T's".

That posting resulted in my selling the bead directly to a client who came into work - one minute we were discussing the difficulty of pricing ones own work, the next she was wanting to see what I made. I showed her the thread - she spotted my bead while I was still scrolling & stopped me with a "WOW - I love that one" . When I told her that was my bead I was greeted with "I want it - it's beautiful". The rest, as they say is history - I'm just hoping it's history in the making!

Seraphim FlameWorks: Double Helix Oddlots & Test Batches

Here you will find a direct link to Seraphim's absolutely indispensible visual guide for all silver glass afficionado's.
In particular it deals with Double Helix Test Batches & Odd Lots.

Seraphim FlameWorks: Double Helix Oddlots & Test Batches

Do have a look around the rest of this extremly talented studio's blog. There is inspiration & glassy eye candy in abundance, as well as 'recipes' given for all the glass used in the twisties & any given bead.