What is Lampworking?

A variant of the wound glass bead making technique is what is traditionally called lampworking. In the Venetian industry, where very large quantities of beads were produced in the 19th century for the African trade, the core of a decorated bead was produced from molten glass at furnace temperatures, a large-scale industrial process dominated by men. The delicate multi-coloured decoration was then added by people, mostly women, working at home using an oil lamp or spirit lamp to re-heat the cores and the fine wisps of coloured glass used to decorate them. These workers were paid on a piecework basis for the resulting lampwork beads.

Modern lampwork beads are made by using a dual fuel torch (Propane and Oxygen) to heat a rod of glass and spinning the resulting thread around a metal rod covered in bead release. When the base bead has been formed, other colours of glass can be added to the surface to create many designs.

After this initial stage of the bead making process, the bead can be further fired in a kiln to make it more durable.  This process is called Annealing.  Annealing is a process of slowly cooling glass over several hours, to relieve internal stresses after it was formed.

Once the bead has cooled to room temperature, it can then be removed from the mandrel and the bead release cleaned off.

Helen Moore attended a two day lampworking course early in 2008 at the Born to Bead Studio and quickly became captivated with the art form. Soon after she decided that it was time to set up her own home studio, where she uses Effetre and New Zealand’s own Gaffer soda-lime glass to make her glass beads.  Beads are taken from the torch straight to the kiln where they are properly annealed for strength and durability. 

For years Helen had dabbled in other art forms from painting to embroidery, through to scrap-booking, “I feel that I have finally found the perfect outlet for my creativity”.  Helen is inspired by New Zealand’s beautiful landscapes and the exquisite colours and shapes it offers on a daily basis.  She loves creating tiny flower garden beads, funky bright coloured beads, and exploring new techniques and colour combinations. 

Below is a photo of her home studio