I am concentrating today solely on larger beads, that is, about 6mm and larger. In two days, I will have a post focusing solely on seed beads. However, a lot of this information is shared between the two. It is hard to separate the two, but... for purposes of distinction, that there is a vastly large difference in the use of seed beads and larger beads, this will deal with the larger sized.
Tomorrow, Lea Avroch will be the featured artist on this blog. Lea is a glass artist that specializes in making glass beads. Her work is outstanding, and I am proud to be able to feature her work. It should be noted that glass beads like she makes, have not been around for long. It wasn't until the 1960s, when a workshop was offered By Ceramics professor Harvy K. Littleton(1), at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, that inspired a handful of artists to seriously take up the art glass trade.  |
| obsidian glass |
We know that glass has been made since before the Egyptians were around, but the origins are vague, there is no written evidence of the first person who crafted a piece of glass from molten silica... no remains have been found other than the oddities that come in nature, where volcanic heat created obsidian and an arrowhead fashioned, or lightening has struck in the desert, creating melted sand, or the strange glass remnants in Africa from where it is believed a meteor hit the earth, leaving behind molten glass... which can be found in jewelry in the Egyptian museum, having once belonged to the Pharaohs. The first evidence of glass that was man-made was found by archaeologists in the form of glaze that was used to coat stone beads, and dates to around 4000 BC. (2)
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| faceted, teardrop shaped, glass beads with AB finish |
We know from historical writings, that glass has been produced at one time or another, all around the world. Czechoslovakia has been famous for centuries for their glass work, as well as Italy, especially it's Venetian glass, or Murano glass. France produced wonderful glass, especially beads. They were prized for their beauty and now are considered antique, they are reproduced on a small scale.
Glass works can be found around the world today, not just in a chosen few areas. With reasonable shipping costs, even places that don't have access to natural resourses can still participate in glass making.
In the United States, the glass industry started, of course, on the Eastern Seaboard with the coming of the Europeans. They imported glass to the Colonies, but because of the abundant forests and sand, the Colonies were ripe for starting their own glass works. England was not happy about the loss of business, so they shipped literally tons of glass to the New World, flooding the market, so the businesses were not viable. England chose to import the raw materials from the Colonies and to ship it's produced goods, back.
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| faceted glass beads with Marea finish |
Pittsburgh became a hub of glass making, when in 1795, James O'Hara and Isaac Craig started a glass factory(2). The sand in Juniata and Fayette counties was heavily mined, but soda ash was still being imported from England, fire clay was imported from Germany, and iron ore from the Mississippi valley. At one time, Pittsburgh had 70 glass factories running, but after the war of 1812, Britain used glass exporting in economic revenge against the US. Exporting more and more glass until the market was so flooded, that many manufacturers went out of business. The tariff of 1816 helped by putting a tax on imported goods so their prices would be more expensive. But for many businesses, it was too late.
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| faceted glass beads |
Two of the major glass makers in the US were, and still are today, Tiffany and Company, and the Stubin Glass Works. They have a long history in the glass industry here, but, they were not makers of glass beads.
Sadly, the glass industry in the United States is waning, Imports from China have driven the price of glass down to a point that larger glass makers are no longer able to keep producing on a scale that can keep the industry thriving. Even the glass for the World Trade Center's new building has been sheathed in glass coming from China.(4) Tariffs have not been in place to keep the shipments to a
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| moulded glass beads |
Bead makers early on worked with glass in a manner that they could make a drop of glass, use a needle type piece of metal or even a small twig to make the hole, and a bead was born. Archaeologists have excavated early examples of Medieval glass beads in Slovenia, dating to the 7th-9th Century AD. These were mostly made of drawn glass that was segmented or drawn and cut. These were both found to be of two different types of glass. One was the Natron type made in the Roman tradition (glass made from silica, rich in sodium and calcium, with iron and manganese. The composition was analogous the one of glasses produced during Roman empire, using `natron' (Na2CO3·NaHCO3·2H2O) as melting agent{5}) , the other is something close to Venetian White Glass(glass made using plant ash like `Salsola Kali' as melting agent), that can be traced back to the Aral Sea and Mesopotamia. (6)
Later on, the use of moulds greatly increased the output of the glassmakers. Uniformity was achieved as well, and beads could be used to make duplicate items. This greatly increased the availability of jewelry, and lowered the cost.
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| faceted glass beads |
Today, there are glass producers in nearly every country of the world, and glass bead makers as well. Thanks in large part to the art glass industry, the interest in making beads for use in jewelry has expanded. People are taking up glass bead making in their homes, thanks to readily available workshops, online tutorials, and books.
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| pink glass- Cat's Eye beads |
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| faceted glass beads |
Ghana has a home industry of glass beads, called Krobo Beads (named for the small town of Odumase-Krobo), that are still made similar to a hundred years ago. Moulds are used to make the beads that require grinding glass into powder with a granite stone, filling the moulds, once they have been fired in a kiln, a rod is inserted into the moulds to pierce the center of the beads, and it is moved around to shape the beads, then taken out of the moulds, the beads are mixed with sand on a sandstone, the beads are rubbed until smooth.(7) The bead artists like Lea Avroch have more modern methods of working with glass. Using torches, bead release, rods of glass, modern temperature controlled kilns to cool the glass, all make for dependable results and well made glass beads.
1. Todd Finklemeyer. "UW Professor Emeritus Littleton, 'the Father of Studio Glass,' dies at 91", University of Wisconsin, Madison News. 19 December, 2013. http://news.wisc.edu/22414
2. "History of Glass", British Glass 2015, http://www.britglass.org.uk/history-of-glass
3. Professor C. Hanford "Glass Manufacturing",Henderson.Popular Science Monthly- February 1893, pgs. 433-444
4. Glassmaking Thrives Offshore, but it's Declining in the US", NY Times, , http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/business/19glass.html?_r=0
5. Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, Vol. 306, Issue 3, September 2002, pgs. 249-262
6. Ziga Smit. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section B: Beam Interaction With Materials and Atoms. Vol 278, 1 May, 2012. pgs. 8-14 -- Items scanned included earrings with beads, necklaces with mosaic beads with eye decorations. Scanned using optical microscopy, SEM–EDS, microRaman, XPS, SIMS and Mössbauer.
7. Bead Production, Global Mamas, http://www.globalmamas.org/Info/BeadProduction
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