Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Modern Bead Pendant (with earrings)

This is a modern bead pendant made with black glass. It was pressed into a lozenge shape, and the decoration was made with silvered ivory stringer. 

This bead is an example of something that I have been hearing bead makers say in classes I have attend for the past two years. Basically, they have said that if what you are trying to do does not work, instead of discarding the bead, take the opportunity to play with the bead and see what happens. 

When I applied the silver ivory string at first, I was not happy with the results. So, instead of stopping my work on this bead, I took a rake and feathered the bead in a back and forth swirling pattern. And this is the result!


 

Edit: 3/15 - Earrings made to match the pendant.





Monday, December 1, 2014

Tokens

A few months ago I was asked to make some glass bead tokens. I was requested to make the tokens reasonably appropriate to the requester's persona. The person I'm making them for has an early Irish persona. Her heraldry is blue and yellow, and her device has several triskels on it.

I was lucky enough to find a PHD thesis which provides a classification and typology of bead from this period.  Looking a the list of beads from the study I found that the spiral beads seemed to evoke the triskels from her heraldry, as they could be made with 3 spirals. With the ok of the requester, I settled on a spiral as the design, and I used the class 8 spiral bead as my inspiration (page 40 in the above source).

The spiral design was also new to me; I had not made many of these before. This meant that making these tokens would be a good opportunity for me to practice. I made 30 beads for this project.

ESTIMATED COSTS
A. Glass Rods= $3
To complete this project I used 3 transparent blue rods & 1 opaque yellow rod. Glass rods can be purchased singly or in bulk for a cheaper price.
---3 cobalt blue transparent glass rods = $1.25 x 3= $3.75
---1 medium yellow special glass rod = $1.55
---1/4 bundles of colbalt blue = $2.95
---1/4 bundle of medium yellow = $3.95

B. One tank of Mapp gas =  $13

C. One half of a small spool of jewelry wire = $1.25

Total Cost = $17.25
Cost Per Bead = .58c.

ESTIMATED TIME
Beads: 10 minutes per bead x 30 bead = 300 minutes = 5 hours
Cleaning: 15 minutes
Attaching brass rings: 2 min x 30 = 1 hour
Note: I annealed the beads, but did not figure that into the above equation, as I put a bunch of my own beads in with these beads.

Total Time = 6 hours, 15 minutes

I had never really timed myself before, or calculated the cost of making a single bead. I now understand why I people who are selling these beads charge several dollars for one bead. While ordinary glass is not expensive, these beads do take time to make!  Gas is also not cheap, although someone using a professional system with larger refillable gas tanks would likely spend less on gas than I did.

MORE ABOUT THE HISTORIC BEADS
The blue and yellow of the requester's heraldry is actually very close/exactly the same as the colors that these beads would have been made in in period. Class 8 beads were made on a dark semi-transparent blue glass with mostly white spirals (though my source says that yellow would occasionally have been used, see page 60). There were 2-3 spirals on each bead ( I did three for the tokens to evoke the triskels from the requester's heraldry). My source said that the spirals were interlinked. However, I could not find a way to interlink all three spirals while applying the design in a continuous line. The pictures I found from the source  I mentioned above (and the supplementary sources I consulted, including museum photos and a book by Margaret Guido) only include images of one side of the bead, making it difficult to see how the entire design was constructed. So, what I ended up doing was I interlinked two spirals, and made a third freestanding spiral.

To enhance the tokens, I added a wire wrapped ring (which has been found on other early period extant beads), as I had done when I made a few tokens for myself. 

Monday, November 17, 2014

St. Eligius

So St. Eligius happened. It was a great day, but it also made me think, a lot!

I loved that fact that having to judge other entrants gave me the opportunity to spend  time with them and talk with them about their project. I was able to learn a lot more from this experience than I have in the past where I am a simply a spectator. The enthusiasm of my fellow competitors is also wonderful to see, and one of the joys of the SCA!

When talking about my work, I was able to teach a few people about how glass beads are made (both modernly and in period) using photos I've taken of me making and decorating glass beads. I'm going to continue to bring this document with me to competitions/displays, as it was useful and helped when people had questions. I was also able to talk to a few people who make beads themselves, or who know the Anglo-Saxon time period, which made this a great opportunity for me to learn as well!.

My entry for the "experienced" catagory. I won this catagory (just barely!), and also received the populace choice prize.
Finally, this was also my first time judging an A&S competition. Having had this experience, I like to think that now I will be much more understanding of those who  judge my entries in the future, because it is not an easy thing to do!! I found that I was not very comfortable judging the work of others, for a variety of reasons. I could not spend as long as I wanted to on each entrant's work, the environment we are judging in is very chaotic and not supportive of deep thinking, and not every entry fits neatly into the evaluation criteria we were given. All in all, I came away from my experience wishing that I could have done a much better job than I think I did. Perhaps having more conversations with people about judging will help. Perhaps I also just need more practice to get good at it. In the end, this is something that I will want to work on, so I can participate fully in A&S in our society.

Artisan's Progress Entry (I received the prize for this catagory as well)

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Islamic Glass Bead with Cane Eyes

My reproduction
Historic Bead from: Corning Museum of Glass
Origin: Islamic (possibly made in Syria)
Date: 799-1099
Measurements: Height 2.9cm, Diam 3.4cm

It is thought that the combination of cane pieces placed in the center of  trailing white lines is an another way of making an evil eye bead. Evil eye beads have been created by various cultures for thousands of years as protective amulets. Earlier evil eye beads were made by placed smaller dots on larger dots to form eyes (stratified glass eye beads).

The above information is from:  "Tracing Eye Beads Through Time" by Amy De Simone and Adrienne V. Gennett, published in The Flow, Spring 2013, p. 24-26
Historic Bead



Major Differences Between the Two
  • My bead is 1 cm smaller than the historic bead in each direction (my bead measures approximately 2cm x 2cm). Scaling down my reproduction was a practical choice. I will not be able to anneal this bead right away, and larger beads are more likely to crack if not annealed. It also takes much more time & glass & fuel to build a larger bead.
  • My mosaic eyes are slightly different, as they only have 12 rays instead of 20. To fit 20 rays on my cane would have required me to make a very large gather of glass when making my cane This may be something I work up to doing some day, but, it should also be noted that I am still using what amounts to an amateur level torch. Making a larger bead or a larger cane might be more practical if I had a professional grade torch, or if I was using a large furnace and working in a workshop with other artisans as they likely would have been doing in period.
  • Glass waiting to be pulled into a cane. The gather is attached to a hollow metal chopstick.
  • I chose to make my cane eyes out of only red and white glass, and to make the turquoise dot in the center using stringer, rather than integrating a turquoise center into my cane eye.  I figured this is possibly what was done with the historic bead, because A) there is a dot of turquoise underneath each eye, and B) the turquoise dot on the center of each eye is off center, and does not appear to be off center in the same place on each eye.
Things to do Differently Next Time
  • Try creating a cane with a turquoise center
  • Try using a different turquoise glass. The one I used tends to go silver, muddying up the color, when it is heated for any length of time.
  • I'd like to melt some of the elements into the bead a bit more, as some of them seem a bit more raised when compared to the historic bead.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Earrings

These very modern looking earrings were a gift for a friend.



Construction Notes:
  • I used a lentil bead press to shape the beads.
  • I put white frit on the bead, and then rakend the frit to form the pattern you see above.
  • To the white frit I added dots of silvered ivory stringer, which is a very pretty and fun modern lampworking technique.
  • I tried all of this originally on an opaque blue background. However, the decoration did not pop against that background, so I switched to a dark transparent blue.
  • However, that blue was so dark, it looked almost black in certain lights. To fix this I started with a core of white class, around which I wound the darker blue glass. This lightened the blue transparent glass.
  • All of the above techniques are very modern, although very basic (un-raked) frit beads are completely period to the early middle ages. I've seen them in several sources discussing  Anglo-Saxon glass beads.

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Large Murini Bead



This bead has 12 murini pieces spaced in between white crossing zigzags trails. The historic bead on which it is based is thought to be either a Viking or Northern/Central European bead. It is also very possible that this bead was imported into those areas from the Middle East. For example, the design is very similar to this syrian cane bead from the Corning Glass Museum.

The original is larger than my bead (my bead measures 2 cm in height, and 1.75 cm in diameter). I made mine smaller because I did not have a mandrel which could make a hole as large as the extant bead, so making it full size would have required a huge amount of glass and time.




Here you can see a section of the cane that I pulled to make the murini. It is about 20 inches long.

Friday, October 24, 2014

Voyages of Discovery- Power Point



Link to power point presentation here


Feedback from the presentation included the idea that this may be something that would benefit from a longer class (not a half hour, but a full hour) with information added to help attendees figure out how to find such sources themselves (I had a slide on that topic, but ran short of time). It was also suggested that a resource lists might be a good thing to send people home with. Maybe I can make a list of Anglo-Saxon  reports, both ones that I have used, and perhaps others referenced in some of my texts.


Monday, October 20, 2014

Necklace

Necklace made for a friend to convince her that she really wanted to make viking garb. The request was for simple shaped beads (no decoration) in green, black and white. I added the amber colored glass beads in to provide a bit more contrast and because amber and glass beads were often worn together.






Lampworking Workshop

This Sunday I taught a lampworking workshop to five students at the home of Bhakail's A&S Minister. This was the first time that I had formally taught a group of people. All of my previous instruction had been one-on-one.  It was a wonderful experience and I learned a lot. A few things of note include:

-More materials to purchase: marvers and plyers for each participant
-Buy little bags for people to take their beads home in.
-Allow much more time for clean up and cool down than I had thought!
-I also got some very positive feedback about the order of my instruction. I had people practice pulling stringers before making beads, and doing this activity seemed to make the process of making their first bead much easier, and a little less scary, for attendees.
-Finally, over the last year or so of teaching, it has been interesting to see how people approach learning lampworking differently. Some people are very precise when they try to make beads, and these individuals usually try to mimic what I am showing them as closely as they can. Others get creative and immediately try new things. While I tend to be one of the former people when I am learning, I think its important to create a space where people can learn and play in the way that works best for them.

Demonstration & Instruction




A few beads made by workshop attendees.







Saturday, October 11, 2014

Older Practice Beads

Recently, I gave Erica, who is a youth minister in Iron Bog, a bunch of my older glass practice beads (one or two of these beads were among the first glass beads I ever made). She was interested in these so she could use them in children's activities. Before she did anything with them, she was kind enough to take some pictures of the beads for me. She organized them and grouped them by color, which is awesome, because it makes it easy for me to look back and see a record of some of the things that I had been working on over time. I actually counted the number of beads in these pictures, and there were 289 of them!






Friday, October 10, 2014

Beads for Royalty Largesse

Below are some beads that were given to the Royal Gift Coordinator. My name was given to this individual by some friends (which was lovely of them), and I was asked if I could either make something, or provide something from my stash of beads, for a trip TRMs were taking to Caid. Below are pictures of the beads that I sent out. 

The first are 7 larger beads that I attached wire wrapped rings to. I also labeled these beads with a photo of an extant bead, and some very general information about the origins of the bead design....because history!
 

  

The second image is of a small necklace of beads that I created specifically for HerRM of Caid, taking into account some persona information (such as heraldic colors, and time period) found on their website. A photo of the information card I sent with the beads is also included below.



Preparation for October A&S Workshop in Bhakail


Class Title: Introduction to Making Glass Beads 

Class limit: 4 students who are brand new to lampworking. More experienced students who have made at least a few glass beads before and have their own kits can attend as space allows.
Materials Fee: $15 (covers the gas used for the torch and glass to play with). Attendees will be able to take home all of their finished beads.

Description: This class will provide attendees with a basic introduction to glass bead making (lampworking/flameworking). It will cover how to make a bead, and also how to shape and decorate beads with dots and lines. In addition to this hands on practice, I will discuss what glass beadmaking was like in period, and provide handouts designed to help you start thinking about making historically accurate glass beads with your new found skills. After this introductory material is covered, I will be available to workshop with more advanced students. If there is a skill you wish to learn or practice, please let me know. I will also bring some of my other sources and documentation with me for people interested in learning more about early period beads.

Note:  If possible, please wear clothing made from natural fibers, close toed shoes, and a shirt with tight fitting sleeves.


Outline
bring example beads of the types we will be making during the workshop

the significance of glass beads in the early middle ages
period v.s. modern tools and techniques
introduction to materials and mandrel preparation
safety discussion
practice turning the torch on/off, and drying mandrels
make stringer (2 different methods) and learning the feel of the glass
making a bead
adding more glass to make a larger bead (disk method)
basic shaping (barrel & cylinder)
decorating beads (frit, dots, and stacked dots)
how to make period glass beads as a beginner


Materials needed for each participant (or for participants to share)
4 torch heads
4 torch clamp assemblies (L brackets, hose clamps, C clamps)
4 cookie sheets
4 tanks of mapp gas (pluss a few extra)
4 butter knives for marvers
4 yellow rods, 4 red rods
10 mandrels per person

frit in various colors
2 vermiculite containers
2 containers with sand for mandrels
2 containers of bead release to share
4 spoons for frit
4 chopsticks for pulling stringer
2 bbq lighters
4 pairs of safety glasses

Handouts
-Materials list and picture
-"How to Make a Wound Bead" step by step guide
-"Making Historic Glass Beads as a Beginner" article
-"Social Meaning of Beads" article
-Handout discussing period v.s. modern tools and techniques

Monday, September 22, 2014

Wrightstown Demo



This past Saturday I attended an SCA demo that was part of a much larger weekend  long Renaissance Faire. I have not always enjoyed demos  in the past, however, because of the large crowd at this event, there were a lot of people who stopped by to watch us make beads!



Because the crowd was so large, we roped off the front of my pop up to prevent people, and the many children who were in attendance, from getting too close to the fire.

I was also pleased that remembered to bring a picture of a reproduction early period bead kiln with me. This visual helped when I was explaining to people that while we were using modern tools to make our beads, the basic method we used was the same one that people used in earlier times.

Sunday, September 14, 2014

River War 2014


I first learned how to make glass beads at River Wars, two years ago, so this event is somewhat of an anniversary for me! We had a bead making artisans row space again, which was good. Although the windy weather made bead making difficult at first, it calmed down later enough for us to let some people try to make beads.

Erica, Bruni, and Erlan (not pictured, Elizabeth and Aurddreilen)
I was asked twice today about how beads were made in period. I was able to describe the kilns that were used, but I did not have pictures with me, which is something I think I want to bring with me to demo's in the future. Below are a few videos of people working with reconstructed period bead kilns. Two basic types of kilns have been reconstructed by reenactors.

1) Volcano Kiln: opening at the top (this is the type of Kiln Bruni and I attempted at Pennsic)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIreddPywfU&list=PLXBSIh9PcqLK96Ex09aPZCmnDjvnfKnl3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EBvkz3IWUA&list=PLXBSIh9PcqLK96Ex09aPZCmnDjvnfKnl3&index=5

2) Beehive Kiln: side opening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HSFgO8TzxVs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cniQ9VStwTM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BCYdD5trNys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0tUBowpqlw

Friday, September 12, 2014

Phoenician Beads

I found some nice pictures of Phoenician Beads online and have been playing around with making a few. I love the color combinations on these beads. I will have to make a necklace of these some day.


Edit (November 11th): Additional links to historic beads from the Corning Museum (a more authoritative source!)



I started out looking at European Celtic/Iron Age Beads (so I could have an excuse to practice and play with stacked dots), but found the Phoenician beads which were similar in design/color. A line in Lois Dubin's History of Glass Beads book notes that the Phoenician beads were traded around and they ended up influencing the Celtic designs. However,  I have to order the book on Interlibrary Loan to trace down her reference, as I just have a photocopy of that page. The face bead, on the other hand, just looked like fun, and I have not tried much sculptural bead making yet.

Edit: Dec 22nd-- Some background on the Phoenicians and Phoenician glass making

The Phoenician's is a more modern historical term for the people who settled on the cost of the Mediterranean where modern day Lebanon is (along with parts of Israel and Syria) by about 3000 BCE.  Through the second and first millennium, they expanded their influence, sailing, trading, and setting up colonies across the Mediterranean, and as far away as Spain. Early in its history the area of Phoenicia had commercial ties to Egypt, and it was also a tributary to Egpyt, until Egypt lost control of the region in  the 14th century BCE (Britannica).

It is from Egypt that the Phoenicians learned about glass making, and they were able to set up their own glass industry due to an abundance of the necessary raw materials, such as sand which contained a large quantity of quartz in it, along with good sources of soda, either from Egypt's soda (Natron) lakes, or by using the ash from local saltwater plants. Glassmaking factories were set up in Tyre and Sidon, two Phonecian cities, and it is there that the first transparent glass was made. Unlike the Egyptians, for whom glass was a luxury good, the Phoenicians produced enough glass to sell it at a lower price and to trade it all over the Mediterranean world  (Herm, 77-80). Evidence for this trade in raw glass and finished products can be found in correspondence from Egypt and from shipwrecks, such as the Ulu Burun (Markoe, 156).

One style of decorated Phoenician beads were their eye beads, composed of dots stacked on top of each other either raised, or melte din flush with the base bead. The eye motif was found in Egypt Egyptian glass during the second millennium, and it also appeared in Phoenician beads in the later part of the second and the first millennium (Simone and Gennett, 24). Much later, in the late 7th century BCE, the Phoenecians began to create glass pendants in teh shape of demon masks, animals, and male and female heads. These "head beads" were also used as protective talismans on necklaces much as were the earlier and simpler eye beads (Markoe, 157).

Sources: 
Phoenicia: Historical Region, Asia- Encyclopedia Britannica Online
Phoenicians- Glenn E Markoe
The Phoenicians- Gerhard Herm
Simone and Gennett, (Spring 2013). "Tracing Eye Beads Through Time" The Flow. p. 24-26

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

ASO Article- The Social Meaning of Anglo-Saxon Glass Beads

I submitted an article to the East Kingdom A&S Newsletter.  The information in the article came from research included in the documentation for several of the A&S entries  have entered into competitions thus far. The idea to explore the social meaning of Anglo-Saxon glass beads came from a comment left at one of my A&S displays encouraging me to include a bit of this type of information in my documentation.

http://eastkingdomgazette.org/2014/09/01/newest-issue-of-ars-scientia-orientalis-available/

Monday, September 1, 2014

Metalsmiths Symposium 2014

This year at MSS I did a lot of one-on-one teaching at the bead bar. I also signed up to teach two classes. One was the same class I taught at Pennsic this year, the other was an Anglo-Saxon Glass Bead Roundtable. The full class description for this is below.

A few organizational thoughts about the bead bar:
1. I should label all my tools. Things get shared around, which is great, but I want to get it all back at the end!
2. I forget where I first saw this done, but I've been putting masking tape  on the end of a mandrel after a new person has made a bead, and writing their name on the tape. This is SO incredibly helpful, and it makes sure everyone gets the bead that they have made.
3. I think i want to have some different color frit out next time for new people to play with, as that is the easiest way of decorating a bead that I know of, and would not really require me teaching them any new skills (such as shaping and stringer work).

A few thoughts about teaching one-on-one
1. I think i should turn the flame up a bit higher than i have been doing for new people. It will be easier for them to get the glass to melt and to make sure it stays melted as the wind on the bead.
2. When teaching younger children, I think it helps for me to participate with them in making a bead the first time, by either twirling the mandrel or applying the glass. I think having to only worry about one hand at a time will make it easier for them to learn.


Erica and I at the bead bar at MSS


Anglo-Saxon Glass Beads: An Overview and Resource Round Table
Lady Elysabeth Underhill
This session will begin with a very brief overview of what the instructor has learned about Anglo-Saxon glass beads. The projects the instructor has completed and the resources she has gathered will be discussed and shared with attendees. After this introduction, others are invited to share their own resources and knowledge regarding Anglo-Saxon glass beads. Attendees can then look in more detail at the instructor’s resources, and the class can take some time to discuss how certain beads were made. We can then retire to the bead bar for hands on demonstration, if desired.





Monday, August 18, 2014

Maunche Beads

A member of my household asked if I could make a Maunche bead after seeing one made by another bead artisan. I didn't know, so i tried, and below are a few of the results. These were made at Pennsic. I've given a few to close friends/household members, and kept one for myself.


 













Oh, and if you stumble upon this blog entry, and want to purchase one, go to Heart of Oak Crafts on Etsy . This is the person I first saw making these beads.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Pennsic A&S

Artisans Row
There were two days of glass bead making at the Pennsic Artisan's Row this year. Below are pictures from the first day, where Bruni and I spent the whole day making beads, and where I got to share documentation with people!



Arts and Sciences Display



 



Bead Kiln
Using Bruni's extensive knowledge of pottery, and some research articles we found (particularly this one, and the citation mentioned in this online article), we made an experimental bead kiln. After talking with Bruni, I've included a few thoughts below, but hopefully we will get more written about this later!




From Bruni I learned about building with clay. We used coils, which was a common period method, and we scored the coils to get them to stick to each other better. The article listed above discussed another person's experimental bead kiln, where they used clay, straw, and sand. We included some straw and sand in our kiln, but not as much as the article suggested, so that is something to play with in the future. When making the hole in the side of the kiln to blow air into, we extended that small pipe into the center of the kiln. This was a suggestion made by a camp member, so that the kiln would heat evenly. During our previous try at kiln building, the side of the kiln with the air hole got hotter than the other side, and cracked.



We dried the kiln for several days before firing it. I learned that firing wet clay causes it to pop and shatter. Our bead kiln popped once or twice when we fired it (Pennsic was damp!), but it held up pretty well.  We added coal (with no lighter fluid). Once we got a fire going, we used an air mattress blower to increase the heat. This worked, and the kiln was able to soften the glass (which you see above).  It did not get as molten as when using a torch, but it was definitely soft, and that is enough. The air mattress blower worked to increase the heat of the kiln, but it was a definitely too strong (even holding it at a distance from the air hole). A bellows, or manual air pump would be better.



This is me trying to make a bead. Next time, adding more coal and letting the fire heat up for longer (as well as getting a more regular source of air flow into the kiln) might help get the glass a bit softer, making it easier to shape and work. I don't think the bead held onto enough heat to let me shape it much outside the kiln.


The finished bead. Coil marks are still visible, but they are also still visible on some extant beads I have seen. I had to use cutters to cut the piece if glass off the rod, as the kiln was not hot enough for me to flame cut the glass rod as I would do with a torch. If we can get the Kiln just a bit hotter, using a better air source and more coal, I think this will work well.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Figment Necklace

This necklace was made by request to match the colors of Figment, a Disney character. It will be worn with a viking dress of similar colors. The colors are purple, orange, and pink. It contains annular beads, and lobed/melon beads, both very generic period beads. The larger focal beads are inspired by several types of Hiberno-Norse beads.





Thursday, July 17, 2014

Class Notes: Making Period Glass Beads as a Beginner

At Pennsic this year I am teaching a class called "Making Period Glass Beads as a Beginner."

Class Description: Creating historically accurate glass beads is not as hard as you might think. You can make period beads at any skill level! Resources and strategies will be shared with attendees in this lecture/discussion class to help get you on the path to making beads that you can enter in A&S displays and competitions. We will discuss good starting points and first projects. The instructor will use her knowledge of Anglo-Saxon glass beads as an example, and share research and projects that others are invited to use and make their own. This class is appropriate for beginning bead makers and intermediate bead makers who have not done much research into period beads or entered their beads into A&S competitions before. Experienced bead makers are invited to attend to discuss their own first projects and to share additional resources and strategies


You can read my complete notes for this class by clicking on this link: Class Notes.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Stuff for Colin

Colin asked me to make 12 beads that he and Marion could use on the palm coronets they are making for Iron Bog's court at Pennsic. Below are the beads I made him, in Iron Bog's colors of black and white. These didn't need to be super special or even "period" (the theme of their court is a luau!), so i used the opportunity to practice some bead design techniques I've seen in modern lampworking books.




Also, about a year ago,  I had made a few beads with a version of the Iron Bog heraldic charge (because Colin asked, and so he could use them as favors). However, I was never truly happy with them, because I did not have a bead press to help me make a nicely shaped bead with a large flat surface that I could easily draw on. I have since bought a bead press, and I'm much happier with this version of the bead. It made things soooo much easier!


Wednesday, July 2, 2014

40 Beads for Bhakail's Gift Basket




Beads given to Bhakail for the Royal's Gift Basket Challenge.

These beads were actually all ones that were left over from other projects! The beads are all reasonably good. Some of them were left over from A&S projects I've been working on because they have minor design flaws. In other cases, the bead was just not quite what I was looking for (the bead was the wrong color, not large enough, too small, the design elements were too close together, or to far apart, etc.).  It is a happy thing that I can put these beads to good use in this challenge.

Friday, June 27, 2014

Recreation of Birte Brumann's Bead Typology

One of my long term projects has been to replicate each bead from Birte Brugmann's book, Glass Beads from Early Anglo-Saxon Graves, and in the process try to come to understand her study and the typology she created. I also wanted to learn more also how bead styles evolved over time during the Anglo-Saxon period. In the end, I was able to replicate all but one bead from her typology to my satisfaction. My summarization of her chronology in the documentation below is very much simplified from her book (her book can be very complex and detailed at times!!) but, it helped me to achieve my goal of realizing some general trends. The documentation includes close up pictures of all of the beads I made as part of this project.

Link to Documentation


Below is a chart showing most of the Anglo-Saxon beads that Brugmann identified in her typology. This chart orders the beads by decoration type and by time period. The chart itself comes from Brugmann's book. I have attached my recreated beads over the pictures of extant beads she used.



Brugmann's Original Chart



Thursday, June 19, 2014

Teaching Lampworking- one-on-one

Below are some notes for  teaching  people to do lampworking for the first time. I'm primarily using this to help gather my thoughts. What is below represents, for me, the idea introductory session. However, the session outlined below would take a good bit of time, and in a demo session, someone may not want to stick around that long, or there may be a line of people waiting to try.

Overall, my goal is to get students making beads quickly and simply as possible, so they can see how fun and easy it is. However, I also want them to be successful (so they will want to do it again!) A one-on-one lesson like this would not include a lot of history or background, unless the student asks questions.

I plan to modify this document over time as I learn more about teaching.

1. Discussion of Recommended Attire:
  • Safety Glasses: To protect against flying glass (glass can shock if it is heated up to quickly). IMO, regular safety glasses will do if someone is just learning, though at some point I may want to let the students look through my glasses, so they can see what things are like with the soda flare removed. I have regular glasses to lend
  • No loose clothing or hair
  • Clothing with natural fibers is highly recommended, as are long sleeves. I have fire resistant arm guards I can share if needed. I also purchased a leather apron that students can use after seeing a friend use one to teach beads.
  • Close toed shoes are recommended.
2. Safety: Since we are playing with fire, this is very important to discuss!
  • Fire is hot. You may get a small burn (think cooking), but, if we are careful we should be just fine.  I have aloe gel if anything happens.
  • Do not get up out of your seat with the torch still on. If you  need to suddenly get up, just turn the torch off at any point, by turning the knob to the left.
  • Do not reach above the torch, or across it in front of you. If the student needs something they can't reach, I can help them get it.
  • Pay attention to where you put your glass rod and other tools, and remember they will be hot if you have used them. Always point the hot end of the glass rod or tools away from yourself. Even better, use a glass rod rest.
  • If small pieces of glass chip off your glass rod, that is normal, don't let it startle you too much. If a large piece of glass should fall off, don't pick it up (it is likely to be hot). If something lands on you, just brush it off (this is why we want natural fibers in our clothing).
  • When making a bead, if the bead feels like it is not sticking to the mandrel, stop immediately, and put the mandrel down on the metal tray, or dunk it in the small glass of water we have off to the side.
Note: Everything I have students do from this point in, I will talk through, demonstrate, and then have them do.

3. Review tools (in addition to glasses, discussed above)
  • Torch head
  • Mapp Gass
  • Clamp for torch to attach it safely to the table
  • heat proof surface for infront of the torch.
  • Glass rods
  • Mandrels coated in bead release.
  • Marver for shaping the bead
  • Fire extinguisher (just incase)

 4. Getting a feel for the glass/pulling stringer
  • Turn the torch on (have students practice this)
  • Take a full length rod of glass (preferably one very noticeably changes color when hot (like yellow) and introduce the middle of it high into the flame. Talk about why we start high in the flame (to heat the glass slowly so it doesn't shock and crack). Talk about the need to rotate the rod constantly for even heating.
  • Once the rod starts to change color, slowly move the rod down closer to the flame (just above the inner blue cone), continuing to rotate it. Discuss the color change in the glass that occurs as it heats up. Tell students not to put glass in the blue part of the flame, stay an inch or two above that.  They will know if they are working too low in the flame, because the flame hisses (demonstrate this). Glass can discolor if worked too low in the flame.
  • While the part of the glass in the flame gets hot, glass is a poor conductor, so the rod itself remains cold.
  • Once the glass is molten (where it starts to sag and move on its own), you can push and pull the ends of the glass rod slightly to get a feel for what the molten glass feels like.
  • Before the glass gets too hot, take the rod out of the flame (towards or away???), let it firm up a bit (its color will change back), and then put it back in the flame, and repeat the above process (a few times if desired). You an always take the glass out of the heat briefly if it gets to wobbly, or you need a few moments to think and reset yourself.
  • Hold the rod in the flame until a small ball of glass forms in the middle (the ends of the rods can be pushed slightly in to help this).
  • Move the rod in front of the torch (towards or away???), count to 3, and then pull slowly but firmly on both rods (don't pull too fast!). Watch the class stretch out, become thin, and then cool. Congratulations, you have pulled your first stringer. We use these to add decoration to beads.  Over time, and through practice, you will learn how to reliably make stringers of different thicknesses and lengths. This is also just one way to make stringers, there are others. Repeat a few more times.

4. Practice rotating the mandrel without fire!
  • The mandrel is usually held in the non dominant hand, and glass is added with the dominant hand.
  • Put the mandrel in the students hand in an overhand grip ( to me, this grip feels more secure for something that will be constantly rotated). Have them practice turning the mandrel away from them. It should be don relatively slowly! Rotating too fast wont let enough heat sink into the bead to shape it.
  • Put a glass rod in the dominant hand in an underhanded grip (this grip allows the hand to be place perpendicular to the mandrel when adding glass, this will result in better beads in the long run). Have the student rotate the rod back and forth (it does not have to rotate around in a circle, both sides of the rod just have to be heated.
  • Then do both of the above at the same time.

6. Making a small bead (do this a few times)
  • Turn on torch (can do this for the student at the start)
  • Introduce the end of the glass rod high into the flame. Once the glass is glowing, slowly bring it down in the flame and heat it up as demonstrated in section three, making sure to keep rotating it.
  • The glass should begin to form a small ball, and it should have a consistent glow.
  • While the ball on the end of the glass rod is forming, pick up the mandrel (with bead release on it- so the glass does not stick to the bead), and preheat it by putting it in the flame above the glass rod for about 10 seconds (rotating it gently). The mandrel needs to be hot for the glass to stick (demonstrate it not sticking) However, the metal is thin and not a great conductor, so the end of the mandrel you are holding will stay cool.  
  • Once the mandrel is preheated, turn glass rod perpendicular to the mandrel. Position the mandrel right outside the flame (towards the back of the flame)
  • Have the tip of the glass rod pass through the flame and touch the mandrel gently. Just the tip! As it touches, pull the rod back very slightly and rotate the mandrel away from you slowly. Try to make a complete circle with the glass you have melted. We leave the rod in the flame as we do this so the glass stays soft and continues to melt. There should be a small triangle of molten glass between the bead you are winding and the glass rod (think fiber drafting triangle).
  • Once a complete circle has been made, continue to turn the bead away from you slowly, but also stretch the glass rod back slightly towards you to thin the stream of glass out. If the glass stiffens and you can't pull it this way, just leave the glass in the fire for a second or two until it gets molten again, and then resume turning and pulling. Eventually the stream of glass should be thin enough to break. Put the glass rod down, hot part away from you or on the glass rod rest.
  • The bead is bumpy now, but we can smooth it out in the flame. Continue rotating the bead away from you but move it into the flame. If the bead gets too hot and wobbly, just bring it higher in the flame, or slightly outside the flame to cool it down. Rotate until the bead is mostly round, glass wants to be round, so the bead will even out a good bit. Also, remember,  this is a hand made item, and your first bead, so it wont be perfect, but don't worry about that!
  • Bring the bead higher up in the flame until it is just barely glowing, while continuing to turn  (flame annealing- we are brining the temperature down slowly).
  • I can then turn the torch off for the student. And we can put the bead to anneal (cool down slowly so it does not later crack).
6. Shaping the Beads (show barrel shape only, gives a  larger decorating surface. Can discuss more shapes later in advanced lessons.)
  • Demonstrate rolling the bead into a barrel shape.
  • Glass must be hot to shape it. Don't try touching the bead to the marver unless its glowing (it wont do anything).
  • Touching the bead with anything cools it, so you have a limited amount of working time.
  • If it doesn't work at first, you can always heat the bead and try again.
7. Applying dots with the stringer you made.
  • Never put stringer in the flame
  • Have bead to the back of the flame, the stringer on the side of the flame (show students how it will melt there!).
  • Heat slightly and then touch the stringer with the bead, press a little bit, and then pull back, and cut the little stringer that forms off in the flame. 

Monday, June 16, 2014

Teaching Notes

This past weekend my peer held a small workshop day at her home so I could practice teaching a few friends about making glass beads.  Below are some thoughts from the day about what I learned about teaching, or what worked well.

Notes:
  • I used a teaching technique I learned last Pennsic to good effect to help someone get better at pulling stringers. The idea is to teach a student to pull stringer by having them apply heat to the middle of a full glass rod. Have the student push in slightly on both ends to form a small glass ball, and then have them remove the stringer from the heat, count to three and pull. This method works better than the commonly taught method of using pliers in one hand. It can be hard to get a grip on the glass with pliers, adding an unnecessary complication to learning a new task. I also think that having the same thing (a glass rod) in both hands feels more even, and thus and helps people to pull more evenly and comfortably.
  • When trying to apply stringer students tend to, without instruction, stick the stringer directly in the heat (likely b/c that is what they do with the glass rod). As a result its imp. to demonstrate how just the side of the flame can melt the stringer enough to apply w/o it getting too molten. Also, stringer from transparent glass may be easier for people to learn with, because it is firmer than opaque glass.
  • When teaching people, I also try to have them hold the glass in there hand like a pencil, and to turn the glass perpendicular to the torch once it is heated and apply the glass that way. I learned this from a mundane glass book. One of the people I was teaching made an interesting comment about this method, when I asked her how this change felt. She said that it felt more like she was applying the glass, and less like the glass was applying itself to the rod!
  • Also, another interesting lesson learned. When working with someone who is ambidextrous, have them hold the glass I the hand they write with. Because of the pencil like grip  I have students use, this position felt less natural to the person learning when they used the hand they did not write will. This actually made it much harder for her. Once we switched hands, things worked much better.
  • Good materials are so very important to the enjoyment of glass bead making. Bad bead release, or glass rods that shatter a lot (Devardi Glass!) can be a problem. We had both of these issues this past weekend. When teaching, I should continue to look for these problems and if needed substitute my materials for the materials the students are using (if they have their own kit) so that learning can occur in the best possible way.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Modern Earrings- Silvered Ivory Stringer


Another attempt at modern earrings. These beads feature the use of Silvered Ivory Stringer, a modern bead "trick" which produces the silvery mottled effect you see on the decoration.

To make the silvered ivory string, heat the tip of an ivory glass rod in the flame and then cover the tip of the rod with a small piece of silver foil by rolling the rod on the piece of foil (the foil, which should be placed on a heat proof surface, will stick easily to the hot glass rod). Burnish so the foil adheres to the glass. Introduce the rod back into the flame. The silver will burn away, but it will chemically react with the ivory glass as it does. Pull a stringer as normal, and apply decoration. Note that the silver stringer is a bit fragile, and will break more easily than normal glass stringers.

These earnings were given as gifts to a non SCA friend:)

Thursday, June 5, 2014

May-Be, May 2014

Demonstrating and teaching glass bead making in Iron Bog at their May-be Event.