Sunday, June 20, 2010

All fired up

I'm all excited about beading again. After years of waiting, I finally have the opportunity: I'm taking an introduction to lampworking at a new glass studio here in Ottawa: The Glass Shoppe Studio.

Grace is a wonderful teacher. She is so enthusiastic and encouraging as she shares her skill and love of lampworking with the class. Over the course of three nights, I'm learning the basic techniques that will allow me to create any number of different, beautiful (providing I practice!) beads.

My first beads introduced working with transparent and opaque glass, applying dots and laying a stripe. We also pulled stringers and made a twisty: a stringer made of two colours of glass twisted together.

Working the glass in the flame is so exciting.  You have to focus so intensely on the glass, watching how it is reacting to the flame, in order to be able to control it. Lampworking reminds me of riding my motorcycle in that it demands your full attention - a great escape from the rest of your life.

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