Lampworking (also known as flameworking) is an ancient glass art mastered by Italians in Murano. A glass rod is slowly introduced into a flame and melted around a mandrel (steel rod).

Then, merging it with other colored glass for decoration and final shaping creates a bead.

In addition to beads I also work ‘freehand’ in the flame to create pieces such as an ornament, goddess or pendant.  Once finished, my pieces are annealed in a kiln to slowly cool and reduce the stress in the glass molecules.

Glass fusing is the process of using a kiln to melt and fuse together several pieces of glass. After planning a design, I cut and shape various pieces of colored sheet glass. In my pendants I fuse 3 - 4 layers and encase the dichroic glass  with clear glass , or in some cases colored translucent glass, to really capture the color and magnify the effect.  After layering the pieces together I slowly heat and soften the glass until it becomes fluid and flows together. Two or more pieces of glass will fuse to each other and the resulting glass piece will be solid and unbroken. Each final draft of my fused glass pieces has been hand shaped. (Apparently I'm making my circle shapes too perfect since someone recently questioned this!)

Read More About Dichroic Glass

The Mysteries of Dichroic Glass