lamp·work·ing   (lmpwûrkng)

n.

The process of sculpting glass by twirling thin rods of colored glass over a gas-oxygen burner.

The above definition is essentially correct.  It lacks almost everything that makes the process
challenging and creative and fun, but strictly speaking, it is correct.

Can you rub your belly and pat your head?

Can you do those things while rotating a stick in the fingers of one hand, and reaching for tools with the other (keep up the patting...)

Can you do all this while avoiding the heat of the blowtorch someone set in your lap?

You can?  Wow!

You could be a very fine lampworker!

Congratulations!

Lampworking is a creeping obsession and an instant gratification fix for those of us creative types that are closet pyromaniacs.  Lampworkers work in a flame of some sort, historically a wicked lamp, hence the name "lampworker."   Current lampworkers use a torch, generally burning an oxygen/propane mix, which means you are working in something like a blowtorch.  This requires lots of attention, eye protection, ventilation, and sometimes Band-Aids, but working in the hot flame is very cool!

Lampworking is the process of taking cold hard shiny rods of exotically colored glass and melting it, molding it, wrapping it around a coated rod and forming it, shaping it and fussing over it, rotating and decorating and layering it, until some creative area of the brain clicks in and says DONE!

After that, lampworkers wait.  The kiln anneals the glass (so it is molecularly stable and won't just explode unexpectedly from the stressful heat adventure it has had recently... always a bad thing) and that takes a while.  Overnight for me.

Of course that means I get to wake up to BRAND NEW BEADS!

Something never before seen in the universe that will be here long after I am gone (glass is almost indestructible... ask an archeologist!) is waiting for me.  Now that's a reason to get out of bed!  Christmas morning nearly every day.  What more could a fifty year old woman ask for?

Then there is the admiring; the soaking and the cleaning and the fondling that this all requires.  Colorful, shiny, cool and sensuous glass.  And I just made it into this delightful shape all on my very own; radio playing classics or jazz, all alone in my studio, just me and the muse, the torch and the glass... HEAVEN!

The absolute best part about it?  (Aside from the bead making dreams where everything works vibrantly and magically and nothing ever cracks and the glass never boils or slumps or gets those scummy looking overcooked places on it... nevermind....) The best part?

I can do it again.  And again, and again, and again.  I can walk this road of molten rainbows as long as I want and go wherever it takes me.

If I spent every moment, for the rest of my life, I would not be able to try to do all the creative techniques and variations that pull me like the tide under a full moon.  Yet I know they are there.  Waiting and inspiring.

And I can't wait to try!

That's Lampworking!

Left:  This is what it looks like when I don my rose-colored-glasses, pack up tools and glass and head out to the local fair to demonstrate bead making on a Hothead torch.   Talk about fun... Wow!

Right:  My GTT Lynx, the torch I use at home!