Category — beads

So it’s Spring now. The change in weather here in Brisbane, has been noticeably warmer in the last week, which I really love. Now I feel like tossing off the doona and going for a run. I love how the warm weather just makes you want to run around outside So with all this new energy, I’ve been spring cleaning the house, my desk, my jewellery desk and my mind. It’s a messy task (and a big one at that) but it feels so cleansing! So today I won’t show you pictures of my disorganised desks or the inner workings of my mind, instead I’ll show you the collection of hollows that I made over Winter.

I’ve been on the hollow band wagon for a while now and I’m really loving making them.  Since watching Italian glass artist Andrea Guibelli make his blown hollows in Murano, I’ve been making them since! I don’t think I’ll be stopping any time soon either. (I have to say, the cubed hollows are my favourite!)

Oh wow, where did the time go? May was the last time I wrote? I’ll just slink over into the corner of the room and quickly bash out a post for you guys, yeah? Yes, bad girl.

I just had to have a quick look into my diary to find out what my lame excuse for not writing will be. I’m glad to announce that I have proof that I was too busy to sit and write a post. Let me provide the evidence, your honour:

The downstairs part of our house is now officially a construction zone. We are building in downstairs, adding in a couple of bedrooms and an art room for Ced & I to get creative and messy in. Of course, before any major renovation job you have to run around like a chook without it’s head first. Run to the hardware store, the window place, the timber floor place, the tile place - all with a pen behind the ear, a clipboard and a measuring tape. Then it’s meeting with the builder, lighting people and floor people, and plus all the phonecalls that have to be made. The major preparation part is over now and the work has begun, thankfully. Renovating your house = no weekend play time.

But I mustn’t complain too much. The builder is going to do one very, very important job for me. He’s going to build me a work studio, including the ventilation. Yesss! I had to work out all the specifications, the measurements of the desk and hood, phone fan and ventilation experts and work out the maths required to ventilate the room. Whew. It was hard at first but once I got it, it was easy. Any other Australian glass bead makers setting up their ventilation? Get in touch with Fantech as well as read up at Mike’s site..

Then the really fun stuff started. Sarah Hornik came to Brisbane to teach classes. Yay, it was so cool to see Sarah again. It was great to show her Australia and watch her take photos of the funny stuff we take for normal everyday things. Like biscuit packets :\ . It was also really cool to meet all the glass bead makers that made it up to Brisbane to do her classes. I was heading up to Redcliffe and Virginia some nights to join the class for dinner. I met so many glass people - it was fun meeting my on-line glass friends in the flesh.

Me, Sally and Sharon took Sarah out to as many scenic places as humanly possible. We took her to the zoo, to the Gold Coast, to Eumundi on the north coast and to the city and the valley. And then after her teaching work, Sarah came to stay with me for a bit. It was fun having her in the house, though I had to work so I couldn’t hang out with her like we did in Murano. But it was still cool hanging out with Sarah

After a sad goodbye at the airport, Sarah left Aus to go home. Ced and I then worked really hard to move all our belongings from downstairs, upstairs. We finished it all in one day - boy were we knackered after that. But it was good to get it done as we ended up taking a truck load of rubbish to the dump too. Oh how cleansing that felt. And the reason why we had to get it done in one day was because the builders started work on our house the very next morning! :@ Lucky Sarah had left when she did as the builders started jack hammering at 7am!

I also have done two lots of glass classes. One set with Peter Minson and the other with Bernard Stonor. Peter’s classes were first and they were excellent. I got lots of pro tips from him, like holding yourself and how to hold the glass, and how to move yourself so you conserve energy. I got a few “a-ha” moments in the class too which is always good :). We got to play with boroscilicate glass and blowing beads! That was loads of fun. I would like to try that again sometime.

Bernard Stonor’s classes were also excellent, as we worked through some advanced techniques in soft glass. We made murrini, marbles, blown vessels and sculpture. It was masses of fun. There were loads of cool people in the class, a great mix of some I’d never met before and some old friends. And Bernie was good fun too. Thanks to Tracy “Wildlight” Brown for organising it. I think the most fun day was the marble day. Even though the marbles I made are perfectly round (Okay, more like dried prunes than round :p) it was just brilliant to extend myself and try something completely different than I’d do at home. Peter’s boro class was like that too. It was great fun and I can’t wait to see what I make after this.

So there you have it, all my excuses Now things have calmed down around here I can focus on friends, family and beads. Hopefully I‘ll have some photos to show soon.

Yep, that’s what has been keeping me preoccupied lately. A new torch and a oxygen concentrator. I’m pretty happy with that. I am really playing with big fire now. The Airsep oxycon sits in the laundry next to the gas tank - I have named them George (full of gas) and Mildred (full of air) because they look so cute together. And their big bad child is my new Bethlehem Barracuda torch, Bazza. Bazza and I are getting to know each other, taking it really slow because, christ almighty crikey, he is one hot boy! I have to give him all my attention while I’m beading as I feel like I’m relearning how to make bead all over again!

So we’re like one big happy family downstairs. George and Mildred sit behind me, Mildred making the most noise out of the two but I just tune her out after awhile, and Bazza and I keeping each other warm Dawww it’s so cute! (Don’t tell my boyf though! LoL!)

Saturday 5th April - Class-free day!

From my diary…

Wow, I really needed this day. I have been feeling weary. Not tired as such, yes I had been putting up with less and less sleep but the excitement of each day was keeping me awake and stopping me from feeling tired or sleepy. But I felt an inner weariness. A part of me was looking forward to heading home. Not that I wanted to be there, I really didn’t want it to end, I just needed a break to absorb everything I was seeing, doing and learning. Murano is a great place to do a glass course – the inspiration and the learning is fantastic! I highly recommend a trip there for any glass bead maker. Even if you are there for a 3 day class. Just make sure you factor in some free days so that you can hit the shops and be inspired by the Muranese artists.

I stayed in bed until lunch time - ahhh decadence! No, really, I sit in my bed with my laptop uploading photos and my blog! I eventually head out to start my day. First up - coffee. The sun is shining, the tourists are out en-masse and I’m smiling ‘cos I’m free.

After coffee, I hit the ATM until it can give me no more money. Today is a shopping day, so I’m not mucking around I decide to go to the glass museum next. Get a bit of culture! On the way there I stop at Andrea Guibelli’s shop. He’s busy, flat out making hollow bead after hollow bead. I interrupt him to buy a black hollow bead bracelet. I say my farewell to him so that he can get back to his work. He has pages and pages of orders and bags and bags of hollow beads ready to send off. Man, he is busy.

The Glass Museum (Museo Vetrario) is very good and interesting with very early glass pieces, but I would have liked to have seen more info on their tools. The shop in the museum is worth looking at. They have all sorts of glass objects and jewellery are for sale. The jewellery is mostly, if not all, made by Marina and Susanna Sent. These Muranese sisters make really nice modern glass beads and jewellery - worth checking out. Also, I bought a book about glass on Murano called “Comprehensive guide to the island of Murano” by Michela and Nicolo Scibilia. This book is worth picking up while visiting Murano especially if you are into glass. It has loads of info and addresses of the glass maestros and companies.

Next I head back for the apartment for lunch, but stop in at Davide Penso’s shop. He’s in his shop today and also there are 3 ladies from the US there. They’re here for classes with Lucio Bubacco, so we meet and have a chat. Davide is very interesting to talk to and I’m curious about his classes. If, or when, I get back to Murano, I will do a class with him. In his class he focuses on the business side of glass bead making too, as well as bead making. On Murano, glass is a business and not so much a hobby or craft like a lot of us here in Australia have it as. He said to me, “You cannot make 3 beads an hour, you have to make a bead every 5 minutes otherwise you are doing something wrong.” This piece of conversation, along with another one I had later today, showed me that glass bead making is not a hobby or part-time craft here in Murano. It’s a business and the business will run through the family. To me, that’s definitely a good point for doing a class with Davide Penso.

After lunch, it was more shopping time : ) I headed out to see Diego Bottocin (spelling, someone please?) of “CriDi Snc”. CriDi stands for Cristine and Diego, his sister girlfriend. They’re on the main glass street of Fondamenta Vetrai, 116. I had actually been in that shop 2 years earlier, before I knew about lampworking, and had been admiring some ivory coloured beads of theirs. I really regretted not buying anything from that shop back then, but today I had my chance. Diego has a modern style to his work. Mainly with transparents over opaques in different styles. He’s also very good at making rings. So if you visit his shop, make sure you buy a ring. I bought 2. One is red that has been cold worked (designs ground into it after the bead has cooled.) And one ivory one with reactive colours and shapes on it. I also bought a set of ivory earrings that had also been cold worked to look kind of like golf balls. Diego was there and he remembered me from his visit to the studio and we had a quick chat. Nice guy.

I was happy with my little stash of glass, so headed out to run an errand for Mike Frantz that I almost forgot about. Mike asked Marianne and I to drop off a Frantz Art Glass sweater and other things to the glass maestro Davide Salvadore the day he left Murano. I was on my own today, Marianne and Sharon had hit Venice shopping, but it was the end of the day and I hoped to run into them so we could all go to see Davide. We were hoping to also get to see his murrini and other amazing glass work.

But I was on my own and headed out to Davide’s workshop, which incidentally was the same building as where Marianne and I were staying in the first week. So it was easy to find, but I doubted that anyone would be there as it was around 5pm on a Saturday. I buzzed a couple of times and then eventually the door opened. I was greeted by an Italian version of David Beckham - Riccardo Ferro. Nice. I asked for Davide and he showed me in - Davide was in the courtyard - swaying. I had arrived after a long boozy lunch and these two guys were relaxed! Luckily they spoke abit of English so I was able to explain why I was there giving them things. They were very nice and invited me in for a coffee and a bit of grappa - hmm.

Anyway, I asked about Davide’s glass work and Riccardo took me to another room and showed it to me. Wow! This stuff was very cool. It looks like hollow instruments with an African theme. There is murrini in them, beads hanging off them and alot of cold work done to them to accentuate them. I found out that Riccardo is a cold glass worker and that he actually did the cold work on my ring and earrings - cool! He’s also done abit of fusing with Davide’s glass leftovers so there were a couple of pieces there were very unique and look amazing with the light behind them. He was definitely proud of his work, and he had every right to be. I was so happy to be seeing all their work - it really was amazing. This room is not open to the public, so I’m glad I was forward and asked to see it. There must have been thousands of dollars worth of glass in that room. No photos though!

I invited them back to our studio as Sarah’s class would have been over. They accepted my invitation and we all hopped into Riccardo’s boat to ride up to our studio. Now for me, this was a great experience to jump into a locals boat and zoom around Murano. Even better was that Riccardo switched on the stereo so we could listen to music as we headed up the canals! One funny thing on Murano is that some guys treat their boats as their cars - they crank up the music and bass so all you hear is the “doof doof doof” as the boat goes by! Just like the cars on the road! Very funny.

So they came up to the studio and Davide did a little demo. Unfortunately there weren’t too many people around so it was a bit subdued. But one thing he did (and I missed seeing) was that he licked his finger and then marvered his bead along it! Yow! Teflon fingers!! I bet he does that to impress the girls : )

Next we got Riccardo onto the torch, but since he’s a cold glass worker, he just played with the glass, sticking bits together. But that’s okay, I have cold work of his so I’m happy. It was just abit of fun.

All up, it was a long day but I loved it. I really was looking forward to my day off and I felt like I crammed it with glass which is exactly how it should’ve been. I was wishing for another day on Murano to see many more places mentioned in the book on Murano from the museum. I seriously will be back!

Friday 4th April

Today is the day Marianne and I pick up the rest of our Carlo Dona tools. We placed an order last week and now it’s time to pick ‘em up! Oh wow, they’re exxy but he’s done a good job on them. Can’t complain and I can’t wait to get to the studio to try them out. Though I have to wait until after class before I can mess with them.

Marianne and I also stop by the Costantini Glass bead shop - this is where they make conteria beads or known as seed beads.  These seed beads have rounded corners, no sharp edges.  We buy a stash of different colours, and Marianne finds a little bag of antique ones - they are so tiny!

Today is Pati’s class - her last day of her masterclass.  Today she makes a whopper of a murrini - a clown fish.  I can’t believe I didn’t take many photos of how she built the fish up!  I have quite a few though of her and Johnny heating up the ball ready to pull - that’s always impressive! Again, a few local beadmakers that she knows come by and watch.   They are really impressed with Pati’s work.  We also work on our aquarium critters and beads.

We head out to Venice for dinner tonight.  We head back to the seafood restaurant with the amazing seafood soup.  The chef comes out to greet Sarah personally (!) and she orders her special vegetarian dish with him.  Wow, that’s special service.   It’s coming to the end of our time on Murano, so everyone swaps addresses.

Sharon and I don’t get home till 1am, but this is okay with me as I’ve got Saturday off.  Yes!  A break day - long overdue I think.  I mean, come on, you can’t bead everyday!  You have to have time to shop!! 

Thursday April 3rd

Pati’s class today. Mmmm…more canes! Anyways, we worked on our gardens, this time I incorporated silver foil into my bead to give it a bit more oomf. It worked. Plus, I’m better at making these beads the second time ’round Pati did a demo of her latticino bead - it’s really pretty. I won one of her latticino beads so I’m happy. It’s really gorgeous.

After lunch, we got a visit from glass maestro Vittorio Constantini! Pati knows him and invited him to come and do a demo for us. (Thanks Pati!!) This guy does unbelievably realistic bugs and fish. He kindly did a demonstration of a butterfly and a seashell. I would recommend anyone visiting Venice to go to his shop in Venice (he’s not based in Murano) as his command of glass is amazing. It was interesting to see him make a butterfly wing. He started making it by building up a blob of clear on the end of a opaque rod (I think lapis blue). He then gave the blog 4 thin swipes of opaque colour. He attached a thick stringer as a punty and then started twisting the punty rod. (To stop and explain it to someone, it was like he was making a twistie but instead of pulling it out long he kept it as a hot blob and spun it on the spot.) He then squeezed out the blob to the shape of a wing and you could see the effect that the 4 swipes of colour had on the wing. Sorry to describe it like this, it’s better to see it in person. I’ve uploaded the photos so maybe it might make a bit more sense there.

Another interesting thing he did was have the butterfly on a thin punty as he worked on it. Lucio did this also when doing his arm demo. Again, this has blown my mind! Gosh, do I sound just like a glass noobie? All you experienced lampworkers probably have seen this all before and are like “Yawn”? Oh well, I have to start somewhere :-D  Vittorio makes a sea shell while waiting for the butterfly to cool down.

Later in the day Johnny O did another boro bead demo. Man, that is so impressive. I’ll never tire of watching him do it. The way he does it is like nothing I do in glass bead making - the steps he takes are completely different. One day, when I grow up I’m gonna play with boro! But I’d like to take a class with Johnny O first!

Marianne, Sharon and I head home after the demo. Our late nights and days of endless adrenalin are starting to catch up with us and we are starting to feel it. We head to the supermarket for food for dinner and ice-cream for dessert. We head back to our place and make dinner and chat. It was nice to sit back and chill for the evening. And the ice-cream sure helped!!

Wednesday 2nd

Again I make it to Carlo Dona’s shop to swap the rod holder over to a stringer holder.  Tove and Susanne make it to Carlo Dona’s too.  After chatting with Roberto, we head over to Bar De Ice for our morning cappuccino.  The sunlight streams into this café in the mornings and it’s lovely to sit and wake up for class here.

Today is day 1 of Pati Walton’s 3-Day Masterclass.  This time around I’m better with the glass.  Actually my attitude to class is changing.  Before I was feeling like a slave to the glass, begging it to behave, puzzling why things wouldn’t work the way I wanted to.  The glass was an enigma to me. But now, the more I watch people work glass the more confident I am with the glass.  I see people telling the glass what to do and the glass behaving.  These classes here in Murano have been worth it, for sure.

This afternoon Dorothy, our Magic sister who is a US lady who lives in Italy, phones up Lucio Bubacco (as you do) and makes an appointment for us all to go over and see him at his studio today.  She tried to get us in after Pati’s class, but he preferred we came in sooner.  So we took a mid afternoon break and took a class excursion to see Lucio.

His studio is well designed and laid out (and warm!).  He is working an instalment of angels which is huge and amazing.  Everywhere you look there is something new to see.  We walk into the next room and find the equivalent for devils and then some more pieces.   We take loads of photos and we are all impressed.  He does a quick demo for us – a lady’s arm wearing a beaded bracelet and holding a rose.  He uses the same rods of glass from Effetre that we use, some are thicker than what I buy it as but he melts and cools the glass and forms the curves of an arm so simply.

His torch is huge and made for him by Carlisle – it’s in the shape of a dragon’s head which is impressive.  This torch he’s able to bring the flame from a huge bushy flame to a small flame.   He does some amazing thing with the rod of glass – making a punty with it but it’s only as thick as fine stringer. This attachment never breaks during the demo.   It’s kind of hard to describe, and I hope I have a photo to show you it.

We leave Lucio’s studio to walk back to our studio but there is a huge thunderstorm brewing.  The wind is whipping at us but no rain yet.  We high tail it back to the studio just in time.  Laura from Vetrofond comes for a visit today too, bringing her daughter and a friend.  We all settle back into our masterclass with Pati again and I get my garden bead finished.  I spill my after class beer over my rods and stringer.  Argh.

Tonight is another night at home rather than Venice.  I hit the supermarket before it shuts and run into Indie too.  The storm is well over and the sunset is bringing out some beautiful pinks on the old Murano buildings.  Indie and I stop at various points on the way home to take photos.  Daylight savings is a little weird at first but it’s definitely has its good points.

(PS. For the reason behind the “carrot” joke you might read about on other people’s blogs/comments - see the Lucio photos…when I post them up.)