What Is Lamp work?

Lamp work, surprisingly, has almost nothing to do with lamps, other than the fact that lampshades are a common product of lamp work. Lamp work is a technique employed to make glass beads. It takes a great deal of skill to accomplish this. Lamp work beads are created by winding molten glass around copper wires to produce beads. The molten glass is also sometimes worked around a mandrel to create different shapes, add color, and different things to make a unique piece. The unique quality of the beads and their beauty is why this ancient art is still flourishing today, and is being used by many artists in handmade jewelry. The techniques involved in lamp work were in practice to make all sorts of practical things like glass containers and glass tubing for thousands of years before the first lamp was ever created. Depending on the definition one applies to lampworking, a great deal of early glass work can be thought of as lampworking or the parent of lampworking. Tools used by ancient man to create glass objects were simple and crude compared to what artisans use today, but they were effective enough to make objects that would survive the ages to be found by us today.

This was one of the primary techniques of forming utensils our of glass for our very ancient civilizations, but with materials so rare and the process taking so long, these items were usually used for religious ceremonies…which lends them a special significance in history. As with the most expensive crystal today, these ancient pieces of lamp working were owned only by the very wealthy. We have adapted our more modern methods of lampworking from the techniques employed by ancient Egyptians to make their costume jewelry, vases, and other more decorative items. A lot of the lamp work items found from Ancient Egypt are small and highly decorated, as is common for the advanced knowledge of that time period. One thing that was very different about these ancient techniques from the methods we use today is that in ancient times, there was no burner directly involved. The ancient pieces were instead, created using a crude type of furnace that would slowly heat the glass so that it could be molded in to the correct shape for the item that the artist had in mind. The Romans were also involved in lampworking and were responsible for making some crucial changes in its design. The Romans were also responsible for creating the modern technique of glass blowing, which was a result of one of their many experiments with different tools to perfect their lampworking practices.

Glassblowing almost caused the extinction of lampworking. It made it much easier for artists to make very intricate and colorful designs that just could not be achieved with lampworking techniques of the day. In fact, glass blowing dominated the world for over 1,000 years as the method of working with glass. It caused the Italians to be exiled by 1291 because of the fire hazard they were creating with their glassblowing. Lampworking has been revived for the creation of beads and other decorative items with many schools teaching the techniques.

Today, many lampwork artists create beads that are used in handmade jewelry. Many lampwork artists create exceptional work or arts that can be incorporated into handcrafted jewelry.