Jeanne Selep's Selep Imaging Blog: lampwork

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Sunday, August 14, 2011

Marble Madness

contemporary glass marbles by Joe Holford and Frank Scott lampwork

Image 1: Marbles in a milk glass bowl

I have loved and collected marbles since I was a child. Today I thought I would share with you some modern "Artist marbles" that I bought this year at the 2011 Bead Show in Milwaukee Wisconsin. These marbles combine two of my loves - marbles and glass.

contemporary glass marbles by Frank Scott and Joe Holford lampwork

Image 2: Lampwork Marbles - View A

'Artist Marbles' are the name I call marbles created one at a time by contemporary glass artists. These artist marbles are not bargain priced objects, unfortunately. (How I wish they were, sigh...) The artist can spend more then one hour on a single marble, and so these marbles are usually in the two digit price range. I consider each marble a tiny art work, and so I supported artists by purchasing them. Just doing my part to support the economy. (That's what I told my husband....) (In the first photo I have my marbles in a milk glass bowl that I bought at a rummage sale, so there is my thrifty portion of this post...)

contemporary lampwork glass marbles by Joe Holford and Frank Scott

Image 3: Lampwork Marbles - View B

Why are marbles being sold at a bead show? Because many beads are created from glass, and some glass artists also make marbles, lucky for me...

The 10 marbles I bought at the Bead show where the first artist marbles I had bought in a decade or more.

(I probably haven't bought artist marbles since before I had children, and my oldest child is 17.)

It was very exciting for me to see the 'state of the art' glass work which is being done today, some of which you can see in the marbles I bought.

Contemporary glass marble by Joe Holford

Image 4: Lampwork Marble made by Joe Holford

Walking through the show, I could see an explosion of glass talent first hand. I felt I was observing a renaissance of glass creation. Thousands of today's glass artists are creating with the material and energy and knowledge that was unavailable in previous centuries.

Contemporary Lampwork glass marble by Joe Holford

Image 5: 2 views of a Marble (made by Joe Holford)

In the last 1-2 decades, glasswork has become a form of art available to hobbyists. Equipment, specialty glass, and instructors (and even video lessons) have resulted in the number of glass artists exploding. These people, at many different levels of skill, experiment and create glass objects. Glass workers are re-discovering techniques and processes, (glass working has been around since 2000 BC); and experimenting with new ones. Today's glass artists are creating in a new world - a time with access to energy and materials and knowledge unavailable to glass workers of the past.

Here are some example: Working glass requires temperatures from 900-1800 degrees C. In previous centuries, the fuel required to heat glass (mostly wood) competed directly with the fuel needs of people for heat and food. Glass working was sometimes banned because of the amount of fuel required to heat glass. Another example is the ability for today's glass artists to order their glass materials with precise chemistries - centuries ago, workers often formulated their own glass.

Image 6: 2 views of a Marble (made by Joe Holford)

I love touching and looking at these mini marvels of glass work. I am looking forward to seeing what the glass artists create next year.

Here are some notes:

For my other post on marbles, click here.
I am interested in knowing which of the photo mosaic you like more - Version A or Version B. Let me know if you have an opinion.
Seven marbles in this post were made by Joe Holford
Three marbles in this post were created by Frank Scott - The green one, the one with stars, and the one with flowers.