Media Reviews: Making Glass Beads with Stained Glass Remnants

Making Glass Beads with Stained Glass Remnants, Part I
by Kate Drew-Wilkinson
Self-produced, Bisbee, AZ. 2000. Video,
80 minutes, $39.95.

Reviewed by Kristen Frantzen Orr.

I was pleasantly surprised by this video from beginning to end. I have tried making beads from stained glass scrap and was immediately put off by the tedious task of cutting the glass into long strips to be used like glass rods. Kate Drew-Wilkinson does not do this! Instead, she uses small chunks of glass, which she attaches to an Italian glass rod pontil. This allows her to use very small scrap pieces, and to combine pieces sandwich-style for some interesting effects.

After a little square of glass is attached to the pontil, Drew-Wilkinson heats it and allows it to fold. She carefully squeezes out air bubbles by working with a masher from one side to the other, and then shapes the stained glass scrap into a small cylinder. She frequently cautions students not to allow the pontil glass to mix in with the stained glass, and she reminds her viewers how important it is not to trap any air bubbles in the glass. She is good at articulating what she is demonstrating, so students can learn both by seeing and hearing. Her commentary is also helpful because you can’t quite see into the flame on the video like you can when you are wearing didymium glasses and actually working at the torch.

The video guides students through techniques for making and using stringers, latticino, simple beads, perfectly matched pairs of beads, and an end-of-the-day bead. It concludes with a demo of simple wirework that can be used to make one of the beads into a pendant.

The end-of-the-day bead is an especially fun portion of the video, where Drew-Wilkinson encourages students to “learn to play.” She points out, “Every time you play with glass as opposed to making a seriously constructed bead, you learn something wonderful and new about how glass works.”

Drew-Wilkinson’s enthusiasm for this medium is apparent throughout the video. Her beads in the video are made from Spectrum glass. She says she loves the glass because it is often free, it is accumulating in boxes under the tables in stained glass studios, and “the colors are sublime.”

I began this review by saying I was pleasantly surprised by this video from beginning to end. I also found the length and pace of the video to be helpful, allowing enough time to show several techniques. I am now intrigued by a new palette of glass colors, and may have to try my hand with some stained glass scrap. However, even if I don’t, through Drew-Wilkinson’s video I discovered new techniques that I definitely plan to apply to my glass bead making.