In her most recent work, lampworker Kate Fowle is experimenting with intriguing, eye-catching surface treatments.
BY ILENE STERNBERG

Kate Fowle has been experimenting with surface treatments in her recent work, forgoing bright colors for a subtler, more intriguing look. “I want to create beads that make the viewer wonder what they were made of, beads that ask to be touched and investigated.” Photo: Todd Murray.

 

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You might say that Kate Fowle is resurfacing.

Not that she’s ever been in hiding. Few people could keep up as busy a schedule as she does — maintaining two studios, teaching lampworking classes, selling at shows and galleries, and sailing all over the globe. She’s simply ascending to a new level in her work. She’s also floating above some of life’s nose dives and entering a new era in her personal voyage. “The tough turns that took place in the last decade gave way to a new and exciting life for me,” she says.

When I gave her the “Whazzup?” at a spring bead show in Washington, D.C., she said, “Well, I’ve been experimenting with lots of new surface techniques in my bead making. And I’m getting married to someone I met 30 years ago!” Kate carries a torch in more ways than one, apparently. Little did I know that not only would I be getting a whole new perspective on lampworking techniques, but that I’d be hearing a story of a love connection that would warm the cockles of even an artificial heart.

Photo: Todd Murray.

And, speaking of cockles, as I glance down at her table, she’s selling some astonishingly lifelike seashell beads, assorted types any crustacean would be proud to inhabit. Made of Italian glass, in some cases blended to produce new colors, in others made with twisted canes to simulate realistic shell patterns, they are matte finished, blushed pink at the interior where appropriate, and embellished with authentic-looking barnacles. “I was inspired while living at my Dad’s summer home on Martha’s Vineyard, not far from where I’m living now, in Rhode Island, on a lake that feeds into Narragansett Bay,” she says. Despite the din of the babbling bead devotees milling around her table, when I put one of the beads to my ear, I’m sure I can hear the ocean.

Photo: Todd Murray.

She also has up for grabs some of her petroglyph beads, including a Venus of Willendorf-style goddess, some beads in the form of ancient urns, and some unusual electroformed beads she refers to as her biotech series. Apparently, Fowle, who has made quite a favorable reputation for herself in only 10 or so years of bead making, is, like all good artists, constantly experimenting, learning, evolving, and adding to her repertoire. When it comes to beads, that Kate, she’s been stylin’!

We look over her display together. “We bead makers often sell to each other, and customers are very savvy about what’s going on in the bead world these days,” she says. “By sticking with the normal lampworking colors, a table of beads at a show could look humdrum, no matter how much skill has gone into the decorating techniques. I’m trying to stay away from ‘colorful’ in lieu of ‘subtle.’ Many of the beads I’ve made in the past are eye candy. These require a little more of the viewer. I want people to look at my trays or finished pieces and ask ‘What glass did you use?’ ‘What did you do to the surface?’ I want them to be noticed for their individuality.”

EXPLORING THE SURFACE. She’s probably sorry she said that, because, before long, patient, kindly Kate is giving me a crash course in “Bead Making for Dummies.” I had no idea of half the bead manipulations she was describing. She has to explain processes behind the fabrication of her beads to me in very simple terms while still managing to greet old customers, answer questions for potential new ones, and sell her goods. Not only do I not lampwork, electroform, or etch, but the very thought of using fire, electricity, sulfuric acid, or some of the other daunting elements she’s got in her beadmeister’s bag terrifies me.

Several exchanges with Kate about her work almost sent me cowering under the table, so she also has to play trauma nurse.

Photo: Todd Murray.

“Basically,” she explains, regarding her exploration with surface treatments, “I grew tired of the typical ‘glassy’ beads, shiny and colorful, or paperweight style, which is what we tend to think of when someone says ‘glass beads.’ I want to create beads that make the viewer wonder what they were made of, beads that ask to be touched and investigated.”

Some of the “ancient urns,” like the seashells, had “barnacles” on them, too, as if they’d been fished out of the sea. When she saw me examining one, Fowle said, “I made a cane that looks like a barnacle for the Aegean urn. I used my 12-pointed star optic mold for the cane.”

“Okay. I give up. What’s an optic mold?” I ask. Without even rolling her eyes, she explains that optic molds are cast aluminum molds you stuff your glass into in order to force a shape on it. “I can make a star murrini by forcing a gather of yellow glass in a star-shaped opening that’s about 3û4" wide and 1û2" deep. When it emerges, I paint blue glass (or black, or whatever) all around it, then pull this large bundle out into a cane that’s about 1û4" in diameter. When it’s cut, it reveals a little yellow star in the middle.” Stars are not the only optic molds for bead makers — there are also hearts, triangles, crescents, etc. Fowle, I found out, actually instigated the designing of optic molds for bead makers in 1992, by convincing someone to design bead-sized molds, just as there were larger molds for glassblowers of large objects.

Photo: Todd Murray.

To simulate really old glass for the urns, Fowle says she turned to a tome on ancient glass vessels in the collection of the Toledo Museum. “I tried to replicate the surfaces of deteriorating glass, then took it a step further by adding my own electroformed sheaths and beads hanging from handles attached by electroformed rings. I was inspired by work that William Morris produced from the furnace, and wanted to create beads reminiscent of his art.” Trying to show I wasn’t a complete dunce, I volunteered that I was familiar with his work in textiles and architecture during the Arts and Crafts Movement, but that I had no idea he did glassblowing.

“Not that William Morris,” she began. I tried again: “You mean the theatrical agent?” “No, she said (I told you she was patient), “a contemporary glass maker in Seattle, known for his ‘artifacts’ — blown works of art that have a rough, ancient, parched surface, with images frequently applied through the use of glass powders. His stuff is really fantastic, probably one step shy of Chihuly, and there is one great book out about him.” (You can check out Morris’ work and discern his influence on Fowle’s beads by viewing the Heller Gallery Web site: www.hellergallery.com/art_morris3.htm.)

LOOKING PREHISTORIC. I was especially intrigued by her Petroglyph beads, as I’ve been collecting them (to impress some of my Neanderthal friends) with a plan to work them into a necklace, hopefully some time before the beads become artifacts in a future archaeological dig. Here she was effecting a stone texture. “They were the first beads where I really messed with the surface,” Kate says. “By the time a petroglyph bead is finished, it’s had enamels dumped on it, has been overheated in the flame, matted in acid, painted with underglazes, refired in the kiln, rematted, and perhaps even electroformed.” (One can hardly help feeling sorry for the poor petroglyph bead.)

Fowle’s petroglyph beads were “the first beads where I really messed with the surface,” effecting a stone texture. Photo: Brownen Sexton.

“I use ceramic overglazes that fire at a low enough temperature so as not to melt the beads, to stamp on the ‘prehistoric motifs,’ like the animal image on the tabular petroglyph bead, with decorative rubber stamps that a friend made from my designs. I paint the glazes onto the stamp, and just stamp it to the surface of the bead. I go back with a paintbrush and more glaze just to fill it in where it might not have been dark enough, and I also use several colors to shade it.

“But for the goddess, where the spiral on her breast is so small and delicate, and the breast is round, I had no choice but to slowly paint this with a very fine brush. Once the decorations are stamped and painted on, I put the beads on a metal mandrel (just a rod to hold them) suspended over a Pyrex bowl in a cold kiln, turn the kiln on high, wait until it gets to about 1150°F, and then turn the kiln off. When it reaches 1150°F, I can be sure the painted images have fused to the surface of the bead and will be permanent.” Seems like a risky way to anger a goddess, if you ask me.

Seashell beads are being scarfed up by buyers. Kate makes change, takes impressions of credit cards, smiles, chats. I have to draw her back into class.

Kate goes on to say that she worked with the Thompson Enamel Company to produce enamels that were compatible with Effetre glass, and that with them she could create a parched, bumpy surface that would suit itself to cave-type paintings. For those (like myself) who don’t keep up with the doings of international commerce, when the Moretti company was forced to sell its business in the early 1990s, what had been referred to as “Moretti glass,” was renamed “Effetre.” Before then, for six centuries, several branches of the Moretti family had produced lampworking glass on the Island of Murano, near Venice. The soda-lime glass, available in well over 100 colors, perfectly suited for working in the flame, is the primary glass used by bead makers in this country. I had no idea the company had been sold, though, until Kate filled me in. (I know. Keep up.)

But the petroglyph beads were representational, and Kate says, “I was beginning to work my way from that niche and focus my attention on beads that would stand alone as sculpture with subtle reference to familiar shapes from nature. In what I call my Biotech series of pendants, I create a form with an organic reference, build up a surface using enamels or foils, and then — here’s where the “tech” comes in — electroform a shell over it. Frequently, I’ll paint a cage of copper, through which the bead can be seen. The series began to emerge last summer, first with an acorn-shaped bead (or something that resembles a sea creature) that had various surface treatments, an anthropomorphic shape, pod, and split pod shapes of various sorts.”

Photo: Todd Murray.

ELECTROFORMING. Kate points out the different shapes on her tray. “In some of these, I use enamels under and over glass decorations on the surface, then matte the finish. In some I use metal oxides, usually used in ceramic glazes, to add color and texture to the surface of the bead. In this one,” she says, pointing to yet another unusual bead, “I built up a surface of powdered German glass over a core of a contrasting opaque color, then carved through the first layer to expose the other color, fire polished and matted it.” I ask what she uses to create a matte finish. “You matte the surface with hydrofluoric acid.” Anticipating my reaction, she says, “Or with a solution containing fluorides that isn’t as dangerous. Dip ‘n Etch is one example.”

In each case, the bead is electroformed to add more interest and texture. In the case of the “acorns,” the top is electroformed, and the main body is left with the decorated surface easily seen. “I’m counting on the contrast in textures between the top and the bottom to lend this bead interest,” she points out.

Photo: Todd Murray.

I ask her what happens when something is electroformed. She hands me the October 2000 Bead Annual of Lapidary Journal to read her discussion of the process in the Jewelry Journal. I’m in study hall, while she continues to schmooze and dispense her wares. (See "Electroforming on Beads")

Good grief! Not only am I thoroughly intimidated by Oppi Untracht’s definition of electroforming, (quoted from Jewelry: Concepts and Technology, 1982, Doubleday, NY): “the process of synthesizing a metal object by controlling the electrodeposition of metal passing through an electrolytic solution onto a metal or metallized form,” but there was a picture of a scary box called a “rectifier” and a little warning at the bottom in tiny print advising us to “always ask for the Material Safety Data Sheet which will give reactivity, health hazard, and safe handling data.” To compound matters, Fowle had added her own admonition at the close of her instructions, saying, “please remember to read and familiarize yourself with all the warnings printed on the materials you will use — your health is your responsibility!”

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll electrocute your goddess or, possibly, yourself, doing this?” I ask, mildly mortified. “No,” she laughs. “In electroforming, the current is so low that there’s no possible way you can electrocute yourself, even if you’re holding both the anode and the cathode at the same time. Believe me, I’ve done it.” She proceeds to affect a very convincing nervous tick. Cathode? Anode? Electrical current? I don’t think so. Sheesh!

To calm me down (people are beginning to stare), she shows me another bead where she’s covered the surface with silver foil and burnt it into the glass surface. “As I continue to work the bead in the flame, some of this silver burns, and the vapor changes the color of the other glass elements that I’ve added. Transparent blue, for instance, turns a milky blue when silver is present in the surrounding glass. Here,” she shows me, “the top is electroformed, but the bottom is clear glass with silver burned into the surface, then dots are added to that, and they have been changed by the silver in the surrounding glass.”

She shows me that whereas metal foils just give a luster to the surface of a bead, electroforming actually builds a copper skin that is hard and raised. “If I electroformed on a piece of wax, you could actually melt out the wax and the electroformed copper shell would be strong enough to stand alone. When I paint the electroforming paint on my bead, the plating of copper occurs exactly as I’ve applied the paint. I can paint lines on a bead, then grow a copper skin that builds up right as I had painted it. This raised surface is a different texture from what one would expect from a bead, and the painted copper ‘cage,’ which is angular and measured, creates a contrast to the soft and organic forms on the surface decorations of the bead inside. If I want even more contrast, and don’t want the cage or electroformed part to be as shiny as the silver, I tone it down with a patina of liver of sulfur.”

It all sounds very complicated. But the “cathode” thing and the “copper molecules” and the “high-current density” stuff smacks of old science fiction movies from the ‘50s. Fat chance you’ll ever catch me playing around with a rectifier. I’m still traumatized by the battery we made from a potato for Miss Mulcare’s fifth-grade Science Fair.

These “biotech” beads may be experimental, but obviously they are not accidental. She usually strings them singly on steel cable, since she wants to keep the presentation simple, and very “new millennium” to my eye. “The series is in its early stage right now. I have ideas of where I want to go right now and not nearly enough time to play at the torch.” My shopping compañero buys one of these high-tech neckpieces, so it’s clear that Kate did not waste her time on an unappreciative audience.

Although her current emphasis is on the biotech series, Kate continues to make her petroglyph beads as well as earlier styles, “They’re still my bread and butter sales at the shows: seashells, Christmas motifs (see “Seasonal Savvy,” September 2001), and edibles — still fun for me to make, and I’m always trying to cook up something a little different to add to these series.’”