About Lampwork Beads

What are lampwork beads?

Unlike seed beads and pressed glass beads, which are made by machines, all lampwork beads are handmade by artists, one at a time. Due to the nature of their creation, lampwork beads posses a quality that only handmade things have: the mark of the hand. Their beauty and uniqueness makes them a frequent choice for use as the focal point of a piece of jewelry or simply as an additional accent.

The artist works with a gas burner (called the lamp), which produces a narrow, steady and powerful flame. The artist, holding a glass rod in one hand, melts the tip of the rod in the flame into a honey-like state, while holding a special metal wire in the other hand and winding the melted glass on the wire by constantly turning it.
Finally, the artist shapes the bead, either free-hand using metal tools or by turning the bead in a metal mold.
Different techniques are used to decorate the beads. For example, the artist pulls a fine glass fiber from the melting glass. Then the fiber is used to "paint" a pattern on the bead, melting it firmly into the bead surface.

The production of Bohemian handmade glass beads, so-called lampwork beads, has a centuries-old tradition in and around the city of Jablonec in Northern Bohemia, a region of the Czech Republic.
In the past, during the harsh winters, which this remote mountainous region frequently experiences, most of the inhabitants of the small villages around Jablonec would be cut off from civilization for months at a time as the mountains lay covered in deep snow. To make a living in these conditions, before each winter, along with food, the villagers hoarded enough glass rods for crafting glass beads during the long winter months.

The glass making tradition made the Jablonec region well known for its glass jewelry and beads. Until 1945 Jablonec, or Gablonz, as it was known by its German name back then, had mainly German-speaking population. The city was famous for its fashion jewelry and supplied many regions of the world with glass beads. After WWII, during the period of the communist rule, the nationalized Czech glass industry's progress slowed down and stagnated. But the political changes in the early nineties brought back the entrepreneurial spirit and the companies started to spring to life again and a breed of new small companies and individuals sprung up, continuing in the age-old tradition of the handmade Czech glass beads known for their high-quality of glass and craftsmanship.