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Lampworking is glassworking using a torch to melt and shape the glass. It is also known as flameworking or torchworking, as the modern practice no longer uses oil-fueled lamps. Although the art form has been practiced since ancient times, it flowered in Murano, Italy in the 1300s, and spread from there to the rest of Europe. In the 1850's lampwork incorporated into glass domed paperweights, primarily in France, became a popular art form, still collected today.
Early lampworking was done in the flame of an oil lamp, with the artist blowing air into the flame through a pipe. Most artists today use torches that burn either propane or natural gas for the fuel gas, with either air or pure oxygen as the oxidizer.
It was not until the late 1960s that lampwork became recognized as a serious art form by German born lampwork glass artist Hans Godo Frabel who utilized his scientific glassblowing training to create relatively large pieces of lampwork glass art in borosilicate. Other well-known lampworkers include Bandhu Scott Dunham, author of several lampworking textbooks and artistic compilations, Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, who created sea-life and botanic models in glass for Harvard, Milon Townsend, Robert Mickelsen, Loren Stump, Paul Stankard and Cesare Toffolo, a master of traditional Venetian goblet making. |
