The Mining Museum and the Rollo Jamieson Museum hosted a live glass bead making demonstration led by Julia Loukosaithis of Bedazzled by Julz, who showed how glass can be transformed into a work of art.
Loukosaithis fuses a white glass rod to a glass bead, then pierces it and runs his finger over it, creating a raised pattern.
“You can put it in 3D beads, or you can melt it,” she said, smearing the freshly melted white design onto the beads and heating it over an open flame. She used a handrail to support her stationary hand. “It really helps with stability,” she explained.
Luxedis explains the important history of glass beads, noting that people “going on voyages of exploration took large quantities of glass beads with them to trade” for food and clothing, and that during the fur trade, glass beads were also exchanged for beaver pelts.
A visitor asked how the eye paint was incorporated into the glass. Luksatis explained that when she purchased the glass rods, “the paint was already in the rods.” Luksatis added, “It’s the minerals they add to the glass that give each rod its color.”
Luksitis then asked everyone what their favorite color was. One participant replied, “Purple.” Luksitis explained that the mineral added to glass that gives it its purple color is manganese dioxide.
Minerals are added to the clear glass in a high-temperature process that reaches 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1,600 degrees Celsius), she explained. The added minerals melt right into the glass. “Then they stir it like a big pot of soup,” Loukosetis said. To collect the molten glass and turn it into a rod, a collecting rod is used to pull a portion of the colored glass out of the pot. A metal rod is then placed on the half of the glass slurry that has sunk, stretching the glass into a rod.
The rods were then cut into six-foot sections, the length Loukosaitis had purchased. She then used a stained glass cutter to cut the rods into fourteen-inch sections.
Loukosettis has been working with glass for 23 years, and her favorite part is beadwork. “Beadwork is my first love. I think it’s because there are so many different directions you can take it,” she says. There are also so many different techniques you can try with beadwork. “Beadwork is like so many hobbies; I mean, I’ll never learn everything. There’s so much to do and so much to learn. It’s fun,” she explains.
The bead making demonstration included previously created glass pieces such as layered orange, white and yellow glass formed into candy corn triangles, necklaces where glass was melted intricately to form fine linear patterns, and glass blowing to create beautiful translucent jewelry in a variety of shapes and colors.
Loucosatis describes the process of making these glass ornaments. She places a blowing tool on the end of a glass tube. When she blows into the tube, the glass either expands to form a round ornament or stretches to form an icicle ornament. Loucosatis explains the motions needed to create an icicle, saying, “Just a straight pull, sometimes I like to twist it.” Loucosatis will teach a jewelry blowing class in December 2022. Loucosatis currently teaches in Shakerag Alley, Door County, Land o’ Lakes, and La Crosse.
Post time: Jun-24-2025