Murano Glass - Venetian Bead Shop Blog

Cane Glass – Murano Style!

Cane Glass is really a version of the old Rosetta Canna – just a whole lot less complicated. The Rosetta Canes required many dips into the furnace pots for the added colors which later got carved away. The furnaces in Murano have been blowing and pulling glass rods for centuries. The term rosetta first appeared in the inventory of the Barovier Glass works in Murano, in 1496. Today they continue, it’s something they do for example:

1) when they need to make the “s” curves for chandeliers
2)when they want to make chevrons – the Rosetta
3)when they want to make the glass rods for silver serving pieces.
4) when they want to make just about anything which has a hole in it….it all starts with the bubble in the first gather.

Just pointing out that cane glass was NOT invented in the US by ANYONE! And that I get slightly miffed when Americans think they invented beadmaking, or glass blowing. (Just saying)

This is a working furnace in Murano and the one where we produced the cane glass, our blown filigrana beads, wine glasses, vases, bowls, and bottles and a few thousand drawer pulls, wine stoppers, Christmas Balls, Glass Slippers and almost anything you can dream. This furnace has been making glass since the 1960s. It is a production furnace, supplying handmade Murano Glass all over the world. It’s hot, it is heavy, it’s dangerous and it is not for tourist.

And who better to make this glass, or so at least that is what I thought when I began a project with my dear friends at the furnace. Clearly having been a glass blower for some 40+ years, they could make the glass canes. Partly, the owner humored me, and partly he thought it was a good idea as well. Neither of us knew that the stubborn nature of Muranese and tradition would get in our way.

It is the same process as making the zanfirico or the latticino which is used in all furnaces as decorations, just put a bubble in the first gather. Many of these furnaces also pull their own mosaic – millefiori or murrine. It just makes sense to “do it in-house”, you have the glass, the workers and then you know it is done properly and will be absolutely compatible with your other glass. And the famous Effetre Moretti who makes glass canes used around the world, well they too pull it the same way.

Here you see Claudio – who, over the years, worked as a glass blower and sometimes a waiter. Some of you who have been to Venice to the demonstrations of glass blowing near San Marco Square may have seen him there as he moonlighted on the weekends earning a little neri (cash under the table). He spoke about 5 languages and arrived on the vaporetto each morning from Pt Sabbione – not a native Muranese. He is preparing the blow pipe to bring out the mass of glass that becomes the bubble.

The bubble is crucial, because that bubble becomes the hole inside our cane glass. Now as you see, it is darn right difficult for us to control the exact size of the bubble and therefore we have great difficulty controlling the size of the hole! Once the bubble in inside, the next work, like making mosaics is to add on the layers of color or decoration. With each layer you add, your gather (the ball at the end of the punti) becomes larger and heavier. With the cane glass, we next add the color which is a thin layer when viewed from a cross section.

The ball become quite large and it’s a lot like making taffy (just at a much higher temperature). The size of the ball will determine how much glass rod you yield, a delicate balance between making production and being able to control the cooling process so you don’t break the glass. When the ball is at the size you want, another glass blower arrives with a hot punti which he uses to attach to the other side of the ball, with the blow pipe still attached on the ball as well. Then it’s a ballet of blower and the glass to pull this ball out before it begins cooling. Here Franco is seen in the middle of the pull blowing cool air to cool the cane.

I might point out here that this is also the reason our can glass varies in diameter, exact shape as well as hole size. A bed of insulation is prepared to drop the cane for further cooling.

Next comes the conflict of tradition and need. The traditional way for canes to be cut is chopping, that’s right, like a guillotine. If you use this glass in the furnace, you do not need straight cuts, you heat it up and it become the decoration on an art piece.

But our jewelry makers want nice straight ends so their earrings, necklaces, etc hang just right. It was a loosing battle against centuries of “that’s how we do it”. We did come to terms on fire polishing the ends, though they still are not perfectly straight, probably a major concession in Muranese history. And we did find a glass manufacturer in the US who makes precision glass. However, once they discovered we used it in jewelry, they more than doubled the prices per cut.

Here’s our inventory of glass waiting to be cut – no make that chopped!

So if you want to use our cane glass be prepared for a few irregularities on these absolutely – doesn’t get more authentic – Murano Cane Glass. Enjoy them!

Celebrating 25 Years @VenetianBeadShop

Taking a walk down memory lane, 25 years ago in August we made our first buying trip to Venice. Now why our Italian son-in-law never thought to tell us that Italy is “Closed” in August is still a mystery. We arrived with our little indexed list of glass blowers, indexed by location and type of products all worked out with the Italian Trade Commission in Atlanta in the preceding months. No Waze or Google maps just our printed maps of the city which really didn’t have a lot of detail, so we drew them as we explored and our limited Italian language.

Just one night in the oven of a hotel where we stayed sent us searching at the Information Office for hotels with air conditioning a rare find in the early 90s in Venice. We discovered the Lido, a couple of hotels which were only open in the summer, catering to the French and German tourists, which of course led us to discover the necessity of the vaporetto and restaurants on Lido where we still enjoy eating.

Alessandro Barbaro Maestro – Effortless Beauty and Perfection

So in the early morning we would head to Murano with our lists, only to discover most of them were closed. But there were a few wonderful suppliers who were gracious, though they were probably wondering about the crazy Americans who came in August. We still work with some of those suppliers. And I am sure many of our early suppliers thought we would be there once and never come back. Fooled them!

They say love is blind, and luckily so is the love of Venice and Murano where we fell as they say head over heels in love with both the people and the glass. It has been a journey of discovery, joy and pain and fierce friendships.

We did not begin buying beads, that came later. We began with glass from the furnaces, vases, bowls and bottles, figurines, clowns (by the hundreds). While we bought these, we actually had little idea of how to sell the products. We had spent a lot of time learning about importing, customs duties and even attended a college class on importing. We researched the market and knew there were few people in our area who carried any Murano Glass.

But selling it? We made the rounds of school events, church events, and yes, even flea markets. But we read in the paper, you know those things we all used to read in the morning with our coffee, that there was quite a well known Gem and Jewelry show in a town nearby, 3 days only, and 3 times each year. So on Friday afternoon, we went to the show to get a look and explore future show possibilities. The show promoter said, well I like what you have and it so happens that we have a booth where the vendor did not show, so if you can be here ready at 10 tomorrow am, you can have the booth.

That began a very long night of pricing our products, and amazingly, we sold almost everything we had. At the end of the show, the promoter came and convinced us to sign up for his next show, so now we had 3 months to get more goods….well that called for another trip to Venice, Italian classes and our house became a warehouse packed with beautiful Murano Glass.

To be continued…..

23 Years and Counting – Happy Anniversary to Us!

This August marks 23 years that we have been working in Murano and Venice with our wonderful bead makers. It started as a hobby, well not even that, friends wanted the beautiful necklaces that I had bought in Murano. Little did I know that loading my bags with goodies for friends would lead 1)a change of careers 2)the adoption of entire families 3)a love affair with the magical city of Venice!

We already had the famous Vincenzo. Famous for getting on an airplane, speaking not a word of English, to come to the US to study helicopter repair (which he never did). Famous for sweeping Bob’s daughter off her feet and marrying her (and us) within months, still speaking only a few phrases of English. (And us less Italian!) As part of Vince joining our family, we also inherited a full fledged Italian family, complete with a fabulous sorella (sister), 3 amazing Zia (aunts), cugini (cousins), baby gemelli (twins) and one very grumpy fratello (brother), all of whom arrived here for August holidays.

His family introduced us to amazing family dinners, which we thought needed either a referee or the police as with our limited Italian, we were sure that some one was going to die! Did I mention that the sorella was a graduate of the Largo Garda Hotel Restaurant & School and also a sommelier? Need I say more about the food? Everything hand made in a kitchen the size of a Volkswagon Bus, served exquisitely, in courses so many I couldn’t count, much less eat it all!

But Why? We had though a little about something to do outside of high tech. I was working for a company building satellites. We also though it would be a good idea to write-off our frequent trips to Italy. Sounded good? And the glass of Murano, well, we had fallen in love with it. Though early on, we researched glass in Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic – these places just didn’t hold our attention like Murano.

So in August 1993, we headed to Murano with a few thousand in our pockets. Now why Vince or his family never thought to tell us that the entire islands of Venice and Murano would be deserted – Ferragosto! Everyone having fun on a beach somewhere, but definitely NOT working. The sun was amazingly hot and I think we could have made glass on the sidewalks of Fondamenta Manin. We had a list from the Italian Trade Commission with names of furnaces. (At this point, we were not buying beads, rather vases, bowls, bottles – the beads came along later. But we still managed to buy some beads as they were, then and still today, impossible for me to resist.)

Bob had cross-referenced the list of furnaces with “street” addresses. The street is in quotes, because addresses were based on the way the postman delivers the mail – nothing to do with where the furnace is located! Remember this is 1993, there is NO internet, no google maps, just us in 95+ degree heat, 100% humidity walking miles and miles, knocking on doors sadly closed until September. We did, however, meet a few who were working. They became our immediate friends and we worked with them for years. We had no idea of wholesale pricing, so before visiting a firm, we would visit all the retail stores and see what the retail prices were. (Not so far documented at any business school as a good idea!)

We made our few purchases, and knew we’d be back as soon as possible. Of course Christmas would be coming and we’d need to visit the family. Funny thing, the furnaces are also closed at Christmas! We soon discovered that Italy is closed a good bit of the year!

But now that we had this Murano Glass, we had to sell it. We signed up for school fairs, flea markets and learned a lot about selling the glass, well a lot about packing and unpacking glass and standing in the hot sun! We read in the paper (yes Dorothy, papers were once read) that the International Gem and Jewelry Show was opening in San Mateo. (We read this on Friday a.m.) We decided to go and see what people sold. So Friday afternoon we went to the show, looked around and inquired with the show management about exhibiting, with our thoughts on some nebulous future show date. Danny Duke, from the family that owned the show, said great, they had nothing like our goods and by the way, a vendor had cancelled and he could make us a good price if we could show up on Saturday but no commitment to future shows. We headed home to work our excel spreadsheets to price and pack our glass.

We were like the proverbial “deer in the headlights” but we sold almost all our goods even though we were in the wholesale area. Danny was encouraged and thought we would do better in the retail area for the next show, so he offered us a contract. We had a few beads and discovered that many people wanted to buy the loose beads. Who knew? Our first show we were in a booth beside the famous Picard Beads, who clearly understood we knew nothing about the treasures from Murano that we were selling.

This was the beginning of some 10+ years of exhibiting with the show.

But what threw us into this as a real career? Well it’s now 1998, and there is indeed an internet and the start-up internet over satellite where I worked as Director of Marketing – well it crashed, thanks to the thieving founder who relieved us and our investors of a couple million dollars. But the technology was still valuable and while I worked to sell it out of Chapter 13 to new owners, I began shooting pictures, you know the kind you take to the store and have put on CDs. We opened our first store on Yahoo. Well miracle of miracles within 24 hours of opening the store, we had our first order. And it was from Brazil! We were now hooked on online shopping!

Our Original Logo – A glass Gondola made by a Lampworker in Murano

Early on we worked with the Apple QuickTake Camera, which held only 8 photos, had the battery life of a twinkling star and the resolution was miniscule by today’s comparisons. Eight pictures and then you had to download! But it was a start!

Since we needed more products for the store, I began shooting pictures of the few loose beads we had on hand. They sold immediately and customers asked for more. Fortunately this was just before Christmas and we had already planned to go back to Venice in January. This time we bought BEADS! and lots of them along with our blown glass.

So If I am Here, Is it really Work?

Our amazing selection of Venetian/Murano Glass Beads, you can find on our webstore at: VenetianBeadShop

You can find our blown glass on our sister webstore: VenetianGlassArt

From Canes to Murano Glass Beads for Jewelry

Our beads all take a similar path arriving here to have photography made, get names, assign Product Codes and finally to you.

We begin with the famous Effetre glass canes which are produced on the island of Murano in much the same fashion as hundreds of years ago. The Effetre factory is a secretive place and only a couple of times have I been allowed to have a camera inside. Few people are allowed inside, and I am always with a bead maker when we are selecting canes. Canes are sold in 10 kilo bundles, so locals expect to make a lot of beads! (There are a couple of “retailers” on the island who sell to some of the smaller artisans, at a higher price of course.)

The making of the canes is difficut task, but the real super stars of our beads are our dedicated bead makers who work in constantly staring into the flame, knowing exactly the right moment to wrap the molten glass around the mandrel. It takes a certain feel of the glass, knowing how the glass looks – when it is all glowing red. And did I say, you need to be able to turn the mandrel with one hand in one direction while controlling the flow of the molten glass with the other hand, a little like patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time.

They work with few tools, certainly not delicate tools, the most important one is simply gravity. The few tools help with the shaping.

When making rounds, you need only gravity and these little forms which they use to center the roundness of the mass of molten glass around the copper mandrel. Easier said than done. Work too long and the glass becomes to hard to move.

The side view of the classic Murano/Venetian glass torch, known as a canello. The small tray to the side of the torch holds fritte, small polverized glass, which will be used to decorate the bead.

When the day is done, and the beads have cooled for several hours, a helper cuts the excess of the soft copper mandrel off and they go into these sieve baskets and are put in the acid machine where the acid eats the copper mandrel from the bead, leaving the holes.

The beads are dried (or not) sometimes our bead makers are rushing and the beads arrive to us still slightly damp.

The last step is equally important, the boat that goes around the island picking up shipments. We need a strong partner who can get the shipments from the islands to the airport in Venice. From there they take varied routes to the US, where we start our part of this journey, making photos, assigning numbers, and finally when you choose them another trip through one of our shipping partners.

Whew, I am a little exhausted just thinking how difficult it is to get a 8mm Gold Foil bead to you!

Fused Murano Pendants – Peek Inside Our Supplier’s Laboratory

One of our favorite Fusion laboratories is pretty much a one-man show. He is young, very precise and very energetic. Fusion is a lot like baking cookies. You cut the dough, you cook the dough and you decorate. Only it takes skill and patience, diamond saws, lost of dust and you best be careful.

The glass arrives from the furnace in Murano in large square sheets, which must be cut into workable pieces. Each piece goes through at least two firings. So if you have ever worked in ceramic, you will have an idea of the process.

These sheets neatly arranged have already been through the first step. They are now ready to cut into shapes and slump if needed. Don’t you love how they are so organized. This is one of the wonderful things about this facility.

Sawing and Sanding are Two Important Steps

Sawing and Sanding are two important, if dirty, dusty steps in getting the perfect pendant. His careful attention to these assure us of great quality Murano Glass Pendants.

Murano Glass Fused Pendants and More Kilns

These kilns are used in the first step and you can see some pendants in process on the table. The decorations (colors, millefiori, gold and silver) are done in sandwich style on a base layer of Murano glass. Frit, small pieces of glass, add color as do the millefiori. After this first step the sheets will be ready for cutting and the second step.

With glass we are taking to the melting point so that the small pieces fuse together. This is done as a flat sheet. Here you see a kiln prepared for the 2nd firing, called slumping in English. This firing only heats just before the melting point, staying at this range until the glass relaxes into the shapes. Then it is cooled very slowly, called annealing. Behind you see stacks of moulds for other shapes.

The world of Glass in Murano and Venice requires many different skills and equipment but always at the heart is the beautiful Murano Glass.

You can shop for these hand crafted Murano Glass Pendants on our webstore: VenetianBeadShop

To Anneal or Not to Anneal – a very good question?

This is a question we get often, especially from new beaders who have just been their first bead show. Are all Venetian Beads are annealed. She had heard that annealing makes the beads stronger. What is annealing?

The word comes from the metallurgy and materials science where it has long been recognized it increases the metals ductility and makes it more workable to heat above its critical temperature and then to cool which also relieves the internal stress of the metal. In glass, it is about mainting the glass at a constant temperature, known as soaking at the annealing point where the glass is too cold to continue working, but will continue to relax, so that the entire piece can gradually cool at the same rate. If the glass were left in the open, you can easily see that the outside would cool faster than the inside. Annealing keeps the temperature constant throughout the bead.

Above is a large muffola in a production furnace. Each piece of blown glass is placed in an oven which is temperature controlled to be sure all the glass is the same temperature and then to cool the mouth blown pieces slowly. In older days before temperature control and when they still used wood for the heating, the person who was in charge of this was called “uomo di notte” and his job was to stay all night and watch the process as well as prepare the glass for the next days work.

For centuries, the Venetians have annealed by:

1) flash annealed, where the bead is put back into the flame one final time to heat the bead to a consistent temperature and

2) slowly cooled the bead in a container of silica which helps hold the temperature. In older days, the Venetians used the sand from the lagoon which is called “fango” in Italian and was also used for the “bead release”. Today the world uses vermiculite for this process. Vermiculite is a mineral similar to mica which is fire proof.

The stresses set up in the bead have a lot to do with the amount of time it takes to make the bead, the decorations, etc and frankly the skill level of the bead maker. In our small beads, they are made rather quickly and there is very little value of annealing other than by use of the vermiculite. You can see the beads still on the mandrels and they are submerged into the vermiculite during the production day.

For our larger, obviously more complex beads we do use an annealing oven – called a muffola in Italian. For our Moretti glass, the annealing temperature is about 940F and it is important to keep them at this level and then bring down gradually. For our blown beads they are all annealed, here you see the small kiln beside the furnace.

Annealing does not make the bead stronger, it insures that there are no stresses set up in the bead during the cooling cycle. Tempering makes the glass stronger – which is the process used for car windows, shatter-proof glass, etc. Below is a type of annealing oven, a kiln produced in the US specifically for beads, note that it has a place for individual beads. (We do not use one like this as we make many more beads than this would accommodate.)

Regardless of how beads are annealed, each of our beads are annealed, most in the classic Venetian method. And below you see a tray of Venetian Beads ready to make jewelry.

Google

A place for everything, and everything in its place?

Murano Glass Bead Trays – Barcoded & Priced in Color Waves

‘A place for everything, and everything in its place.’ is the famous quote by Isabella Mary Beeton in her book of Household Management written in 1861. It’s a great philosophy, but with some 20,000 SKUs, it’s easier said than done.

When we began importing Murano Glass Beads, we named them after the bead maker, their children, vaporetto boat stops, favorite cafes. Our bead makers named the designs after artists, famous names in Venice which encouraged our lack of organization. We had only a few drawers of beads. But over time we grew! Tanya took on our beads as a project in her senior year in Business Management at the University. So began our ‘semi-intelligent’ SKU assignment.

But the physical location of beads in an orderly fashion took a few more years. We all remembered where items were stored by sheer memory. And I confess to loving how the beads looked in drawers so I could see all the colors of a style when I opened the drawer. And seeing bunches of beads together made it easy to design jewelry. But it became apparent that it made for inefficient storage. Then we began the Location/SKU assignment and bar coding. This was key when we went to lots of bead shows, as we couldn’t remember prices for 800 pounds of beads we took to shows and sometimes exhibiting at 2 shows at the same time. Our bar coding let us check customers out quickly, accurately, giving them an itemized list of what they bought, along with SKUs for reordering online…certainly a novelty in a bead shows.

Locations and Alpha-Numerical Makes Picking Orders is Easier

Picking is made easy with our rolling carts with all the supplies you need to pack an order. We all have our favorite cart!

These little white cubicle boxes are where orders with problems go. This is not where you want your orders to linger. We send emails through our online store system to you or call to let you know.

This is not where you want your order to go! The problem boxes.

There’s more, we’re just trying to organize it. There are always the “orphans” the beads that have no mates, the I thought I ordered Red, how did these green beads arrive? And many other projects just waiting to be put on the web. And an abundance of design projects in various stages of completion.

So maybe we’d better read Mrs. Beeton’s book, again! ;>)

Visit our website where you can buy all these wonderful beads! http://www.venetianbeadshop.com

Why buy Venetian – Murano Glass Beads

Authentic Murano Glass Beads – Made in the Fire!

Why buy authentic Murano Glass Beads? Or rather, why buy anything else?

Many of our customers are designers who sell their Venetian Jewelry in the fairs and shows around the world. Sometimes they fall in love with Swarovski, but it is everywhere and hard to make a name for yourself with such a ubiquitous commodity; and in the words of Brenda “an accent” bead! Yes they are “perfetto” but they are machine made and in the words of one of our glass blowers in Murano ‘Non ha un cuore’ (It does not have a heart!).

The love of Murano glass is all about heart. Why else would our blowers and bead makers work in hot furnaces, in front of hot torches creating our little jewels?

Certainly there are easier ways to make a living?
Certainly there are occupations where everyone isn’t a critic of your labor of love?
Each piece is a small work of art, never to be repeated again exactly, like snowflakes.

Murano Glass Beads – Irresistible Colors

When you make jewelry with our genuine Murano Glass Beads, you aren’t just making jewelry, you are carrying on a tradition of centuries. When you sell this jewelry, you aren’t just selling pieces of jewelry, you are selling the Romance that is Venice, the history of centuries, the legends, the state secrets of making glass that could get you killed in the middle ages.

To our glass workers, the glass is alive, it reacts differently each day, and never tamed, some days it just allows you a little more control.

And let’s face it no one ever proudly advertised that they have “Chinese Beads” and even Czech while again available everywhere, simply doesn’t carry the allure or Romance of Venetian Beads. Venice has such a history, and though they were not the first in the world to make beads, they certainly influenced the design and production of beads since about the 10th Century.

Our Blown Beads are Made in the Furnace!

Remind them that Marco Polo traveled to China taking beads! Remember that Manhattan was purchased with beads! Venetian Beads were the currency in Africa, known as Trade Beads. And we still make them pretty much the same way as then. Now that’s something to talk about with your customers.

Having Venetian Beads in your design gives you a story to tell. When you are at that hot and dusty Craft Fair, the sparkle under the sunlight will bring your customers in and your ability to weave the history of Venice will help you sell your jewelry. And when you wear our Venetian Beads, you have a story to tell, the story of the artisans of Murano who have been making glass since 1293.

We hope our behind the scenes of the history and how our beads and sterling silver along with the trials and tribulations of daily life in Venice will help our designers and customers. Use the resources on our website to learn more about Venice and you’ll be able to talk to your customers, or just tell your friends why you chose Venetian Beads.

Here are some resources on our website which will be helpful:

Here are some of our Videos on Bead Making

Making a Zanfirico Bead

Working with Venetian Beads

Ever so often we have to remind ourselves that we are working with artisans who work with materials at 2600F in front of fire breathing torches for hours each day. They are not machines, nor robots. Each of beads is a small work of art with all the beauties and “defects” inherent in any product made by hand.

And we do not ask them to make just ONE perfect bead, we ask them to hundreds even thousands. Our largest order for one bead was for a department store and they HAND MADE over 100,000 of just one bead. I am sure they dreamed of these beads at night.

Our bead makers are top of the world in their industry, many counting 5+ generations in this industry with their family names written in the Libro d’Oro of Murano, the book was instituted in 1602, and from 1605 the heads of the Council of Ten granted the title cittadino di Murano to those heads of families born on the island.

They are so good at this they make it look easy, and try so very hard to respond to our every request for beads. If I can describe it, draw it, they can make it. So I try to remember these people know much more about glass than I will ever learn, but I am an eager student!

So if you bead arrives with a less than perfect hole, a bit ragged – enjoy the art. There are a couple of things you can do if this offends your artistic design.

Bead Caps Protect Your Wire and String Materials

1) Use a beadcap – then you won’t see it, and it will help protect the stringing material. But of course beadcaps will have slight imperfections, even though they are machine made.

2) Ream the bead to the smoothness that you like.

We use a Dremel, not available in your local hardware store, but available online in many places. Use with a diamond drill bit, like the one you see here. If is lightweight and easy to use. As a caution dip the bead in water continuously so it doesn’t overheat when you use the battery operated dremel, otherwise you will be able to see the marks on the bead.

If you only bead for a hobby, then the hand reamer shown in the insert will be more than sufficient.

For more information on Making Murano Glass Beads, visit our website and informational pages at:

Venetian Bead Shop – How Our Beads are Made

All About Handmade Murano Glass Beads

Murano Furnace Crisis

Read our Blog on the trouble in the Murano. Click Here

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