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.
Making Beads
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!
Effetre Glass Canes for Beads
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.
Even Flat Stanley Enjoys Venice
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.
Growing and Organizing
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.
My Favorite Red
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.
Here’s a peek inside the dichroic facility of Sanberg Coatings, where all our Murano Glass goes for the added bling or as I think, the magic machine that gives us all these added colors.
Vacuum Coating Chamber – Cost ~$2Million
The technology is called “vacuum thin film deposition” and was discovered in 1887. It took military and aerospace needs to support the research and development of the expensive equipment to produce on a large scale. Tax dollars paid for the creation of these complex machines for use in optical equipment, lasers, fiber optics, optical recording, infrared guidance, photoelectric converters, Dolby 3d Projection and mundane things like eyeglasses or camera lenses.
Prepping for Coating
The coating process is done in a vacuum deposition chamber by vaporizing quarts and metal oxides with an electron beam gun and condensing micro-thin layers on the surface of the glass (or whatever you want coated) in a crystal structure.
Jerry Sandberg, an engineer as well as jewelry artists, worked at a high tech firm producing thin film components in southern California when he discovered that another artist, Murray Schwartz was digging through the trash at the facility for the small pieces of reject mirrors. He too began collecting the rejects and along with Murray, they began the development of the first three dichroic glass colors designed for the art glass industry: Cyan/Red, Magenta/Green and Yellow/Blue, colors which we still use today. It’s a bit confusing, the the first color is the input color, the second is what you see when it is fired. So if we want Red we buy Cyan/Red.
Sheets of Glass Coated
It was Murray’s wife, Rupama who put the first scrap of dichroic into her kiln, an experiment that led us all to today’s incredible array of art produced with the colors dichroic made possible.
The Warehouse – Full Sheets Ready
Like all our businesses, Sandberg needs to have sheets ready to ship. Here is there stock room. With the price of an average sheet about $150, it’s a sizeable investment. Since our glass comes from Murano, there is the added cost of the glass, freight, incoming Custom Duties so if you are wondering why our dichroic beads are expensive, here are the clues!
Sandberg Contest Winners
Since the coating are not done in heat, almost anything can be coated – expensive, but can be. Below are some pottery, glass, things you might buy at a thrift shop, a home decoration store. The only issue I see is that you can coat only one side (or you must flip and coat the other).
Examples of EveryDay Items Coated
I say it’s magic because the technical description defies my understanding and I am happy to have Sandberg work his magic for our beads and pendants.
Note: Sandberg sells through distributors, but if you want to take a class, you can find the classes available on their website Coating by Sandberg.
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.
Vince at home in Italy.
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.)
Murano – Where are the People
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!)
Windows Shuttered – On Vacation
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.
Why I Work!
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
Calcedonia Glass Sculptures – San Marco Square Glass Shop
Calcedonia (Chalcedony) is a glass made with silver and other elements (glass is above all a chemical reaction which takes place in heat), developed in Murano during the mid fifteenth century. Angelo Barovier is attributed with developing this polychrome glass around 1460 (the 15th Century).The Barovier name has been synonymous with Murano Glass since the furnaces were moved to Murano from Venice. This famous family was granted the exclusive rights to the production of clear glass by the Venetian Repubic about 1455. The technique of this clear glass became known as crystal glass or Venetian crystal, which was a significant development in the story of glass and of the island of Murano..
Barovier Coat of Arms
The secret of the Calcedonia glass was closely guarded and entirely lost when the Venetian Republic fell. It varies widely in the colors which come out of the furnace, subject to the heat of the silver, humidity and the humor of the glass maker!
It was once again rediscovered by Lorenza Radi in 1856 but again by the 20th Century none was in production. Today we thank Loredano Rosin for bringing back this technique in the 1970s. His pieces are still on exhibit around the world and in private collections. His untimely death from a boating accident was a blow to the artistic Murano Glass community.
Fortunately, his brother Dino Rosin, carries on the family tradition and has continued to perfect this glass in large and beautiful glass sculptures. You can still find Dino Rosin sculptures available at very hefty sums on eBay and in fine galleries around the world, just search for his name. Today, there are several other well known masters who create sculptures in this unpredictable glass, including Tagliapietra.
For all of us in the Venetian Bead world, we are fortunate that there is another furnace who produces (with proper begging) canes of this unpredictable glass which we can chop and use in beads. However, this is a difficult production and we can only get small quantities made – never knowing what color will arrive.
We all dream of the blues and aquas…and sometimes we get it. The amazing, never the same, colors are produced by adding silver nitrate to the glass and the colors are affected by the humidity, the heat, and factors we don’t understand. The glass begins as salt, soda, sand and minerals days before the glass master is ready to work. The recipes for glass depend on very accurate measuring and minerals of the highest quality. Any small difference will result in color changes or in glass which does not react well in the flames when the beads are being made. It pops and cracks. The Calcedonia has a mind and life of its own, the colors can not be reproduced with any certainty. They continue to turn colors in the flames as the beads are made and even after the beads are in the annealing oven.
Making a Calcedonia Sculpture Murano Italy
Here are the colors of our latest batch, with added sparkle from Aventurina.
New Calcedonia at VenetianBeadShop
We must enjoy each batch of beads for what they are: unique little jewels!
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.
Flash Annealing
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 Blown Beads
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.
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.
Venetian Beads – Melanie Picking Orders
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 EasierPicking Orders – For All of You!
Picking is made easy with our rolling carts with all the supplies you need to pack an order. We all have our favorite cart!
Venetian Glass Beads, Organized
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! ;>)
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:
The round bead is the first one you learn how to make. And most of our other shapes take off from the humble round bead. So it is the building block and our most popular bead shape. We buy and sell many thousands of round Gold Foil beads each year.
Murano Glass Torch for Making Beads – the Cannello
First you’ll need a torch, the kind we use in Murano is known as a cannello, it burns without oxygen and at a lower temperature (about 200 degrees) which allows our bead makers to add millefiori, exterior gold foil and to work the bead for a longer time than can be done in American torches. On the other hand, the American torches allow the bead maker to work in a pinpoint flame, which is useful in small decorations but require oxygen.
Effetre Glass Canes – Let’s Make Some Beads
It All Begins With the Canes
It all begins with the selection of the glass canes and there plenty from which to choose. We use Effetre, known generally in the industry as Moretti. It is a soft glass with a COE of 104, Soda Ash Glass which contains no lead and is worked at temperatures of about 945 C which is about 1733 F. Our bead makers work with larger diameter canes and we buy the canes 20 kilo at the time. They know to the gram how much glass it takes to make a bead! So, if we are working on a large order, we want all the beads to be from the same glass batch in the factory in Murano. Because, like carpet and fabric, each batch of glass is slightly different.
Decorations on a Round
Tools of Bronze for Round Venetian Bead
Bead Makers – Can you Rub Your Tummy & Pat Your Head?
While we say that the round is the easiest shape to make, it’s still difficult work sitting in front of the heat, attempting to roll the mandrel in one hand while making sure that the cane is in the heat and wrapping around your mandrel. Well it takes some practice, rather like rubbing your tummy and patting your head at the same time.
Shaping the Round
After you master the round bead you can advance to making many other shapes, it is about learning how much glass you need on the mandrel to make squares, bicones, hearts which we make with tools especially made for forming the shapes.
All these shapes begin as a round
The bead must be thoroughly heated so the temperature is the same throughout the bead which is part of learning how to recognize this when the entire bead is red hot. In Murano, the maestro speak about “knowing” the glass. It is a feel and knowing the exact shade of red you need to be sure the bead is thoroughly heated. Once you are happy with the shape and any decoration, it still must be flash annealed (again to be sure the temperature is consistent).
Rounds Ready to Cool – Vermiculite
Many of our beads are annealed in an electric “furnace” which lets the beads stay at a consistent temperature and then slowly bring the temperature down to prevent shock and breaking. Some of the smaller beads are annealed in vermiculite as in the picture above (the traditional method, though in early days it was just sand from the lagoon).
And they are made one at the time, and as we like to say “No two ever exactly alike!” the beauty of lampwork.
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!
Bead Reaming – a necessary skill
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:
