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Artist Bio – Rachel GoetzThe first word ever spoken by Rachel as a baby was “pretty” after being shown a necklace of beads by her mother. In spite of that early fascination with beads, it took her 42 long years to discover the art of lampworking. Rachel received a BA in Interior Design from Iowa State University in 1984 and focused on healthcare design for 18 years. In 2002, she discovered the world of molten glass at the Rosewood Arts Center in Kettering, Ohio and has never looked back. Since then, she has taken numerous workshops from several renowned lampworking artists including Leah Fairbanks, Jim Smircich, Kristin Frantzen Orr and Tink Martin. Because glass color mixing does not necessarily follow the rules of paint color mixing, and in spite of her background in Interior Design, she is continually intrigued and surprised by the colors produced in mixing, blending and layering glass, enamels, and metal. All things colorful around her, flowers, leaves, insects, textiles and fashion inspire her. She’ll notice something beautiful or unusual and muse on how the color can be recreated in glass. Because Rachel loves to wear jewelry herself, she concentrates on creating small beads that are part of a set rather than large focal beads. She loves to mix metals with glass. Her “Silvered Squares” and “Silvered Hearts” are a series of glass layering color studies that have been combined with the sparkle of fine (99% pure) silver inclusions for an elegant finish . Her “Sculptural Flowers” is a series of stylized flowers created in a flat, thick form, again with that perpetual idea, “Hmm how can I wear this as a bracelet?” Wendy Remmers has featured them in a bracelet titled “Floral Bouquet” in her book “Beaded Jewelry”.
What is Lampworking? Lampworking is a beadmaking process accomplished by melting glass in the flame of a torch. Some torches use a single fuel source such as Mapp gas and some torches use a combination of either propane or natural gas and oxygen. Rachel has multiple torches as she has found that each torch has it’s own strength and weakness and one can never have enough “toys” to play with! The glass is melted in the flame of the torch and wound around a metal rod that has been coated with a clay-based substance. While the glass is in it’s molten state it can be pushed, poked, cut and formed into the desired shape. Once the desired shape has been achieved and while the bead is still hot, it can be decorated with glass, enamels and metals. When the desired look of the bead has been achieved, it is placed in a pre-heated kiln and annealed. Annealing is a process that utilizes a kiln to slowly bring the hot glass to room temperature. The annealing process is an important step to assure that stress has been removed from the glass to create a durable bead that is less likely to crack or break. Mass produced beads are rarely kiln-annealed. The cooled bead is then soaked in water to dissolve and loosen the clay substance. The bead is removed from the metal rod whereby leaving the bead hole. The bead hole is cleaned with a Diamond Head reamer to remove all of the clay substance from inside the hole. The characteristics to look for in a quality kiln-annealed bead are nice shape, no cracks, firmly attached decorations, and a clean bead hole that has smooth edges. A quality made bead gives a lifetime of beauty and durability.
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