Flameworked Glass Beads, Buttons & Jewelry
Artist Bio
Flameworked beadmaking, also known as lampworking, involves molding colored glass rods into formations of all shapes and sizes using a special torch. Though it's a 400-year-old industry, it only recently began to gain popularity in the U.S. during the 1980s.
Heather Trimlett discovered this unique art form in 1992 in a class paid for her as a birthday present and found herself immediately hooked on the magic of molten glass. She returned home and promptly set up a small makeshift studio, eager to cultivate the images of her imagination into colorful and illustrious glass bead realities. She explored this new medium, focusing on developing her distinct style and perfecting her lampworking skills. After practicing on her own for a number of years, word of Heather's exceptional work spread. Soon thereafter she made her first big sale, which catapulted her into a second career quite unexpectedly. Prior to this, she had run a successful business fashioning stained glass for restaurants, synagogues and upscale homes. But after making her first big bead sale she found herself declining a stained glass commission offer. "I don't do windows anymore," she said.
Today, looking out her studio window to the garden of her El Cajon, California, home, she creates both small production and one-of-a-kind flameworked beads and jewelry. For Heather, beadmaking is more than a way to make a living - it's about having fun and creating beads that capture her vibrant personality and enthusiasm. Her color palette is crisp and clean, made of mostly primary and secondary colors in high contrast combinations. Her work ranges from raised bump beads to two-color twists, vibrant disk beads to her beautiful new bicycle beads - gorgeous rounds made of colored stringers and twisted glass reminiscent of wheel spokes. What remains constant throughout her designs is her knack for diverse textures, and distinct application and juxtaposition of color. "The high color contrast gives the beads punch, drawing you in for a closer look," Heather explains. "Once you've arrived you can enjoy the details, of which there can never be too many!"
Heather's glass beads have a lively energy; they beg to be touched, admired and displayed on the body for all to see and enjoy. The bold, bright colors of Heather's imagination decorate her beads in dynamic dots, spots and twists that she has perfected over the years. But don't let the playfulness of her work fool you-Heather loves a technical challenge and prides herself on maintaining clean, tight designs in her animated beads. "Of course I'm inspired by the color, the magic and the melting of lampworking, but I also really like the technical aspect, like trying to figure out how to do things and do them well," she says. As an artist who has exhibited both nationally and internationally, and whose work currently sells at galleries across the country, it's safe to say Heather has figured out how to execute her techniques well. Like tiny little sculptures, her glass beads are visual smorgasbords that have captured the imagination of thousands of customers she's had over the years.
All this success has not gone unnoticed. Heather has garnered quite a bit of attention since she started her career in 1992. Her work has been featured in publications from The Washington Post to more specialized jewelry and art publications like Bead & Button, Glass Art Magazine, and Ornament. Many of the comprehensive books on lampworking beads include Heather's work-Cindy Jenkins's Making Glass Beads and Beads of Glass, and Bandhu Dunham's Formed of Fire. Heather's work is also found in Jim Kervin's The Brightly Colored Beads and Vessels of Heather Trimlett, and will be included in Louis Dubin's seminal The History of Beads.
Heather's beads and jewelry-made in stunning combinations of her glass and metalwork to produce bracelets, necklaces and earrings-can be found at Arts Afire in Alexandria, Washington; the Dennison-Moran Glass Gallery in Naples, Florida; Symmetry Gallery in Saratoga Springs, New York; and PISMO Galleries in Denver and Beaver Creek, Colorado. And she's quickly gaining accolades for her newest venture in glass buttons. A few years ago, while attending a conference for the Society of Glass Beadmakers, she saw a demo on glass buttons. This new design concept piqued Heather's interest. She has since begun fashioning her own glass buttons, incorporating her signature, one-of-a-kind style to each one. Not only has she added glass buttons to her repertoire, she teaches a glass button course, which she says she loves doing.
In fact, Heather's been teaching for some time. It makes up another major part of her craft, second only to working in her studio. A natural instructor - encouraging, demonstrative and patient - Heather has packed classrooms and studios in San Diego and across the U.S. and Canada throughout the last decade, offering step-by-step instruction in flameworked beadmaking to individuals of all ages and skill-levels. The most rewarding aspect of this endeavor for her is her students' reaction to having created something fascinating and eclectic. "I love the end of the class when they string up their beads and put them around their necks, pumping out their chests with these big grins on their faces, amazed at what they've accomplished," she says. Heather loves sharing her flameworking knowledge and has taught classes at private and commercial studios and craft schools such as the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine, and Penland School of Crafts in Penland, North Carolina.
No doubt Heather Trimlett loves making beads and has no intention of slowing down anytime soon. As long as she is physically able to work on the torch she'll continue to awe people with her creations - constantly reinventing new color schemes, illuminating patterns and unique shapes. And for that the world is a brighter, bolder, more whimsical place.
