About Me
Hello, I'm Freya, a late 30's mum and maker, I live in Newlyn, a busy fishing village in Cornwall, UK.
Between 2004 and 2017 I spent blocks of time working in a glassblowing studio in Virginia USA, which got me hooked on the material and making process.
Lampwork holds some of the same magic as furnace glass, with the added advantage of being small enough to set up at home, after building a tiny shed in my yard, I saved up for the specialist equipment to start working with glass again.
I haven't been trained in lamprwork, so everything I do is a lesson. Having come from a more illustrative background, I really enjoy pushing the material, and painting with the rods of coloured, molten glass to create images of landscapes, seascapes and little worlds. I also love to sculpt with glass, and use glassmaking implosion techniques to make quirky oddities.
About the glass
I use a mid-range torch which runs on a propane oxygen mix to work with soda lime/soft glass, which has a melting point of around 1000°C. The glass I use is made in a few different places around the world, but the majority of my collection is made on Murano in Venice,
it comes in the form of rods, clear and coloured.
All the pieces I make are annealed in a digitally controlled kiln to relieve internal stress in the glass and stabilise them for use. Although strong, they will shatter if mistreated, or dropped on a hard surface.
