There is history here, and elegance. There is a beauty that is more than fine workmanship and pretty design. There is an emotive quality that captures and transfixes the eye and the mind and the heart. It is the play of light; its refraction spinning colors from clear white light and its scattering that sends glittering sparkles to arouse the mind.

Crystal. Even the word evokes a a sense of mystery and romance.

Scientifically the word crystal denotes a regular order of solid atomic structure. For mineral collectors it means the clearest variieties of quartz (and is often used in the form. “rock crystal”). Commonly it is used as. “lead crystal” a heavy leaded glass used both decoratively in fine glassware such as cut glass bowls and goblets.

For jewelry artists cystal means a type of bead made of lead crystal made popular in the early part of the last century and perfected by manufacturors in Austria and what is now the Czech Republic. The two most popular types of crystal beads are Czech firepolished beads (most notably those by Jablonex) and Austrian (especially Swarovski) machine facted beads. Lead in lead crystal glass that is worn does not leach into the body and so is not a health hazard when used this way. Lead crystal goblets and decanters, on the other hand, will leach out lead into the wine or juice stored in them.

A number of years ago, I began amassing vintage faceted crystal beads in the form of mostly broken necklaces and a few bracelets. brooches and some earrings. I took many of these (but as yet not all) unstrung them, washed them carefully to restore their sparkle by removing decades of grime and dust and then eagerly and happily seperated them into shapes, sizes, and colors (or finishes since most are clear with some having the aurora borealis finish). I have used only a relative few in creating my art jewelry mainly because I love oipening their drawer and running my fingers through the cool smooth beads and watching the shift of colors as they slide about.

You can see some of the larger ones being used as closure beads for some of my beadwoven necklaces. I have used some of the smaller bicone shaped spacer beads in several necklaces, such as

Cherry Twist in my etsy shop, Silver Dragon Creations by Patricia C Vener.

Another example is this close-up of the bead and loop closure for a tubular netting necklace. This is a very old, almost spherical crystal bead with excellent faceting and an aurora borealis finish.

I finally decided to share my passion by starting now to use these wonderful vintage beauties in my one of a kind art jewelry by creating works that focus on these beads. I have a small number finished but not photographed but once I do that I will list them, show them off, and make them available for purchase.

Of course there are modern version of these beads and they are coming up in all sorts of new and re-introduced old designs and the same goes for the myriad variety of colors and ever evolving finishes.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 at 10:47 PM and is filed under Contemplation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.