Playing With Fire at Brittain Beads

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Brittain Beads, jewelry

Teresa Brittain was attending a Shawn Colvin concert in Knoxville when she noticed a woman wearing a familiar necklace. It was missing a bead.

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Brittain stopped the woman and said to her, “Excuse me, you’ve lost a bead from your necklace.” The owner explained she had broken it and tried to fix it; she couldn’t remember who had made the necklace.

“I did,” Brittain said. She took the necklace home, repaired it and mailed it back to the lucky woman.

The Lampworked Method

Not many people can claim to be a bead maker, but Brittain sure can. She has been working full time at her craft for about 10 years, fashioning her glass beads into jewelry in her home studio in Oak Ridge.

 

Brittain uses what is called the lampworked method, working with rods of different colors of glass, some opaque, some transparent. She melts the glass over an oxygen propane torch. All of the designs and patterns on the beads are made with other colors of glass, powdered glass or maybe gold leaf.

“Each bead is made, start to finish, over the torch,” she says. “No molds, no forms. All are done freehand.”

How Brittain’s Bead-Making Began

Brittain started making jewelry with store-bought supplies in college. In November 1995 she took her first weekend bead-making class and was “hooked.”

“I thought it was the best thing I’d ever done in my life,” she says.

At the end of the class, she bought glass, a torch and safety glasses. She went home and told her husband she was going to be a glass bead maker.

Where to Find Brittain Beads

Years later, Brittain’s bead-making has found success. She exhibits at eight craft shows a year in North Carolina and Tennessee. About 25 galleries now carry her work, including the Appalachian Center for Craft in Smithville, Helios Art Glass Work in Nashville and Thompson Jewelers in Tullahoma. She also teaches classes and sells online.

Making beads isn’t difficult, she says, but making symmetrical beads is.

Yes, it is intricate and sometimes painstaking work. But she says she loves playing with hot glass, “seeing how colors interact with each other, the motion of the glass, the fluidity of it.

“Every week I make different beads. Some of the beads I’ve made, I know how they’re going to turn out, some of them I don’t, and that’s a lot of fun.”

Either way, “It’s instant gratification.”

6 Comments

  1. Pamela Sanders says:

    Teresa Brittain’s website (www.brittainbeads.com) is not a working site. Do you have more current info on her? (Playing With Fire at Brittain Beads, March 1, 2007,
    By Catherine Darnell )

  2. Gail belvin says:

    I too am interested in seeing and buying some of her beads. Could you also let me know how to contact her? Thx

    • Blair Thomas says:

      Gail,
      We’ve not been able to find any current contact information for Teresa. I’ll update this when I do come across it.
      Thanks for reading!

      Blair Thomas
      Tennessee Home & Farm

  3. nancy crowson says:

    Itook a few lamp work classes a few years back. I would appreciate a link to todays lamp work classes. Im retired and want to travel to take classed from some of the best . Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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