Archived Featured Bead Artists
Ania Karolina Kyte,
Amy Waldman Engel,
Barrie Edwards,
Jodi Lindsey,
Rebecca Voris,
Karen Elmquist,
Allison Turner,
Debbie Dimoff,
Margaret Zinser
by: Dwyn Tomlinson
This month's lampworker makes "beads" that transcend beadmaking and step into the world of sculpture.
| Beading
Times: Where are you from? Slava Popov: I’m Russian and currently living in both Russia and Canada, sometimes I’m thinking that I’m living on the edge of two worlds. |
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Beading Times: How
long have you been making beads?
Slava Popov: I
have been working with glass for almost 2 years. Beadmaking is currently the
main form of my glassmaking, though more and more often I find myself involved
in other forms of flameworking (like borosilicate sculpture, for example).
Beading Times: What
got you started flameworking?
Slava Popov: It’s
a question that I don’t know the answer to myself. I remember it was in the
fall of 2001 when I suddenly decided to go to the library and find some books
about glassmaking. The mysterious element in all that was that before that,
I did not even think about glass, nor did I attend any art glass exhibitions,
nor did I meet any glass artists or watch anything about glass on TV. So I’m
not able to explain that sudden impulse or urge to find some information about
glassmaking. As far as I remember, my only experience with art glass occurred
many years ago when I ran across a catalogue of the exhibition of one Russian
glass artist ( I don’t even remember his name, in spite of all my attempts to
recall it). I do have some artistic background though. In middle school, I attended
art school for 3 years where I studied painting, drawing, sculpting and history
of art. Unfortunately I dropped out without completing the final
year.
Beading Times: I'm
thinking that the art school background, and having that experience help quite
a bit in understanding how to do a convincing rendition of an animal. Is that
correct?
Slava Popov: Yes
I think so, Russian art school is not the same as in the States. In order to
get there one needs to take rigorous entrance exams. Though these schools are
supposed to educate kids from middle school they provide very good fundamentals
in all aspects of artistic painting, drawing and sculpting including human figure,
movement, and composition (Many graduates of these schools draw better than
graduates of American Art Colleges at the University level)
Beading Times: Were
you interested in making beads before that?
Slava Popov:
No, as a matter of fact I have always considered glass beadmaking as a step
to sculptural flameworking.
Beading Times: So
for you, is it fair to say that the mandrel is just a convenient way to hold
the glass, and the fact that it is technically a bead is incidental?
Slava Popov:
That's exactly what I wanted to say. On the other hand, recently I came to realize
that many people buy my works because they have a hole, so that they can use
them in jewelry.
Beading Times: Did
you take a class?
Slava Popov: Yes,
at the very beginning I took a class in Detroit. It was all about basics of
beadmaking and I already knew many techniques but I was glad that I attended
the class because I got experience working with oxy-propane set up (at that
time I had a Hothead at home)
Beading Times: Have
you had anyone that you consider to be a mentor?
Slava Popov: Mentor?
No, I don’t think so. I’m primarily self-taught and the beadmaking class that
I mentioned above was the only time when I received any sort of instruction.
Beading Times: Whose
work inspires you the most?
Slava Popov: I
find works of Loren Stamp, Luccio Bubacco, and Milon Townsend to be very inspirational.
Though their works are not beads in technical sense of this word (with exception
of some works of Stump) the techniques they use or subjects of their works or
undeniable talent of these artists give me a boost to pursue my own path.
Beading Times: Do
you sell your beads?
Slava Popov: Oh
yes, I’m selling via two on-line venues: my web site and ebay.
Beading Times: Do
you make beads for friends?
Slava Popov: Not
yet, very few of my friends know about my glass
Beading Times: What
does your spouse think of your lampworking?
Slava Popov: My
spouse? I don’t have a clue. I guess she likes some of them, especially my borosilicate
spiders.
Beading Times: What
sort of set up do you have for making beads? (Type of torch, gas, kiln, etc.)
Slava Popov: I
have National 8M with medium and big tips.
Beading Times: Do
you have a favorite product, i.e. bead release, glass, etc.
Slava Popov: As
for the bead release — my favorite brand is Sludge Plus because this one
is the strongest (I would like to try Super Blue Sludge; I was told that it’s
even stronger than Sludge Plus). In a bead release I value only the ability
to withstand my handling of the bead — if one is doing bead 4 inches long
I guess the only prayer of the beadmaker can be for the bead release to not
crack in the middle of the process!
Beading Times: Amen
to that! What type of glass do you use?
Slava Popov: For
beads I use primarily Moretti/Effetre because of its availability and inexpensiveness.
Sometimes I use boro glass like North Star or Colormax as well, but it’s all
very expensive stuff.
Beading Times: How
do you approach making one of your sculptures.
Slava Popov: All
of them are sculptures first, and only then beads. So, when I’m working on my
animal beads I’m bound by the animals’ natural looks and shapes rather then
by my personal preferences. I'‘m limited by nature -- after all I want my Pug
bead to look like a Pug and not like a frog.
Beading Times: You
have obviously developed a signature style. Are some of your beads — and
I hesitate to use the term "bead," sculpture seems more appropriate
— more popular than others?
Slava Popov: I
don’t know. Some of my dog beads are very popular, like Pugs and Pembrokes.
What is truly unique about my beads is that I do portraits of animals. Pretty
often people commission me to do a portrait of their beloved pets (as a rule,
dogs) asking me to do it as close to original as possible.
Beading Times: You
have some magnificent sculptures of horses as well. Part of your moving away
from beads and into bigger, sculptural work? Can you talk about these?
Slava Popov: As
I said, the cost of working with boro glass, especially on large projects is
often prohibitive so I have sometimes to substitute it by working on larger
scale with soft glass. My horses are an example of these attempts. I'm going
to try real compositions made with soft glass that will include human figures
(probably something from mythology)in the nearest future. The example to follow
in this field is without any doubt Lucio Bubacco who is the best soft glass
sculptor in the world (Nobody can even get closer to his level of art). The
major technical difficulty for me is that in contrast to Lucio I don't know
the secrets of his " anneal in the process" technique so it would
be difficult if not impossible to get rid of a mandrel as a support system.
But with a hole in the bodies any composition could lose aesthetic value.
Beading Times: What
was your biggest obstacle to overcome?
Slava Popov: The
problem of cracking. Cracking is the biggest challenge for me because my beads
are not uniformly round like majority of all other beads. My beads have extremities
like legs that cool down much faster than the main body of the bead. Besides,
my beads are big. To keep them uniformly hot in all places is almost impossible
and requires immense concentration, stamina and physical effort.
The largest bead is the hardest one to make. The larger the piece, the more difficult to keep it uniformly hot, yet it is critical because small decorations on its surface cool more quickly than the main body of the bead and are prone to popping off when heated again.
Conversely, the easiest one is any small animal with short hair.
Beading Times: Which
are your favorites?
Slava Popov: I
like my Pug beads and also borosilicate spiders
Beading Times: How
have your beads changed? Since you started or over the years?
Slava Popov: My
beads are now much more sophisticated then they used to be, with more details,
and as I hope sometimes I’m even able to catch the character of a particular
animal, not only its appearance.
Beading Times: Do
you still have the first beads you made? What do you think of them now?
Slava Popov: Yes,
I keep my first sculptural bead and even posted it on my web site. It's so ugly
and small that I sometimes get pleasure just looking at this thing and thinking
about the progress I made since I first started sculptural beadmaking.
Beading Times: You
have a fair number of dog breeds on your site. Do you have a dog - a live model,
so to speak?
Slava Popov: The
funny thing is I don't have a dog, but I do have a cat, Persian, and I love
him. As for dogs I have plenty of pictures of dogs of all imaginable breeds
in different poses, so usually I don't have a shortage of models. Sometimes
though I would prefer to have a live dog model, but anyway I don't know how
to make it to keep the pose that I need.
Beading Times: Do
you have a technique or method or tip to share?
Slava Popov: I
just don’t know. I don’t have any "trade secrets" like many beadmakers
who are doing traditional conventional beads. My task is very simple – I’m trying
to reproduce in glass a living creature. There are many ways to achieve this
goal, but usually I start as a sculptor because first of all I have to create
a form or shape. This stage is pretty much self-explanatory: I add or remove
glass using my glass rods and other tools, trying to achieve a likeness of my
animal model.
When I’m done with the shape, I often have to proceed further and to coat the body of the bead in fur. At this stage, I’m acting more like a painter. First of all, I have to mix color stringers for coat or fur. In contrast to painting, mixing glass colors is much more difficult. First of all, I don’t see the true color when the glass is hot, but even when it is cooled down, the color on the surface of the stringer is a little different from the color inside the same stringer. When I have the stringer for the coat, I can apply it to the body of the bead.
Finally, I have to rake the coat in order to produce its shape (Different long haired dogs, for example, have different coats). I rake the coat with a glass stringer, so I’m not only creating the coat’s texture, but also adding additional color shades (the raking stringer is in a little different color than the coat itself) because some glass from the raking stringer gets mixed with coat in the process of raking .
Beading Times: Have
you "invented" any new tools, or recycled something that wouldn’t
ordinarily be thought of as a tool for lampworking?
Slava Popov:
No. In my work, I actually use very few tools: knife, graphite paddle, tungsten
pick and tweezers. I don’t have any need for anything fancier than that.. The
important tool is the glass rod itself. When the end of the rod is molten, I
use it to add more glass to the bead, but when I need to shape the bead, I often
cool the end of the rod and use it to remove excess glass from a bead, or to
rake it or for many other procedures.
Beading Times: Could you share with us some pictures of your studio set up?
Beading Times: Where
do you want to go next with your lampworking? Or where do you see it taking
you?
Slava Popov: I
would like to work with boro glass making sculptural compositions. What I don't
like about working with soft glass is that the scale is very limited and it's
virtually impossible to introduce any significant artistic idea. Though many
people call my beads art in reality it's not so. From my point of view the difference
between art and craft lies in presence or absence of artistic idea. Technical
execution should be perfect in both but only idea makes a piece to be a real
art. I have a couple of boro works but unfortunately I'm not able to take decent
pictures of them. I guess I need much better camera plus special equipment for
photographing glass plus special skills to do that. I was trying to have a professional
takes pictures but it turned out to be so awfully expensive that now I don't
even think about that. Besides, working with boro is extremely expensive. Absolutely
everything is much more expensive than in soft glass lampworking. The color
boro glass is around $50 per pound ($8 for soft glass). You need much bigger
torch, which consumes much more expensive tank oxygen (don't even think about
using oxy concentrators), much bigger kiln, etc. Now I see why there are so
few people who are completely in sculptural lampworking.
Beading Times: What
about photographing your beads – what do you use to get your pictures?
Slava Popov:
I have a digital camera Kodak DX 3900 which is usually adequate for taking pictures
of my beads.
Beading Times: Do
you have a website or auction site that you regularly sell you beads on?
Slava Popov: My
web site is www.flamecreations.com
where you can find link to my ebay auctions, also I welcome private commissions
so feel free to email your requests. My email is info@flamecreations.com
Beading Times is pleased to present a monthly article spotlighting a lampwork bead artist. If you, or someone you know is interested in being featured, please contact dwyn@beadingtimes.com.
