September 10, 2025
Your Bead for Venice is the international competition for beadmakers around the world who are inspired by the tradition of Venetian beadmaking. This is a collaboration between the ISGB, the Comitato per la Salvaguardia dell’Arte delle Perle di Vetro Veneziane and Perliers d’Art de France. From all the entries, 20 finalists were selected by a jury. All the finalists’ beads will be on display during Venice Glass Week from September 13th to 21st in the Murano Glass Museum. They will continue to be on displat until January 6th 2026. And they will be part of the permanent collection at the Murano Glass Museum.
The inspiration for this bead came from the Ancient Mosaic Glass Face Beads of Hellenistic and Roman periods (300BC-AD 400). Mosaic beads had a renaissance in Venice around 1500. This original style of the Mosaic Face Bead was to create milleflore and then pick up the milleflori and add them to the hot bead. The Mosaic Glass Face Beads are very sought after by collectors and my version of this bead has my unique style of flameworking mixed with vitreous enamels.
In my version of the Mosaic Glass Face bead. I first create small -reverse- paintings using vitreous enamel and pick them up one at a time which I add to my base bead while the bead is still hot and still being created at the torch.
I chose not to melt in the paintings flush to the bead, but to offer a more visual and tactile experience. I finished off this bead at the engraving lathe, creating even more texture to create visual excitement.
I am heading out the door as I write this, to travel to Murano and see first hand my bead in such a beautiful space on the Murano island.
I’ll post pictures of the trip in another post.