Rustic and Humble Lampwork Beads from GlassBeadArt

I would like to introduce you to Maryse Fritzsch-Thillens, a lampwork artist from the small european country of Luxembourg. Maryse's beads have completely captured my attention with their rustic and humble nature.
Maryse shared her work with me this week and here is her story in her own words.

"I discovered lampworking in march 2003 and have never looked back. I first started out because I wanted to make beads for my own jewelry, as I could not always find what I was looking for and in theses years, at least in Europe, lampworking was not very popular yet. Over the years I took many workshops from artists from the US, learning lots of different techniques but I did not manage to incorporate these into my own design ideas.

 

Parallel to lampworking, I had started making rosaries and mixed media catholic jewelry and after a certain time and especially the amazing feedback I got from my customers it became clear that this was to be my calling. 

Due to some major health issue, I had lots of time to think about my beads without being able to torch and I discovered my problem was that I do know many complicated techniques but my all-time love are the simple organic rustic looking beads I have been making for my rosaries all the time.

 

I truly enjoy making these but for all the years the lampworking bug did not leave me. I have a small etsy shop called GlassBeadArt for a few years now and I sell my beads on local art fairs.Now my etsy shop reflects my true love beads and I am slowly building a customer base of people appreciate my beads.

I love going to antique markets and buying old vintage medals to use on the rosaries. When the medals are very large and special, I make small one decade chaplet out of them that bring out the value and uniqueness of the medal."

One special project Maryse worked on was creating rosaries from crushed bottles. "I got the mass wine bottles from the inauguration mass of our archbishop, crushed the glass and made small spacer beads out of it. Then I took these beads and turned them into 2 rosaries, one for the Bishop and the other one was commissioned from the Cathedral of Luxembourg for the adornment of the statue of Our Lady of Luxembourg."

Thank you for sharing your work and story with us Maryse!

Maryse's Etsy shop: http://etsy.com/shop/glassbeadart

Read more about her work on her blog: www.glassbeadart.blogspot.com