Swarovski glass crystal beads

Another project I worked on this summer with Remark Glass was a production piece for a client in New York. For this piece the client wanted to showcase beautiful Swarovski glass crystal beads. The final piece was a hanging wall of these shiny reflective crystals that sat in front of a large mirror.

When working on a production piece, or anything for that matter, there usually is at least some degree of problem solving throughout the design and building of the piece. Many times we can reflect on past pieces to avoid problems. That is something we did with this piece. For a previous piece beads were similarly strung on fishing line, this however proved to stretch over time from the weight of the beads. Going in with this knowledge we were able to avoid this problem and utilized Spiderwire, a braided cord that does not stretch under weight. Unlike the single filament of fishing line which under the heavy weight of glass beads stretching over time, there are 3 filaments braided to prevent stretching. Working on a project like this is refreshing, I enjoy trying different things and being able to mix things up and do something different for each project is great! Stringing the beads on was almost meditative, and I was able to think about ideas for other work while I did it.

I only got to see a picture of the end results of the piece as the show was in NYC, but it came out gorgeous. The strands of beads were coming out of the top of the piece suspended by triangular clear glass rods, and the way that light was caught between the beads and the mirror was breathtaking.