About Jess Hogan Designs

I began designing jewelry seriously 8 years ago, using factory made beads in a variety of styles. Eventually, I took my first lampworking class and fell in love with the medium! Both my husband, Scott, and I have since spent thousands of hours on our torches practicing and experimenting with different techniques, styles, and glass reactions.

Lampworking is the process of melting glass over a torch to create the desired object. Glass itself is brittle at room temperature, but with added head, it becomes fluid. I use Italian soda-lime glass that comes in the form of a rod in all of my work. The oxy-propane torch I use in lampworking must reach temperatures of at least 1400 degrees in order to make the glass molten and workable.

To make a bead, I take a thin steel mandrel (rod) and wrap the molten glass around it to form a basic bead. After that, the glass can be shaped using a variety of tools. Surface decorations, such as stringer (thin strands of glass), frit (small chunks of glass), silver leaf, and various specialty or reactive powders, can also be applied for added effect.

Once the bead is finished, it is put into a kiln to be annealed. Annealing is a process of heating and slowly cooling the bead to reduce internal stress, making it durable and of heirloom quality.

Our lampwork is continuously evolving, as are our jewelry designs. Each bead or piece of jewelry is different, if only slightly, as lampworking is far from an exacting art.