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Title: Pinwheels
Artist: AJGlass
Image created by: AJGlass using an Epson Perfection 1200U scanner and PhotoShop.
Medium: Glass
Type: Soft Glass, 104 Coefficient of Expansion (Moretti/Effetre, Vetrofond, Lausha)
Description: Glass Beads

Details: Clear, periwinkle, teal, emerald green, nile green, sky blue, windex blue, pastel purple, dark transparent purple, medium transparent purple, and medium transparent blue glasses were used to create these pinwheel beads. Each bead took 25 minutes to make and all were annealed in a kiln for 18 hours. No image color correction was necessary. The dime is provided for scale of the glass beads.

About Toy Pinwheels: A pinwheel is a simple child's toy made of a wheel of paper or plastic curls attached at its axle to a stick by a pin. It is designed to spin when blown upon by a person or by the wind. It is a predecessor to a more complex spinning device known as a whirligig. During the nineteenth century in America, any wind-driven toy held aloft by a running child was characterized as a whirligig including pinwheels. Pinwheels have provided many children with almost endless hours of enjoyment and amusement and are still quite popular today.

Discussion: Most people typically string and wear a bead by putting a thin organic material or metal chain through the bead hole. They then connect both ends of the stringing material together – usually with a clasp or a knot – to create a loop. Stringing a bead in this fashion is usually easy and doing so allows for the front of the bead to be displayed – which is the normal and usually preferable view.

However, sometimes the sides of a bead will have more interesting colors or designs than the front of the bead. In such a case, it’s preferable to display what the sides of the bead look like instead. If this is the case with a bead that you own, then I encourage you to try the unique side-mounting of your bead – with the hole facing forward.

There are a number of ways to side-mount a bead. These ways include the use of various types of wire cages, wire wrappings, or specially designed wire findings including eye pins, head pins, stick pins, etc. that will snuggly or loosely hold a bead in such a way as to display its holed side. Rarely however, does a bead creator specifically design to have a bead mounted in such a fashion. Usually, it’s through complete accident that the sides of a bead turn out to be more interesting than the front.

With these pinwheel beads, I have specifically designed them to be mounted with their holes facing forwards – thus displaying their unique pinwheel effect. When loosely mounted sideways on a pin, these pinwheel beads can be spun or rotated by hand – thus exhibiting a twirling pattern of color similar to that seen in toy pinwheels.

Creation: A small amount of glass was melted onto a bead-release-coated mandrel and formed into a round bead. Then, numerous layers of alternating transparent and opaque glasses were randomly drizzled onto the round bead and each layer was slowly melted in. Each bead has more than 8 alternating glass layers. The resulting effect is the creation of wisps of opaque color swimming within transparent colored glass.

After the final glass layer was applied and melted in, and while the entire bead was still molten, the bead-release-coated mandrel was then turned quickly and the molten glass twisted as it tried to catch up with the speed of the mandrel. This twisting distorted the alternating layers of color and created the pinwheel effect on the sides of the bead.

Further Comment: The front of these beads looks like colorful egg drop soup (minus the onions) – with opaque glass pieces swimming in pools of transparent glass. It’s interesting to look at but not as interesting as the pinwheel effect on the sides. Of course these beads can be mounted showing either view, but I prefer the sideways view. I also find it rather addictive to spin these beads and watch the colors rotate into or away from the hole. The effect really is just like a pinwheel. Or as some have observed, a whirlpool.

Legal: Copyright © Aaron J. Greenblatt. All rights reserved. Commercial use prohibited. This image and commentary may not be used for any reason without expressed written consent.


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