photos by Bill Graham / The Meridian StarCrissa Sandoval brought her love of lampworking, a technique in which she uses a torch to melt glass into colorful creations, when she moved to Meridian from California about a year and a half ago.

When Crissa Sandoval lived in Long Beach, California, she often encountered lampwork artists such as herself.

But now that she lives in Meridian, she appears to be the only artist of the type in the area.

The closest person she knows about who does lampworking, in fact, lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

That could always change, though, especially if people who might harbor an interest in the activity gaze at Sandoval while she’s doing the craft — or while she’s deftly and calmly creating tiny glass works of art with the help of a specialized torch in her small Meridian studio.

Lampworking – where Sandoval uses a torch to melt glass into one-of-a kind, colorful creations – is mesmerizing to watch.

Sandoval moved to Meridian with her husband about a year and a half ago, and during that time she’s shaped a home studio and ventured into the local artist community by displaying her artistic wares at the Meridian Art Walk.

She first became interested in lampworking in the 1990s, when she stumbled upon a lampwork artist in Virginia.

“We were on vacation, and we went into this little tiny shop in Norfolk, Virginia,” she said. “She was on a torch … and I’m looking around her shop and she has all these beads. So I asked her, ‘Do you make jewelry?’ and she said, ‘Well, I just sell the beads and people make the jewelry.’”

That remark caught Sandoval’s attention. Making jewelry is one thing, but honing tiny globes of glass into colorful, subtly shaped beads was something new.

“Everybody else went up and down the block to all of the other shops,” she recalled. “I stayed there and was fascinated. I asked her a million questions. The minute got home I went to the library …”

Soon afterward, Sandoval took a class in glass working, but she also read and learned and practiced her craft until she was making beads, birds, leaves and other intricately shaped glass pieces. Nowadays she sells her items, and she recently participated in a juried arts festival in Georgia.

Sandoval said the flame from the torch harbors a kind of Zen quality, and she herself exudes a calm as she works in her studio. She uses what’s called COE 104 Soft Glass, made in Murano, Italy. She said it’s cost-effective, but it possesses lots of other important qualities, as well. It’s especially good for extremely detailed work.

“It’s one of the softest glasses out there,” she said. “It has a slightly lower melting temperature than other glass, and it has more color sections (for glass rods) than other glass.”

She also uses an oxygen-and-propane mix to fuel her torch — and now, after decades at her craft, she’s able to tease just the right combination of colors from the glass she uses.

“You take this rock right here, and it looks blue, but I’m going to melt it down and bring silver out of it,” she said.

Sandoval taps a variety of tools of varying shape and thickness.

“Every tool that I use helps me define,” she said. “You can shape, and you can move the glass, you can let gravity help you.”

On a recent afternoon in her studio, as Sandoval worked, she used a thin, string-shaped piece of glass to create fine shapes, and at one point she held up an usual tool, at least in the context of lampworking.

“This is my favorite tool, and it’s very technical,” she said with a chuckle. “It’s an old steak knife, and it’s not even from my house — it’s from our camping equipment.”

Sandoval stayed impressively steady as she worked. Although she often explained the moves she makes, she at times seemed to merge with the pieces she’s creating. It’s a concentration that can provide a sort of refuge from outside concerns — the sorts of concerns that surfaced some time ago when she worked as a human resources director.

“I would go out to the torch and all my troubles would melt away,” she said.

Sandoval said she’s relished jewelry for years, and she grew up painting, drawing and doing various sorts of crafts.

“I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, and you can’t not be crafty there,” she said with a laugh.

Sandoval’s home is filled with crafts, many based on natural objects, and she harbors a particular fondness for trees and all of the strength and life they convey. The creativity that radiates throughout her home seems to crystalize when she’s in her studio, working calmly and skillfully to shape her next work of art.

What is lampworking?

Lampworking is the technique of transforming molten glass into beads, sculptures and other works of art. The ancient craft was originally preformed by using oil burning lamps, hence the name.

Lampworking became widely practiced in Murano, Italy in the 14th century. Early lampworking was done in the flame of an oil lamp, with the artist blowing air into the flame through a pipe. Most artists now use torches that burn either propane or natural gas, or in some countries butane, for the fuel gas, mixed with either air or pure oxygen as the oxidizer.

Lampworking is used to create artwork, including beads, figurines, marbles, small vessels, Christmas tree ornaments, and much more. It is also used to create scientific instruments as well as glass models of animal and botanical subjects.