Calvin Orr began working with stained glass in the early 90's to keep his mind and hands occupied. As his artistic skills developed (I think he discovered he was way better with glass than with tattooing), he ventured into a new medium: glass bead making! Self-taught and unafraid of making "mistakes," he exploded his first bead in '95 and has been unstoppable since. Every day, you can find him puttering about the house like an eccentric scientist with his coffee mug in hand, excited about his experiments with dichroic glass, silver and gold leafing, lusters, powders and whatever "sparklies" he finds around the house! I often ask him, "Can you do that? Is it possible?" Calvin's typical drawled response, "Why, shoore!"

Calvin also fuses glass pieces that are featured in a popular sterling silver jewelry line that is represented around the country. He cuts and facets glass beads and pendants but his first love is just sitting in front of the torch and "cooking" some beads.

He is most known and admired for his signature flower canes. The tiny flowers embedded within his dichroic floral beads are individual slices, handmade in a process that takes much patience and concentration! This process is very similar to the old-style Italian way of making millefiore. Each cane is created individually by layering different colors of glass to create a long rod with the floral design running thru it, much like a maki sushi. The cane is sliced into tiny chunks that can be used in fusing, beadmaking, or just admired.

Calvin has been a part of our family since '96, when we first met at a bead show in San Francisco. We talked beads, breathed beads and admired each other's beads. He now lives, beads and teaches glass beadmaking in Hawaii.

Three ways to get your hands on some Calvin beads!

1. Exclusive collections of Calvin's beads are at The Bead Gallery!

2. Find Calvin's beads on eBay!

3. Calvin also attends many local and national bead shows! See him at a show near you!

The Bead Gallery offers you Calvin Orr's exciting HOT GLASS WORKSHOPS!

Learn how to make your very own glass beads and pendants on a torch or in a kiln! Bring your friends or have a private lesson with established artist Calvin. Students are also welcome to repeat all classes, with the certainty of learning something new every time!

We hope to share our fun and excitement and love of beads with you!

All classes are from 9am - 3pm. Includes all materials. Please bring your own lunch!

Maximum students per class: 3

For More Information or to Register: Call (808) 487-2740 or email Rene at ryosh@hawaii.rr.com

This article on Calvin was published in a 1999 edition of the Honolulu Star Bulletin.

Jamie Lyn Yoshida, owner of The Bead Gallery on Kapiolani Boulevard, is at least partly responsible for lampworker Calvin Orr's recent move to Hawaii from San Jose, Calif. They met at a mainland bead show and have formed something of a mutual admiration society.

Yoshida was one of the first Hawaii beaders to tackle lampworking. While Orr and others say she has quite a talent for it, she no longer makes many of her own beads. "Now that I have a store, it's less and less," said Yoshida. But she is always on the lookout for lampworkers to showcase and she was particularly excited by Orr's work.

The delicacy of Orr's beads are incongruous with his rough, tattoo-covered exterior. Orr's resume includes stints as a computer cable fabricator, janitor and tattoo artist. But it was his work in stained glass that brought him to lampworking.

Three or four years ago, bead artists began to use the facilities at the studio where he was working. He decided to try beadmaking and was quickly hooked. He signed up for classes and built a workshop of equipment and tools he largely engineered himself.

The captivating details that comprise an Orr bead spring from the fact that he is at least as fascinated with the process and tools of bead making as he is skilled in the actual molding of the glass. For example, Orr makes his own glass canes. Most bead makers buy their canes, usually from Italian suppliers.

"Canes" and "stringers" form the lampworkers palette. Canes are rods of glass that can be a solid color or a combination of colors in a design. The design elements in a cane can be inserted in a glass bead during lampwork. Stringers are thinner rods of colored glass that have been heated and pulled. They also can be used to create details on a bead.

Orr's specialty is the plumeria and he is perfecting his method for putting veins in the petals of the flowers.

"I've been doing pretty good with the flowers," said Orr, who is modest and given to understatement. The results of his flower canes are amazing. Orr also has made canes with hearts, stars and other shapes.

He is working on a fish cane but has not made one he is happy with. "I've been totally baffled by it."

Orr has a reputation for being generous with the products of his unique skills. "He shares," said fellow lampworker Brenda Yonamine.

Orr is now learning to work with silver so he can set his cabochon beads. Retailers want to sell the cabochons, but customers will not buy them loose and they don't fit into standard bezel settings. So he is building settings for them.

"This is my art work that I want to get out there," said Orr. "I just hope somebody likes it so I can make more."

Phone: 808.589.2600
Fax: 808.589.2601
Email: info@thebeadgallery.com