There is no way to accurately measure the age of Flameworking as an art form. Many of the techniques associated with working glass at a flame were actually in use for thousands of years before the first lamp, or burner, was invented. Shortly before the birth of Christ, someone thought of using a hollow pipe to extract the glass instead of a rod and discovered that blowing into the pipe would cause a bubble to form in the gather of hot glass. This blowpipe revolutionized the way glass was worked around the world. Glassblowing enabled artisans to create beautiful new objects, intricately designed, for a wide variety of functions.

Glassblowing dominated as the glass-forming technique for the next thousand years. During those early years, the Italians achieved the highest level of technical achievement in the world. As Europe left the middle ages and entered the Renaissance, glassblowing spread to every corner of the continent and across most of Asia. It was discovered by forcing a narrow stream of air into the flame from an oil lamp, sufficient heat could be generated to soften and work small pieces of glass. By the beginning of the fifteenth century, scientific apparatus was being made using this new technique. Lampworking, as it is known today, was born.

In 1924 the scientists at the glass factories in Corning, New York invented a new, more resilient glass composed of a large percentage of uncombined silica, using boron instead of soda, and containing a small percentage of aluminum for clarity. This new borosilicate glass, named Pyrex, had a very low coefficient of expansion and was extremely resistant to thermal and physical shock. Since it was about 15% lighter by volume than soda-lime or flint glass but much stronger, Pyrex was ideal for apparatus. However, the melting temperature was so high the old forced-air lamps could not melt it, and a new method of heating the glass was needed to work the new material. Borrowing from the welding trade and combining oxygen and natural gas, new burners were designed that produced a flame of sufficient heat to melt Pyrex. Traditional oil lamps were replaced by torches clamped to the flameworker's benchtop. These too were eventually replaced by the modern surface-mix bench burners in use today.

The advent of Pyrex revolutionized flameworking. Although developed for scientific instruments, it soon found its way into the hands of artisans who adapted the glass for novelty pieces. Quality and creativity were not relevant issues and flameworkers copied each other mercilessly until all novelty flamework started to look alike. In a bizarre twist of reasoning, the more established flameworkers then took to erecting veils of secrecy to protect their designs and techniques.  Flameworkers refused to work in front of or even speak to anyone they thought might be another flameworker. Naturally, this greatly inhibited the development of the fledgling art form. This veil of secrecy came to be known as the 'glass curtain'.

The industry of scientific apparatus-making was responsible for the spread of lampworking skills. Everywhere an apparatus factory appeared, there appeared soon after flameworkers who made art or novelties. Because of the scientific industry, lampworking has an established tradition in countries such as China, India, Egypt, Australia, and Japan. Some of the finest contemporary flameworkers in the world come from these countries.

In 1965, John Burton, an Englishman living in America, seized upon Pyrex as his material and lampworking as his chosen technique. Adapting what he saw at the factories to the small scale of lampworking, Burton developed his own method of blowing glass in a flame in what came to be known as John Burton's method. He successfully made small vessels and sculptures on the ends of glass blowpipes, and used his background as a metallurgist to find and mix chemicals to the borosilicate glass to make compatible colors. In 1968, he started a glass workshop in Los Angeles, where students carried on and added to his explorations into making borosilicate color, developing more than 200 formulas of their own. The formulas were passed onto Paul Trautman, who was interested in manufacturing colored glass for flameworkers on a broad scale. He started Northstar Glassworks, which today is the largest manufacturer of colored borosilicate glass in the world. The old image of the lamp-worker was swiftly replaced by a new breed of daring and innovative artists who were not afraid to break rules and turn their backs on tradition.

By 1986, lampworking was being taught in several institutions. Classes were filled with an eager new breed of flameworker, educated in universities, with a background in the arts, and absolutely no desire or intention to follow the traditional path of the novelty flameworker. The old-timers watched in bewilderment as the 'glass curtain' came crashing down. Books and articles were written describing what had been kept shrouded in secrecy for years. New periodicals devoted specifically to lampworking came into being to help share information and make flameworkers aware of each other.  Flameworkers everywhere embraced this new openness, and, as a result, they all learned and progressed together.

In the past ten years, a revolution has taken place in the lampworking industry, not just through the acceptance of the art public, but in the vision flameworkers have of themselves. The old ways have seemingly gone up in a puff of smoke. Secretiveness has given way to open sharing of ideas and techniques. Traditional themes have given way to outrageous forms of expression and endless experimentation. The 'purity' of glass itself has fallen to the power of multimedia. The tradition of second and third generation flameworkers has given way to art-educated artists who choose lampworking as their favoured medium. Sophisticated lampworking instruction is being given. Lampworked art is being shown and sold alongside the more traditional mediums of glass blowing and casting, as well as painting and sculpture, in the finest art galleries in the world. Flameworking artists of all nations share a hunger for knowledge, both technical and esoteric, that will drive the development of this medium