Creating any stained glass lamp requires time, talent, concentration and commitment, but this is especially true when embarking a large shade. We recently completed a 26″ Oriental Poppy Floor Lamp for a local client.
Bill Campbell spent several weeks painstakingly selecting the glass and composing the color scheme for this shade. This elaborate shade has 1332 individual pieces of glass, each of which must be carefully considered for color, texture and transparency. Bill’s fine art training in painting and close to forty years of studying and creating Tiffany shades has given him a fine tuned sense for blending colors.
This generously proportioned 26″ shade has 1332 individual pieces of glass. One of the three sectional repeats is shown above.
Once the shade was cut and fit, the process of wrapping the edge of each piece with copper foil began. The foiled pieces were then transferred onto the lamp form which had been coated with our special Century Studios house made wax.
Irwin Terry then began soldering the exterior of the shade. The soldering iron tip heats the solder to eight hundred degrees. After every seam is soldered the lamp form is heated, melting the wax and allowing the shade to be removed from the form.
Large shades like this piece require the addition of copper reinforcing wires to provide the added stability that will ensure the shade stays true well into the next century. We will be showing the completed lamp in our post next weekend.
