Last week, we completed the 22″ Dragonfly shade. The shade is shown on the large Turtleback base. Purchased by a local client, this shade is being used as a floor lamp.
Irwin spent over a week soldering on the shade. Shades with irregular lower edges take special reinforcing, and Irwin is shown attaching the flexible copper rim around the bottom of the shade. Once tacked into place, the rim is completely soldered and then the dragonfly wing filigrees are fit and attached.
The multi-colored pressed glass jewels which adorn this shade were created by Century Studios using molds taken off original Tiffany Studios jewels. A small amount of molten glass is taken from the furnace and placed into the bronze jewel mold. In the photo at the left, Irwin is using a hand press to force the molten glass into the mold. The pressed glass is then put into an annealing oven to cool down over night. Each color of jewel has to be created from separate batches of glass. To achieve the variety of colors in our stock of jewels took many months of work.
