04/05/2025
I never use patterns for the same reason I never colored in a coloring book as a child, I can’t stay inside the lines and I always make adjustments to the given design. Save this lamp shade. Almost ten years ago, I left Baltimore, my job, my family, and my friends and moved back to my hometown in Kansas with my husband to heal and be with our parents. After months of walking around in circles, I determined I needed to get back to my art, but I had no workspace and was living in the middle of a DYI home renovation of my husband and my own making. I determined I had to start somewhere or I would get nowhere. I needed create something even though everything was still in boxes and crates. I opened a box pulled out the Tiffany Spider Web lampshade mold and cut off the last design I had taped on top of the mold and got to work. Using the traditional Tiffany design, I worked within my own exacting parameters, I cut from one sheet of glass, the cuts had to match the movement in the glass, and I couldn’t waste any glass. This allowed me to focus solely on technique and it gave me the structure that my life at the moment was lacking. Every day I escaped to the garage where I had set up an impromptu build table and worked until I was exhausted. Here I could think as I worked. I don’t remember exactly when I finished the shade but it along with a locally made ceramic base sits waiting for me to build the lamp so it can be sold.
