The idea
The wonder of glass and light
The idea
Sometime in 1990 I visited an exposition of Tiffany lamps in Hamburg and this was a kind of 'revelation' to me. I found myself entering a sea of fantastic colours and forms that impressed me deeply and left me speechless!
These impressions of incredibly colourful and brilliant glass took hold of my imagination for good. And, although I am a musician by profession, I started to build lamps like these in my spare time. I learned how to work this delicious glass into designs of my own invention.
In about 2005 I needed another break from my music, which then spread over seven years. With the remaining bits of glass from my Tiffany time, I began the search for a method to create lamps in my own way and overcome the two major limitations of the Tiffany technique:
One difficulty of this technique consisted in integrating larger pieces of glass into a curved surface. And secondly, the soldering of very small, complex pieces onto the copper foil presented an even greater challenge because the traditional Tiffany technique, being a rather coarse procedure, does not allow for this kind of filigree work. These were serious limitations.
The answer to these problems consisted in
first:
constructing a rectangular light-column with flat surfaces that carry the design,
and second:
developing a mosaic technique that overcomes the traditional limitations.
Sometime in 1990 I visited an exposition of Tiffany lamps in Hamburg and this was a kind of 'revelation' to me. I found myself entering a sea of fantastic colours and forms that impressed me deeply and left me speechless!
These impressions of incredibly colourful and brilliant glass took hold of my imagination for good. And, although I am a musician by profession, I started to build lamps like these in my spare time. I learned how to work this delicious glass into designs of my own invention.
In about 2005 I needed another break from my music, which then spread over seven years. With the remaining bits of glass from my Tiffany time, I began the search for a method to create lamps in my own way and overcome the two major limitations of the Tiffany technique:
One difficulty of this technique consisted in integrating larger pieces of glass into a curved surface. And secondly, the soldering of very small, complex pieces onto the copper foil presented an even greater challenge because the traditional Tiffany technique, being a rather coarse procedure, does not allow for this kind of filigree work. These were serious limitations.
The answer to these problems consisted in
first:
constructing a rectangular light-column with flat surfaces that carry the design,
and second:
developing a mosaic technique that overcomes the traditional limitations.