I have been busy just lately and haven’t had time to update my pages.

As you can see from the pictures on the left I have been making some lampshades for our local Summer Craft Fair of which 10% of the profits from each stall go to local charities.

You can imagine that I am absolutely fed up with slaving over a hot soldering by now, and I don’t want to see another piece of coloured glass again for a while! Nevertheless I get a nice warm feeling inside that I’m helping out the local charities as well as making a nice fat profit for myself.

If you really want to take a closer look at the lamps then click on the pictures for a larger image. I apologise for the quality of the pics though, they are not up to my usual high standard. I had to use my old analogue Zenit SLR camera because I dropped my digital camera out of the bedroom window onto the concrete yard below when I was photographing some weird looking bird on the lawn. Now for some reason, I know not what, it has ceased to function. It is now an ex-camera.

On rare occasions (very rare!) I see a policeman on a pedal cycle. Today was one of those days. He was at the ATM machine in the main street, no doubt getting some of his meagre wages out.

The first thing I noticed was that thing on his head. He looked absolutely ridiculous, just as if he had stepped out of a circus ring!

Nothing wrong with the rest of his uniform, but I would have liked to see him wearing a long sleeved shirt, nicely pressed, and a tie. When the police used to dress smartly they commanded the respect of the man in street. Not so much now methinks!

They look too casual, scruffy in fact. I think our council street cleaners in their nice green and yellow overalls look smarter!

Whoever designed that style of safety helmet must have done it as a joke. It does nothing for his image. How can you take him seriously, when he’s ticking you off for some misdemeanour? I’m afraid I would have a job to suppress a laugh.

Clic the pics for larger images.

I suggest that the police authorities should have a rethink about the design of the safety hemets for the police who ride around on their noddy bikes.

Now if it was up to me I would design a helmet like the one on the right. Anyone wearing a helmet like that would certainly command the respect of the great unwashed and the yobs, and most certainly any older person who can remember when anyone wearing that design of helmet was well respected, especially on the continent! You didn’t argue with them then.

You must admit it does give an air of authority to the wearer, not like the clowns hat the bike-police have to wear now.

An American comedian once said “How can you take the British police seriously? They don’t even carry a gun!”

Many years ago I saw a noticed that Sotherbys, or Christies, (I can’t remember which now) in London were going to auction a collection of genuine Tiffany lamps.

I knew that I couldn’t afford to buy one because nowadays the real ones fetch ridiculously high prices, but it would be nice to go and have a looksee. When I arrived there on the day I bought a catalogue and viewed the lamps on display.

Now I had never seen the real lamps up close before and I was a little disappointed with the quality of the workmanship of some. I know that Louis Tiffany didn’t design or make all the lamps, the majority were designed and made by the staff at the studio, nevertheless the soldering on some was of a poor standard. However the special glass they used was of a very high standard.

The lamps were lit for the viewing and the colours were stunning. All the lamps sparkled, except for a few that were in a poor condition due to misuse and age. Several were quite dirty and had cracked glass or missing pieces in them, but even those fetched high bids, surprisingly.

One particular lamp caught my eye. It was an uplighter of very high quality and in pristine condition, obviously it had been lovingly cared for and it was attributed to have been designed and made by the master himself. Apparently it was a special commission and only one was ever made. It’s not even in “The Lamps of Tiffany” by Dr Egon Neustadt.

I quickly counted my money which amounted to about £23 : 17 : 11d (thats how long ago it was!) and a German 10 mark note! No chance. The final bid on the uplighter was £220,000, or somewhere in that region. Ah well, never mind I thought. Then I noticed that there was a photograph of that lamp in the catalogue, and it gave all the measurements.

Well, I thought, I will just have to make my own. When I returned home I scaled up the picture and made a paper-mache mold, painted it white and drew the pattern of all the glass pieces on it as Tiffany would have done. I covered the mold with beeswax so that the glass would stay in place when I did the soldering. When it was finished I released it from the mold by warming it in the oven to melt the beeswax.

I cleaned and polished it, fixed it into it’s mounting frame, and it’s now hanging in my lounge. The quality of the glass doesn’t show up in the photos because of my cheap camera and Photoshop6 obviously can’t catch the sparkle and the real colours; plus the fact that colours in every make of monitor display them slightly different. I can assure you that mine looks every bit as good as the original!

I wonder how much I would get in auction for it? Any ideas?

Clic the pic to get another page and then click on that image to get a bigger size.

Note to Helen: Sorry, I can’t comment on your blog anymore. My WordPress, Google, Gravator and Facebook accounts are no longer acceptable.

If you have read the sidebar you will see that I had a stained glass business called “Anget Stained Glass” before I retired. When I gave up the trade name someone else took it up. Click here to view his site, his studio is very like the one I had.

I now make stained glass windows (NOT with stick-on lead, but the real thing!) and lampshades to order, providing the job is interesting and pays well. I don’t carry a stock of lead came or coloured glass now because that is just capital tied up on the shelves.

If someones wants a window or tiffany lamp I price up the materials and insist on a 50% deposit before buying the materials. This is to ensure that they don’t back out when the project is complete. I have been caught out like that before, they turn up, look at the window or lamp and say “Sorry, that’s not quite what I wanted.” and go away, leaving me to dispose of it, usually at a loss.

I was approached by a somewhat rich local business man who said he was furnishing his new mansion (?) in the “Arts and Crafts” style but couldn’t find a desk lamp from that period, but he had come across an old catalogue published by the Cincinnati Artistic Wrought Iron Works,Cincinnati, Ohio, and was rather taken by the lamp shown above Clic the pic.

He asked if I could make one like it. “Easy-peasy” I said “It’s a doddle. No problem”.

He agreed to my price and coughed up 50% so I set to. First I had to find out the size of the panels in the lamp by drafting a plan and elevation view to work out the various angles for cutting the glass. When the glass arrived it only took two evenings to make.

Obviously I didn’t know what the colour of the original glass was, so I plumped for a green favrille glass similar to the orginal Tiffany Studios glass. The other was just common yellow opal glass. I think it turned out rather well.