Merry Christmas from Century Studios

It is the end of the year, and Century Studios will be closed from December 24th through January 1st. We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and look forward to creating more great things for you all in 2009!

Here are some photos to make you smile. These are pictures of our rescue dogs for your enjoyment this Christmas. Don't forget your local animal shelters this Holiday Season, Muzzy and Pepper have lots of orphan animal friends looking for homes.

Muzzy and Pepper are waiting for Santa to arrive.


Muzzy goes to bed early so Santa will know she is a good dog and leave her lots of treats.


Pepper thinks if she smiles nice for Santa, she will get an extra helping of dog treats for Christmas.
Pepper finds out that what she got from Santa was a gift certificate to the vet to have her teeth cleaned! Merry Christmas from Muzzy and Pepper!!

22" Turtleback

Our final lamp project of 2008 was a large 22" Turtleback Turban. Created for our showroom, this impressive lamp can be used as a large table lamp, on a Junior Floor Base or as a chandelier fixture. The shade is shown on the Eiffel Tower Base.

The turtleback tiles were hand cut and faceted from 4" x 6" pressed glass tiles that were created especially for Century Studios. The amber/yellow tiles have whisps of blue running through them which give them a smoky appearance. Since the turtleback band is cut by hand, no two tiles are exactly alike.

Once fit to the proper size, the tiles are wrapped in lead which is the method employed by Tiffany Studios when creating turtleback lamps. The lead wraps around the outside edge, giving the tiles a distinctive look when the lamp is completed. This look cannot be achieved by simply foiling the turtlebacks. The photo to the right shows Irwin soldering the turtlebacks in place.

The background glass for this large lamp shifts to green from the top where there is amber, white and darker green mixed with the lighter background tone of brighter greens. This shift in color is dramatic and gives the shade a unique look. This shade is currently available for purchase in our showroom.

More Windows

This past week, we finished up a pair of the Four Seasons windows we are creating for a client in Wisconsin. The scenes depicted show local vistas. We finished soldering the Autumn panel early in the week and Winter soon followed.

While we are waiting for the final decisions on the images for the Spring and Summer panels, Bill has started the cartoon for another window project. This window is inspired by "On The Terrace" by Renoir. We are really looking forward to getting started on this project, but the first step in any window project is to get the drawing completed.

Tiffany Studios Poinsettia Lamp Designs

When the lamp department at Tiffany Studios developed a successful design for a stained glass shade, it was usually worked up at several different sizes and shapes. This way, if a client wanted to accent an interior with more than one lamp in the same style, or if they liked a floral motif but needed a specific size of lamp, they had a choice of sizes to choose from. In our posting from October 19, 2008 we featured the 18" Poinsettia Trellis lamp (see photo at left). We also offer Poinsettia shades in three other sizes.

The 16" Poinsettia (left and right photos) is a versatile shade size that can be used as a table lamp or petite chandelier fixture. The foliage on this shade is similar to the 18" shade being centralized in a decorative border. The background above and below this border is the brickwork style favored by Tiffany Studios.

The 22" Double Poinsettia (right photo) begins to expand on the formal design aspects of the smaller shades. Individual flowers are positioned inside a segmented trellis. While more naturalistic than the smaller sizes, the design is still held in check by the trellis. This shade can be used as a large table lamp, a petite floor lamp or as a chandelier.



At the other end of the design spectrum from the stylized 16" and 18" Poinsettias (and even the 22") is the naturalistic 26" Poinsettia shade design. This realistic, allover shade pattern is Tiffany lamp design at its most sophisticated. The upper portion of the shade is covered with the lush leaves - the flowers of the Poinsettia are actually the small round "centers" in the design. These leaves can be rendered in naturalistic tones of red, pink, white and green. Horizontal leadlines are worked into the design in the lower portion of the shade. In addition to providing strength for the shade, these lines become a visual element which allows the viewer's eye a place to rest. The horizontal leadlines remind us of wire garden cages used to keep unruly plants in check.

As with many of the large floral lamp designs created by Tiffany Studios, the 26" Poinsettia is a perfect showcase for the best glasses available and this pattern's coloration becomes impressionistic when the potential of the design is fully realized. This generously proportioned shade is perfectly proportioned for use as a chandelier fixture or on the Senior Floor Base.

The End of November at Century Studios

Once again, Irwin and Bill are working on multiple projects at the same time. Irwin has been creating a 22" Turtleback Turban Shade while Bill has gotten a set of Four Seasons Windows underway.

We have created seasonal window panels many times in the past. With this set of four windows, Bill is working to create seasonal locations in and around the Lake Geneva, Wisconsin area. This work was commissioned by a Wisconsin couple and the windows will be filled with local Lake Geneva sites. Autumn is nearing completion, while Winter is well under way - just like the seasons outside our studio windows! The photo on the left shows Winter on the light table with the pinecone border missing. The photo on the right shows Bill cutting the pinecones that will be added to the panel.

Irwin has been busy making a 22" Turtleback Turban shade for the showroom. Because this shade is a large one, he wanted to have the background shift in color from top to bottom rather than just be one tone of green. At the top of the shade, the glass has an amber/orange/white mix of color on a green ground. The shade will shift down through a light green/dark green/white mix to a green tone at the bottom and the turtleback tiles will be green. Irwin is shown foiling and soldering the outside of the shade in the two photos. The missing area of glass will be filled in with the large hand cut turtleback tiles once the shade is off the form.