Tiffany style stained glass lamp repair – By Len Daley
Life is a both a pleasure and a struggle. As we get older we offer wisdom giving free advise and knowledge. Holding on to stuff becomes less important and the thought of giving some of our life long possessions to others makes us feel good. My mother once told me. If your going to leave something to someone give it to them while your alive. Express the significant importance behind the gift while enjoying the smile on their face when they receive the gift. One day when my daughter Katie was 14 my mom gave Katie a jewelry box full of memories. A life time of precious memories under the lid of a box. To me it was stuff but to Katie it was a treasure chest.
Mom spent days tagging everything and writing a really nice letter expressing the significant memories for each of the tagged items. We sat there listening to mom embellishing the stories with names, birthdays, weddings, boyfriends, love and romance. Everything a 14 year old wanted to hear about. For over 2 hours Katie and I sat listening to the stories and asking many questions. I guess it was during this gift giving experience I realized saving things in a jewelry box is like saving things in an attic.
Tiffany lamp repair – boxed for 25 years in Steve’s attic
Most often we inherit something that we don’t know much about, has no value and really no place to put it. We may even question how it survived the last 100 years without getting trashed. You can find many topics on social behavior and how our behaviors has changed over the past 100 years. I know I’m tagged as the generation “if you don’t use it loss it”. I think it could be maturity or timing in our lives when we turn a corner. We know trashing something is wrong and maybe it will be worth boxing and storing for a future generation.
The attic. A dark quite and untraveled part of the house where past memories and seasonal stuff is kept. While I don’t know the exact story about this Tiffany style craftsman lamp. I do know every once in a while a special person comes along. A person that has enough insight, compassion and wisdom to save something that once meant a lot to someone else. This Tiffany style lamp was brought to my attention by Steven and belonged to his aunt. Again I don’t know the full story but really want to thank the person that boxed and placed this really grand hanging Tiffany style shade in the attic. The lamp may have been damaged, outdated or just had no place to hang. But was boxed up and placed in a safe part of the house until Steven came along. His compassion and values saved this gorgeous lamp. If not for him this Tiffany style lamp would not have been repaired and made functional again.
Steve’s aunts lamp spent 25 years in a box. Boxing the lamp suggested organization among other boxes, security and protection that would preserve its importance. I’m sure over the years in the attic maybe with poor lighting. All the boxes had been opened to inspect out of curiosity and the contents removed, mixed up and not place back in their boxing proporly. I’m speculating but believe the lamp was not placed back in the box level. Causing the weight of the shade to slump with the heat in the attic. The box may have been tipped on an angle or its side which would cause the same type of damage.
As you can see the damage was not from a fall but involved half of the skirt and part of the upper design being bent and collapsing. To restore this type of work all of the collapsing section needed to be removed. Separating the damaged area from the good area. After removing the collapse section the lamp was put on a squaring table to bring the remaining skirt area back to a circle shape. All of the adjoining glass pieces required re-foiling to accept the repaired section of the skirt when completed. The damaged skirt section required removing and replacing all the glass pieces marked with an X. The removed section was then re shaped and lined up accordingly. After all the new foiling and solder work was completed the area had a black patina applied to blend in the new work with the original metal work.
