How did the chandeliers start?
The image above left shows the second chandelier I ever made installed over the customer's own light. The middle photo shows a chandelier with both knobby and pointed curlies. On the right is an Ensiform chandelier with colored tips. The development of the chandeliers occurred over several years. I find much of my work happens that way. Many people think an artist comes up with an idea in the “light bulb” moment and it is seen as a finished product exactly in the imagination. But most work develops over a period of time and is an idea that is worked on and improved over time.
I began making lighted chandeliers in 1999. But they really began earlier and developed from ornaments and some sculptural work I was making. The sculptures were called clusters. The clusters started as seconds and extra ornaments I would make and hang outside the studio on a string. As sculptures the clusters were assembled on chains. I received a lot of comments about how great they would look with lights in them so I figured out a way to light them and they became chandeliers. Then around 1996 I saw a video of Lino Tagliapietra wrapping some glass around a pipe to make a spring like form. I started working on that technique and using it to create forms to add to the clusters of ball shapes.
The early chandeliers all had knobs on the end of the curly pieces. Sometime the forms would get too thin and the knobs would break off. So eventually I started making the forms thinner on the end on purpose and making pointed curlies. In 2004 I started making the third style of chandelier, the Ensiform. The tail of the Ensiform piece is flattened and blade-like, similar to a blade of grass or the leaf of an Iris plant.
Other forms eventually included in the chandeliers are small and large spikes. The small spikes are another ornament shape. So really the chandeliers are just a development of the ornaments clustered together.