John T. Ward
Laurence Harbor, NJ

A-B-C-D Lamp for Child's Bedroom

Before seeing the theme items I planned to make a lampshade for Round 1. My first reaction on seeing the lead camel was not positive. Then I began thinking about how a solid lead animal might be used in a lampshade. I decided there might be a good reason to make part of a lampshade opaque. A lamp for a child's bedroom could be made with four sides each of a different degree of opaqueness.

Once I started thinking along the lines of a lamp that could be used to check on a young child at night (without shedding too much light on the sleeping child) it seemed to me reasonable to make one side (camel side) fairly opaque. Another side fairly transparent for reading bedtime stories and the other two sides intermediate in transparency for playtime. I also decided to make the shade narrow at the base and wide at the top to allow most light to be directed upward and reflected off the ceiling.

Initially, I intended to make the four sides, "A for Angel, B for Bird, C for Camel, and D for Dog". But the moment I described the camel to a niece as a "Dromedary" I knew from her reaction (she spent the rest of the day explaining to everyone that one hump camels are dromedaries but camels with two humps are bacterial") that it should be "C for Cat and D for Dromedary."

The first of the four sides is "A for Angel" using the filigree wings. The glass surrounding her is a pale transparent purple. In her hands is a faceted amber glass gem. B-side is a Bird. He is also surrounded by pale purple transparent glass. C is for Cat. His right eye is the red faceted flat-backed jewel and his left eye is a green gem ground into a wink. All the glass in the cat is opaque so he transmits more light than the dromedary but less than either the bird or the angel.

And finally, the dromedary panel where all the glass is opaque but not as opaque as the lead camel. Above him are a faceted round emerald gem and a peridot green crescent moon. Each of the four panels has a smooth round yellow glass gem at the center of the bottom edge. I managed the final assembly by building a cardboard pyramid and taping the four panels to it (upside down so I could solder the edges together.