A Copper Alliance Member
Copper in the Arts
Issue #15: July '08 - Cont'd
Copper Lantern
Owner Tim Baratelle in the historic Copper
Lantern showroom in Mechanicsburg, PA.
Photograph by Robyn Jasko
“Our main corporation was electrical contracting, and we still own the company, but people always asked where they could purchase unusual, hand-crafted, high quality lighting,” says Tim Baratelle, co-owner with his wife, Joan. “We began selling exterior copper fixtures in the second floor of our warehouse in a New Britain (PA) barn, opened a store in Chalfont (PA) and then started showing our exceptional designs at trade shows. Our products were a hit, so we decided to become a full-scale retail copper lantern business. We now have two acres in Mechanicsville on a historical site. Being a point of interest sales company allows us to present new and unusual lighting products in an area that boasts fine, high-end housing. I’ve taken some design courses and taught courses for colleges in lighting designs in exteriors. Being in business for more than 25 years has provided me with knowing not only the electrical and lighting design industry but all of the latest trends.”
Baratelle notes that his savvy clients are tired of the ‘junk’ found in discount markets or showrooms and desire better quality copper products that will last and pass the test of time. Tim and his wife, Joan, design pieces from historical reproductions, and travel to museums in Massachusetts and areas where early models of lanterns exist. Baratelle then has the unique works reproduced by metalsmiths at six different companies from New Jersey to New Hampshire.
Early Americana-inspired copper lantern.
Photograph by Robyn Jasko
The Copper Lantern has a landscape lighting division that designs site lighting and recent work includes the Parry Mansion, in New Hope, PA, and the Lake House Inn, in Nockamixon, PA. They’ve created copper projects for a client in Puerto Rico, by designing an exterior lighting project, as well as the Virgin Islands, Florida, and Alaska, where they created an interior copper lantern and pot-rack design.
“All of our pot racks are created from copper and iron,” he continues, noting that everything is custom made and can be ordered in any size. “We also do exterior and interior sconces, bathroom lighting---both copper and painted iron---as well as copper pendant lights for kitchen islands. The public can bring their ideas to us and we work with them to design their special needs or they can choose from our large selection of already-created handcraft designs. Nothing is too large or too small for us.”
Resources:
The Copper Lantern, Mechanicsburg, PA, (215) 794-1900
Artist of the Elements: Lavelle Foos
Lavelle Foos in her studio
Photograph courtesy of Lavelle Foos
“The sand turned to dirt before my eyes,” she recalls. “I had the opportunity to make a shift so I took off.”
Once in Ashland, Oregon, she became acquainted with a coppersmith who lived on a local Navajo reservation. Lavelle began to emotionally connect with the earth based copper element.
“He made his own tools and taught me to work with the simplicity and beauty of copper and the style of the Navajo work,” Lavelle says. “Copper draws people to you. Silver can often move you away, because it’s shiny and flashy. But copper is the divine feminine. It’s also an anti-inflammatory and it’s nurturing; everything moves by copper. Computers, electricity---it’s all by copper wire. So the whole planet is running on this copper energy.”
She views copper as “the metal from the Northwest” and certainly, copper is well entrenched in the area, having been mined here for over 100 years. Lavelle also uses materials like abalone, amber, cedar wood and even discarded antler horns to create spiritually sensitive sculpture and jewelry.
Copper earring design
by Lavelle Foos
Photograph courtesy of Lavelle Foos
“I use a torch or an electric hot plate on the copper until it turns black, then I dip it into an acid wash which takes the black off,” she says, adding that at that point, it’s like wax, soft and malleable, easy to bend and tool. “For the polishing, which I learned from a blacksmith, I heat it until I get the colors I want, then I use a paste wax while it’s still hot and buff the wax in.”
The copper won’t turn anymore she says. For her copper jewelry, the necklaces and “shields,” if they do discolor, a simple dip into vinegar or lemon juice will regenerate the color and take away the patina green. Lavelle also uses copper in her larger wood sculptures.
“I use 2,000 year old redwood, felled naturally by lightning, red cedar which is sustainably harvested, and yellow cedar from Alaska,” she says. “Quartz crystal, antler, abalone shell: I have these elemental jewels, to keep alive the connection for a fast moving contemporary culture,” she says. The natural elements, the “healing materials” of what nature has designed are to be used to, “help people know and love themselves more.” Lavelle fully believes that the base elements of fire, earth, wind and water re-connect us to the world we once knew in more simple times.
Lavelle works closely with many galleries in her area, including San Juan Island Galleries, Dolphin Arts, and the Wescott Bay Institute Sculpture Park. Her work will be shown at the Summer Arts Fair on San Juan Island in July.
“When people see these materials, they want them, they don’t know why, but it’s in our DNA,” says Foos. “People love to look at and feel copper.”
Copper in the Arts: EVENTS
- Palm Beach Jewelry, Art, and Antique Show
Feb 15, '13 - Feb 18, '13 - Native Expressions: Dave McGary’s Bronze Realism
Mar 7, '13 - Jun 30, '13 - Evolving Character Head Demonstration with John Coleman
Mar 9, '13 - Mar 9, '13 - More Upcoming Events...
Copper in the Arts: HISTORY
Brookgreen Gardens: America's First Sculpture Garden
Brookgreen Gardens was the first American sculpture garden.
Photograph by Doug Coldwell
Today, the Brookgreen Gardens organization has many social faces, playing host to a bevy of programs, tours, and exhibitions, all communing around a singular space: 9,200 acres of forested swamp, salt marsh, and sandy ridges thick with outdoor sculpture.
But perhaps most importantly, Brookgreen Gardens is a living reserve which began when Archer Huntington and his wife, Anna, a prolific sculptor of equine bronzes, devised to set the former rice-plantation aside as a nonprofit to protect native species and situate her sculptural work. Anatomized with a classical verism, the muscular horses spring in dramatic succession throughout the park. Her most famous piece, Joan of Ark, in Riverside Park, New York, secured her rank as one of the most important female sculptors of the 20th century. The first sculpted woman executed by a woman sculptor, it’s subject points indirectly to the artist’s biography as a feminist force: exerting powerful social sway over her husband’s industrial fortune for the betterment of American arts.
Brookgreen sculpture, detail.
Photograph by Dough Coldwell
Additional works in a range of mediums can be found at the on-site Offner Sculpture Learning and Research Center. Created through the bequest of sculptor Richard McDermott Miller (1922-2004), the modern indoor repository was erected in 2007 and provides a unique place of research for the artist in study. It is the most recent manifestation of Brookgreen’s legacy of providing a spatial refuge for sculptural support, exemplified in their programs as well as their collection but, also, in a commemorative medal issued since 1973—it is the longest running series of medals in the United States—which pays tribute to the artistic process and Brookgreen’s natural history, at once. The series is in the collections of The British Museum, Smithsonian American History Museum, National Sculpture Society, and the American Numismatic Society, and traced, in detail, in the temporary Medallic exhibition on site.
The tradition for learning that pervades Brookgreen Gardens is sustained in its varied and unique curricula. But the organization remains faithful to Mrs. Huntington’s spirit as a self-taught sculptor by functioning, primarily, as a space to which the artist can retreat. And it’s no accident that this effort is cultivated in a setting both picturesque and wild. It’s the location and the fecund activity that it provokes which makes the Brookgreen Gardens community inspired.
Resources:
Brookgreen Gardens, 1931 Brookgreen Dr., Murrells Inlet, SC, (843) 235-6000
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Copper in the Arts: NEWS
Tiffany by Design on View at Frist - May 09, 2008
Tiffany Dragonfly Library Lamp
Photo courtesy of The Neustadt
Collection of Tiffany Glass, Long
Island City, NY
The exhibition examines the intricate design and complex fabrication of 40 lamps, including chandeliers and desk, library, and hanging lamps, created by craftsmen in Tiffany Studios in New York under the direction of Louis Comfort Tiffany. Examining every aspect of the lamps—from the beautifully crafted bronze bases and finials to the radiant colors of the leaded glass shades—Tiffany by Design reveals what makes these designs so extraordinary.
Signature pieces featured in the Tiffany by Design exhibition include Dragonfly Library Lamp (1905–1910); Favrilefabrique Reading Lamp (ca. 1915); Daffodil Library Lamp (1900–1910); Turtleback Chandelier (ca. 1905); Lotus Pagoda Library Lamp (1895–1900); Peony Library Lamp (1905–1910) and Pond Lily Library Lamp (1900–1910).
The exhibition also presents new evidence for the vital role of women in the Tiffany firm. Recently discovered letters show that Clara Driscoll, a longtime Tiffany Studios employee, designed some of the most iconic Tiffany lampshades. Without diminishing Tiffany’s own reputation, the exhibition endeavors to show that his artistic vision served as the inspiration and guide for all the artists and artisans who worked for him.
Tiffany by Design features works from The Neustadt Collection. Dr. Egon Neustadt and his wife, Hildegard, began their collection with the purchase of one lamp in 1935. For the next five decades, they assembled an extensive collection of Tiffany lamps and glass. In 1970, Dr. Neustadt published The Lamps of Tiffany, which remains a standard reference on the range of styles, designs and colors of the lamps and glass created at Tiffany Studios.
“In terms of the variety, number and quality of Tiffany lamps, few museums anywhere in the world can compare with The Neustadt Collection,” says Trinita Kennedy, associate curator at the Frist Center. “This exhibition is able to demonstrate precisely what sets Tiffany lamps apart from the imitations found in so many antique shops.”
Resources:
Frist Center for the Visual Arts, 919 Broadway, Nashville, TN, (615) 244-3340
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