Picture Book Monday: Making Light Bloom

[osprey_archer]

My mother volunteers at the local library, and sometimes I help her process the new books, which is how I discovered Sandra Nickel’s Making Light Bloom: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Lamps.

Picture book biographies seem to be having a real moment, which is convenient for me as I’ve apparently got a weakness for them. Most of the current run focus on a lesser-known woman or person of color who did a cool thing, for values of “lesser-known” that vary from “actually I think this person is really pretty famous” to “no one has ever heard of this person.”

Clara Driscoll definitely falls in the latter category. Not only is she not famous now, but she was unknown in her own lifetime, as she did her work under contract in the Tiffany factory. She started out cutting out glass for the famous Tiffany windows, a job that required quite a bit of artistic taste as these windows are famous, among other things, for their gorgeous variegated glass - the cutters had to select the particular part of the big sheet of glass that would look best in the whole window.

Eventually, it occurred to Driscoll that one might also make stained glass lamps. Her design for a dragonfly lamp caught Louis Tiffany’s eye, and the lamp went to the World’s Fair, where it was a big hit. Tiffany gave Driscoll permission to design more lamps, and she went on to design at least sixty, all with beautiful nature themes.

The illustrations by Julie Paschkis are in a striking stained glass style: it was this reason that the cover caught my eye. Like Tiffany windows, the colors vary within one panel, orange drifting into red and green to yellow. A rich and lovely array of colors.

Comments

[asakiyume]

Sounds like a gorgeous book!

When you get these picture books of lesser-known figures, is the audience still (in part at least) children?

[osprey_archer]

They're shelved in the children's section, so they're aimed at children! Now, do the children pick them out for themselves or do the adults squeal "Oh look, a book about Tiffany lamps!"? That I don't know.

[regshoe]

Aww, what a cool and fitting subject for a picture book!

[osprey_archer]

It's perfectly suited to the medium!

[minutia_r]

Oh man, I love those lamps! And yeah I have always seen them described as Tiffany Lamps and had never heard of Clara Discroll.

[osprey_archer]

The danger of work for hire. Everything goes out under the company name.

[sovay]

Eventually, it occurred to Driscoll that one might also make stained glass lamps. Her design for a dragonfly lamp caught Louis Tiffany’s eye, and the lamp went to the World’s Fair, where it was a big hit. Tiffany gave Driscoll permission to design more lamps, and she went on to design at least sixty, all with beautiful nature themes.

Oh, like the famous dragonfly lamps. Thank you for connecting her name to glass.

[osprey_archer]

Indeed, those very lamps!