Christmas lamps
Monday, October 25th, 2010
Sea urchin shells always seem somewhat Victorian to me. When they are painted, they seem very much like oil lamps.
I found the proportions for turned wooden lamp bases in a book of projects for industrial arts students published in 1926 by Earl W. Ensinger (Problems in Artistic Woodturning.)
There are endless variations on table lamp bases that make each ornament a new way to investigate spindle turning for furniture on a small scale.
The woodturning community just lost our friend, Paul Thode, who was the master of 1/3 scale furniture. These ornaments for 2010 mark his passage for me.
The wood for these ornaments is spalted hackberry from the Owl Creek Mill in northwestern Missouri. The lighter woods are easier to see on the Christmas tree.