James K. Davies of Craftsman CopperThe Arts and Crafts Movement began primarily as a search for authentic and meaningful style as well as a reaction to the design excesses of the Victorian era and to "soulless" machine-made production that grew out of the Industrial Revolution. It was a reformist movement, drawing from Art Nouveau and Art Deco, and emphasized design that was simple, handcrafted and true to the nature of the materials from which it was made. | |
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James K. Davies (left and below in our Dharma Beans T-shirt) moved to Olympia, WA to go to Evergreen College with the intent of going into animation but wound up studying three-dimensional design. Unsatisfied with “art-for-art’s sake”, he felt that it was better art if it could also be something useful and he began focusing on furniture design.
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 It takes about 60 hours to create a floor lamp. |
After he graduated from Evergreen, he began working as a coppersmith for a design house specializing in hand-worked copper lighting. In November of 2005, after 11 years of experience in the field, James opened up his own studio (Craftsman Copper), dedicated to design in the style of the Arts and Crafts movement.  |
 The copper pieces are completely hand shaped by hammering the copper over custom-made steel shapes (above). Mica is used in the shade (right).    
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The eye cannot detect that the elements aren’t completely straight up and down, completely flat or a perfect curve, but there is liveliness in a completed piece that comes from the minute irregularities that can only come from being hand-shaped.   |
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