Posts by Maud Kelly
Hello from the desk of Rejuvenation’s copywriter! Yes, I’m
the one who waxes poetic about all things historical lighting.
Because of that, it feels a bit scandalous to admit that before I came to Rejuvenation, I didn’t
know a thing about lighting. In my work as a writer and adjunct English
professor, I had spent a good deal of
time considering light itself, but pretty much solely as a metaphor. At
Rejuvenation, here’s what I quickly learned:
- The big
round mid-century modern lights in my Arts & Crafts home HAD TO GO
- Historically (and metaphorically) speaking,
lighting is really cool.
- Rejuvenation itself is even cooler than
historical lighting, because it’s committed to sustainability and social issues
down to its very core, which for me is essential, because I have a deep respect
and love for the planet and its people.
I’ve learned a lot more, too (you should see our library), but for me it all comes down to feeling really lucky to be
part of a conversation about our collective past, present, and future. And having
beautiful, useful things as the entry point to that conversation is the icing
on the cake.
Two truths and a lie:
- I am a very prompt letter writer and correspond with many
people by US mail.
- My secret desire is to play the cello.
- I’m a terrible driver: the people I’ve rear-ended include a
nun and my boss.
On the last Saturday in January, our Portland store hosted Sherry and John Petersik, that loveable blogger/author/married couple/intrepid DIY team better known as Young House Love.
Awww…ain’t Young House Love grand?
We knew the event was going to be big, so we loaded up on books and fought over who would get to help out at the event, because naturally we have lots of DIYers and young lovers of houses here at Rejuvenation. Two Tarts, the sweetest little cookie shop, baked tons of delicious heart cookies, and the F&B cafe, which shares our space, brewed lots of hot coffee in preparation for the hungry, patient line-waiters.
Four hundred people came from all across the Pacific Northwest – and even the Midwest and Canada – to show their own Young House Love. We tried to play the “Who came from farthest away?” game, and talked to folks from Seattle, Vancouver, B.C., Boise, Idaho, and even Wisconsin. Let us repeat that: Wisconsin!
John and Sherry have been on a whirlwind book tour across America, but you wouldn’t have known it to look at them. They were just as fresh and personable in real life as they always are on their blog.
They loved the store, but were a little scared of the stairs:
John and Sherry brave our stairs — just one of the many impressive features of our Portland store
After descending the stairs safely, the Young House Lovers gave a short talk about the five things they didn’t expect about writing a book,
Do you want to know what really surprised John and Sherry about writing a book? How much fun it was. And also, how much work.
and then commenced autographing books and chatting with their 400 new friends.
As Elizabeth, one of their many fans, put it, “They’re great because they really let you into the whole DIY design process. They share all the mistakes they make along the way so you don’t make the same ones. It makes it all seem much more do-able.”
And speaking of do-able: check out our new plug-in pendants. They’re perfect for the DIYer because they don’t require an electrician. All you have to do is hang a hook, swag the cord, and plug it in. Since we couldn’t wish for a more appropriate launch pad, we raffled off our Skidmore plug-in during the Petersiks’ visit.
Lucky Rochelle Zirdum of Hillsboro won it. Maybe, in the Young House Love spirit, she’ll be willing to share with us her Befores and Afters….
Thanks so much to those who attended and, most of all, to John and Sherry for spreading the love in Portland. You can read their version of events (all good, we promise!) here.
As a company that cares about preserving the best of the past and building for the future, we understand that one good way to ensure a better tomorrow is by educating children today. But in this age of routine budget cuts, teachers often find themselves with fewer resources — especially the little extras that enrich the learning experience. For more than 15 years, our Cash for Kids program has helped provide public school teachers in our communities with thousands of dollars. Each November, every Rejuvenation employee with children in public school is given a $100 donation per child. This year 80 classrooms received donations.
A 5th grader at a Portland elementary school delivers the $100 donation to her teacher
The teachers, as always, were extremely appreciative. As a high-school teacher noted, “This year I am teaching U.S. History. I plan to use the money to purchase supplementary textbooks for the talented and gifted students. These books will be used to challenge students beyond the regular curriculum and potentially earn Honors credit.”
Cash for Kids has always been close to the heart of Rejuvenation’s founder, Jim Kelly. “From the beginning, I loved the program because it was about way more than the 100 bucks. It’s good for the schools, good for the teachers, and good for the kids.”
It does us good to know that we’re helping children build for the future (even if right now they’re building it out of Legos).
Translation: Dear Rejuvenation, Thank you for the money. We are going to buy legos.
Rejuvenation is proud to be partnering with Blenko to bring its mid-century lamps and decanters back to the market – and to a new generation of modern design enthusiasts – more than 50 years after their initial introduction.
Blenko glass table lamps: Flare, Wave, and Cylinder bases
The Men Behind the Glass
Though perhaps best known as mid-century icons, Blenko has a history as richly hued as its glass. British-born William John Blenko began his career in glass at an early age, apprenticing in a London bottle factory in 1864 when he was only 10. He went into business on his own in the 1880s, using his free time to experiment with making superior colored glass – particularly an elusive ruby red that wouldn’t change color when heated.
William J. Blenko
Drawn by the dream of a prosperous America, Blenko resolved to become the first manufacturer of antique-style stained glass in the U.S. He came to Kokomo, Indiana, in 1893, and launched the first of a string of unsuccessful glass ventures.
After many false starts and cross-Atlantic voyages, Blenko finally found success in 1921, in Milton, West Virginia, making glass for prestigious church restoration projects.
By 1929, William Blenko’s son, Bill, had become instrumental in running the family business. He saw that the company needed to branch out to stay viable, and decided to enter the tableware market. The younger Blenko called upon two local Swedish glass craftsmen, who trained the Blenko glassmakers in the art of blowing three-dimensional forms that still captured all the beauty of an ancient cathedral window.
Blenko supplied cathedral glass for windows like these from a c. 1923 catalog.
By 1946, Bill Blenko made the significant decision to hire a Design Director. He found Winslow Anderson, a 30-year-old war veteran just graduating from Alfred University.
Anderson’s boldly sensuous and lushly colored work for Blenko – more than 170 designs in all – put him in the vanguard of the evolving field of American glass craft. In the process, he reshaped Blenko’s product line and its future.
Wayne Husted, another Alfred University graduate, joined Blenko in 1953, at the age of 23. Husted’s dramatic sculptural forms and large “architectural scale” works became hallmarks of mid-century glass. In his 10-year stint with Blenko, Husted produced more than 500 designs.
Blenko Design Director Wayne Husted
The Mid-Century Homeowner
Following the difficult war years of the 1940s, a generation of young homeowners, filled with new ideas and attitudes, changed the American residential landscape with their embrace of open-plan ranch houses and fresh takes on casual living and décor. Life was meant to be lived glamorously, and homes were meant to be as fun as they were functional.
Better Homes and Gardens mid-century ranch home c.1960
Glassware accents in a mid-century home
Colorful glass decanters, a ubiquitous design element in the 1950s home, seemed to perfectly capture the decade’s earnest enthusiasm. Blenko’s “bright idea” was to turn its popular decanters into lamps, which even today provide a sense of effortless glamour with just a touch of whimsy.
Blenko decanters and vases
Stopper-inspired glass finials
Blenko Carafe Table Lamp – note the decanter-inspired finial
The Lamp-Making Process
Blenko glass is still produced using glassmaking methods that have been around since medieval days. Six-person teams work together to make the magic happen. First, glass batches are handmixed from combinations of sand and other natural materials, then melted in large pots by intense furnaces. The glassblower then uses a pipe to blow the hot glass into a hand-carved mold made from a soft fruitwood like cherry or apple. While iron molds are used for forming precise designs, the organic shapes of these lamps are best produced from wood. The mold gives the glass its basic shape. It’s then removed and carefully worked by hand until it reaches its final form.
A Blenko glassblower at work
With hundreds of glass formulas developed over more than a century of trial and error, Blenko’s color range surely meets the initial hopes of its founder, who wanted to create hues of unsurpassed richness. In its Milton factory, Blenko keeps glass samples organized in immense antique hanging wood racks that slide back and forth in front of a large window, so the countless subtle color and texture differences can be seen and selected. From this range of proprietary color formulas, Rejuvenation chose a total of eight colors that we then used for our lamps, decanters, and vases.
Blenko glass colors c.1956 (image courtesy of American Museum of Glass)
To create our authentic reissues, Blenko’s glassmakers blow the lamp vessels in Milton, West Virginia, still using their traditional methods. We transform them into lamps in our Portland factory, where we wire and assemble them, adding the sustainably harvested Eastern Walnut bases, adjustable harps, and American-made shades.
When they were first introduced in the 1950s, Blenko lamps featured fiberglass and linen-like shantung shades. The mid-’50s brought the introduction of burlap, or “Calcutta cloth” as Blenko then referred to it. To maintain the historical accuracy of our lamps, we’ve made our shades in burlap, as well as linen in black or ivory. The edges are handrolled for a smooth, tailored finish.
A burlap shade complements a Blenko Round Table Lamp
Amethyst Carafe Table Lamp at home
“Next to abundant daylight, no method of lighting so well satisfies the individual doing work of an exacting nature as having his own light readily adjustable to the position desired; from any direction, at any angle, and at the right distance.” — O.C. White
Clearly Otis Converse White was a man after our own heart. The details mattered immensely to him – indeed, he made his name and his legacy by creating adjustable joints. While his innovations weren’t very large in scale, they had enormous influence in his day, changing how people worked. Since then, his influence has not abated one bit. We jumped at the chance to partner with the O.C. White Company, not only so we can keep White’s inventions alive, but also we can keep passing White’s exceptional story on, too.
From Dentist to Inventor
Born in 1837 in Massachusetts, White grew up to be a dental surgeon, with an office in Hopkinton, Mass. A consummate tinkerer, White developed one of the first modern dental chairs by designing a headrest and adjustable back.
“Modern” dental chair
White’s first patent, No. 62,794, was for these improvements. Throughout the 1870s, he continued to patent his inventions for the chairs and rests, and, more importantly, the adjustable joints that made them work so well.
O.C. White’s first patent
Patenting the Ball and Socket Joint
The crux of White’s genius lay not in the chairs themselves, but in their mechanics. After White patented his numerous adjustable joints, he quickly set about figuring out where else he might use them. Thomas Edison’s new invention gave him the answer.
The years between 1882 and 1892 saw the rise of electric lighting. Because light bulbs were dim, it was crucial to get the bulb close to what it lit. White foresaw that marrying his adjustable devices to electric lamps would make the new lighting technology infinitely more useful.
Advertisement featuring patented ball and socket joint
Winning the Day
White showed off his inventions at various Exhibitions and World’s Fairs around the country. These were excellent places to pique interest and garner awards, as he did at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and the 1901 Pan American Exposition.
1893 World’s Columbian Exposition award
1901 Pan American Exposition award
Revolutionizing the World of Work
In the 1800s, people were often required to do jobs that needed a lot of light without being given the proper light to do it. By bringing the light to the worker, O.C. White’s fixtures made it possible for them to complete their tasks more efficiently and with less eye strain.
O.C. White fixtures installed at Mills Woven Cartridge Belt Factory c.1916
O.C. White in the Home
Though best known for bringing light to the worker, O.C. White fixtures also brought light to the home. These early advertisements for task lights “in the home” and “in the library” are said to feature none other than White himself, and his son, Otis C. White, Jr., who led the O.C. White Co. from 1901 until the 1950s.
Early advertisements featuring O.C. White, left,and O.C. White Jr., right
To see more O.C. White, make sure to visit our Pinterest board, The Real Deal .
This year, we have been sharing our Labor of Love stories with you. Some have been about products and some have been about personal experiences, but they’ve all reflected on our appreciation for the handmade, the hard-won, and the heartfelt. For Father’s Day, we’re honoring the people who often work the hardest for the least amount of praise — dads.
My dear father
He was my friend that did not judge
He was the wisdom I sought when I felt lost
He was my angel in which I found my salvation
He was my rock
And now he is gone
My beloved son
He is the love that fills the void in my heart
He is my courage in the face of adversity
He is my savior
He is now my rock
