CopperDancer
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Where Can You Find Our Work?
1 min read
Both Julia and I have full time jobs that we very much enjoy, so for our craft nanobusiness we focus on select outlets. We do many art shows in the Greater Atlanta area. Online, you can find us on our shop and blog website, on Pinterest, and of course here on DeviantArt. Thank you for visiting us here, and we'd love to see you on our website or in person!
If you have seen something here on DeviantArt that interests you, but it is not listed in our shop, please send us a message! We will be happy to list it for you if it is still available.
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Julia thinks she has convinced our badly-behaving shopping cart to play nicely. If you do see something you want, but the shopping cart gives you trouble, please shoot us an email or a message here. Take a screenshot of the problem, if you get a chance -- that will help. And thank you for your patience with our wayward "teenager"!
If you have seen something here on DeviantArt that interests you, but it is not listed in our shop, please send us a message! We will be happy to list it for you if it is still available.
*********************************************************************************************
Julia thinks she has convinced our badly-behaving shopping cart to play nicely. If you do see something you want, but the shopping cart gives you trouble, please shoot us an email or a message here. Take a screenshot of the problem, if you get a chance -- that will help. And thank you for your patience with our wayward "teenager"!
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About Us
4 min read
About Us
Copper Dancer Designs is the merger of two independent studios, Art of the Firebird, started in 2006 by Julia Benson-Slaughter, and Four Tails Lampwork, started in 2007 by Andrea Winkler.
About Andrea
I have been lampworking since summer 2006. At that time I was involved in bookbinding, and had begun creating scroll books with wooden frames and beaded handles. My sister, who had been lampworking for over a year at that point, became annoyed by my pestering her for beads of the dimensions I needed. Finally, she plopped me in front of a HotHead torch and taught me to make my own beads. A few spacers is all she thought I would need to know … but I was hooked, good and proper. I am a dilettante, with a multiplicity of styles and types of glass. While I flirt with "the dark side," meaning borosilicate or "hard" glass, my love is the organic effects one gets with soft glass and the unpredictability of the combination of silver with the metals in glass. I have been selling my beads since 2008–I hate letting them go, but it is such a pleasure to see them go out in the world and to see the wonderful things people make with them! This year, pressed for time by my full time job (I teach university-level European history), I took up metalsmithing, and now enjoy working with mixed media, using glass, copper, brass, and even Prismacolour!
About Julia
I have been lampworking since May, 2005, after a half-day workshop as part of a "girls' weekend away" showed me that you actually could play with fire and glass at home. I began selling my beads in March, 2007, at one of the local bead shows, when I realized that I really was creating more beads than I could use myself.
Although I still work occasionally with "soft" glass, my love is borosilicate, a.k.a. "hard," glass. I am fascinated by its unpredictability and the wide range of color you can get from a single rod of glass, especially when you combine it with clear glass. Since I like to work "hot and fast," as it were, boro suits my style perfectly. I added in the chainmaille work about two years ago, when I was looking for something to combine with my beads to create unique jewelry. Plus, chainmaille is far more portable than flame and glass, let's face it. Discovering the square wire rings that I use most often simply reinforced that choice.
About Copper Dancer Designs
We decided to merge in April, 2010, after doing shows together for 2 1/2 years. We both wanted to expand our local presence and start doing some of the Atlanta area arts and crafts shows, but many of them do not allow independent artists to share a booth. We've had ample opportunity to discover that we work well together, and to find that each of us had strengths that the other lacked.
About Our Name
Our inspiration for our name is the dragonfly, which in many cultures represents new life and new beginnings. As we both work in glass and metal, particularly copper, we searched for ways to link the dragonfly (and its cousin, the damselfly) with our art.
Dragonflies and damselflies are both members of the order Odonata. Both types of insects are often called "dragonflies," though to be more precise, true dragonflies are Anisoptera and damselflies, which have slightly indented, curvier wings, are Zygoptera. All are odonates, so enough with the biology lesson and distinctions!
Coppery Dancer Damselfly
Odonata, however, seemed overly fussy as a name. A search found the damselfly popularly known as the "coppery dancer," a Texas variant found in the region around Uvalde. This is an area Andrea knows well, having grown up in south-central Texas. This beautiful picture is by J. Centavo… isn't the Coppery Dancer lovely? Make sure you visit Mr. Centavo's page on Flickr for some phenomenal images of the wildlife in South Texas. Meanwhile, while our designs in glass and copper cannot match the beauty of nature, we think that they will prove to have an elegance all their own.
Copper Dancer Designs is the merger of two independent studios, Art of the Firebird, started in 2006 by Julia Benson-Slaughter, and Four Tails Lampwork, started in 2007 by Andrea Winkler.
About Andrea
I have been lampworking since summer 2006. At that time I was involved in bookbinding, and had begun creating scroll books with wooden frames and beaded handles. My sister, who had been lampworking for over a year at that point, became annoyed by my pestering her for beads of the dimensions I needed. Finally, she plopped me in front of a HotHead torch and taught me to make my own beads. A few spacers is all she thought I would need to know … but I was hooked, good and proper. I am a dilettante, with a multiplicity of styles and types of glass. While I flirt with "the dark side," meaning borosilicate or "hard" glass, my love is the organic effects one gets with soft glass and the unpredictability of the combination of silver with the metals in glass. I have been selling my beads since 2008–I hate letting them go, but it is such a pleasure to see them go out in the world and to see the wonderful things people make with them! This year, pressed for time by my full time job (I teach university-level European history), I took up metalsmithing, and now enjoy working with mixed media, using glass, copper, brass, and even Prismacolour!
About Julia
I have been lampworking since May, 2005, after a half-day workshop as part of a "girls' weekend away" showed me that you actually could play with fire and glass at home. I began selling my beads in March, 2007, at one of the local bead shows, when I realized that I really was creating more beads than I could use myself.
Although I still work occasionally with "soft" glass, my love is borosilicate, a.k.a. "hard," glass. I am fascinated by its unpredictability and the wide range of color you can get from a single rod of glass, especially when you combine it with clear glass. Since I like to work "hot and fast," as it were, boro suits my style perfectly. I added in the chainmaille work about two years ago, when I was looking for something to combine with my beads to create unique jewelry. Plus, chainmaille is far more portable than flame and glass, let's face it. Discovering the square wire rings that I use most often simply reinforced that choice.
About Copper Dancer Designs
We decided to merge in April, 2010, after doing shows together for 2 1/2 years. We both wanted to expand our local presence and start doing some of the Atlanta area arts and crafts shows, but many of them do not allow independent artists to share a booth. We've had ample opportunity to discover that we work well together, and to find that each of us had strengths that the other lacked.
About Our Name
Our inspiration for our name is the dragonfly, which in many cultures represents new life and new beginnings. As we both work in glass and metal, particularly copper, we searched for ways to link the dragonfly (and its cousin, the damselfly) with our art.
Dragonflies and damselflies are both members of the order Odonata. Both types of insects are often called "dragonflies," though to be more precise, true dragonflies are Anisoptera and damselflies, which have slightly indented, curvier wings, are Zygoptera. All are odonates, so enough with the biology lesson and distinctions!
Coppery Dancer Damselfly
Odonata, however, seemed overly fussy as a name. A search found the damselfly popularly known as the "coppery dancer," a Texas variant found in the region around Uvalde. This is an area Andrea knows well, having grown up in south-central Texas. This beautiful picture is by J. Centavo… isn't the Coppery Dancer lovely? Make sure you visit Mr. Centavo's page on Flickr for some phenomenal images of the wildlife in South Texas. Meanwhile, while our designs in glass and copper cannot match the beauty of nature, we think that they will prove to have an elegance all their own.
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