James Mattson

James Mattson always admired the Craftsman style, but he couldn’t afford original antique lamps and didn’t care for reproductions. Then, he says, “I stumbled on a Popular Mechanics’ magazine article from 1910 called ‘How to Make Etched Copper Lampshades’ and started making my own. I got such a good response that I started selling them.”

Mattson’s animation career began in production, and he switched over to writing with a stint at Disney Feature Animation. More recently working in live action, he credits aspects of his career as inspiration for his copperwork. “In the ‘80s I worked in backlight motion graphics, often on spinning chrome logos for TV stations, and then I worked for a while in special effects for 2D animation, including six months on The Thief and the Cobbler,” he says. “Many of the EFX [projects] involved putting silhouettes over a lightbox and then modifying the color and glow. I guess I would say that animation work taught me how to look at light in a way that’s very useful for my copper lamps.” Mattson even makes a series of shadow lamps that directly apply the diffusion techniques he used with film.

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