|
Architectures, Design of the West. Colorado Expression Artist Sharon Schuster Anhorn began her career painting stained-glass designs/ today she offers stunning pieces that merge metal, glass and jewels ranging from wall hangings to architectural adornments. By Kathy Smith Photography by Sharon Shuster Anhorn After metal and glass artist Sharon Schuster Anhorn graduated from the University of Denver with a B.A. in fine arts, she spent a few years teaching school and working in management positions. Then, one random day in 1973. she attended a crafts show in City Park and was fascinated with the stained glass pieces of the designers at the show. "I starting taking classes, quit my job—where I had a great salary—and started designing stained glass." Anhorn says. For several years she painted stained glass designs on windows, before she began producing real pieces But, "In my subconscious, I knew I'd be in the stained-glass business." Moving On For 12 years she worked with stained glass; the leap to working with metal happened with a stained-glass project she had framed in wood. "The piece just fell flat in wood, so I decided to build a metal frame, and another dimension got added," she recalls. Thus, her foray into metal design work began, and the inception of her company Designata, Latin for "female designer." Initially, she worked with tin and copper, creating unique frames, murals and wall hangings. Now, she works with aluminum, copper, architectural glass and jewels. " My mentor. Cab Childress, an architect who has since passed away, commissioned me to do a frieze at a lodge in Kremmling," Anhorn reflects. She was commissioned to create a metal mural of the legends of the Ute Indians. "Because the Utes have no written language, and since I minored in anthropology, I went to powwows and talked to elders to get a sense of the history of the Utes," she says. The piece, while only a few feet high, wraps 80 feet around the circumference of the room. Passing the Test For a medallion for the front of the Women's Center building on the University of Denver campus, then-Chancellor Dan Ritchie "approved of the design but was worried about vandalism and wanted to make sure it was strong enough," states Anhorn. So, rising to the challenge, Anhorn began the fabrication process by cutting pieces of copper and laminating them together with industrial-strength adhesive. When completed, the piece weighed 400 pounds that took many hours of labor to attach to the site, a brick wall. |
|
"A few weeks after it was hung, some kid ran right into the medallion and it flipped up like a coin and landed on the hood of his car. The brick wall was completely decimated, but there were only a few scratches on the piece," she says. "The building manager called and said it looked like I had passed the test." As if this incident wasn't enough. Anhorn shares another interesting outcome from a project. "I was hired to design a copper archway for the entrance to Old Main, which is the science and religion building (at D.U.l, where there is a plaque on the outside of the building written in Latin. So I planned to write an inscription in Latin on my archway piece." She ran the inscription by the chancellor, who approved the Latin "pro veritas," meaning "for truth." After the piece was hung, it was pointed out to the chancellor that the phrase was conjugated wrong and should have been "pro veritate." Needless to say, the change was made. Teamwork Today, Anhorn works with a team of people from interior designers to glass fabricators. She uses a jeweler who creates glass jewels that she incorporates into her piece, and one of her long-time alliances is with interior designer Pam Kelker of Castles Interiors, with whom she "has worked together for many years on various projects, including ceilings." She says her first ceiling, 16 by 13 feet and designed and installed in 1996, is her largest ceiling to date. "The ceiling was built for a formal dining room, using a Victorian nouveaux style with big leaves and swirls on copper with gold leaf detail. "We had 12 people over two days installing the ceiling; a few meltdowns later, it was done." Since each project is unique, she has a team that works well both independently and collectively. "If you have the right tools and talent, each project is seamless from fabrication to installation." National Recognition Anhorn's work has been featured on national television on the HGTV series "Modern Masters." Her work has been shown in galleries in Denver, Santa Fe, Laguna Beach, Beaver Creek, Vail and Edwards and has appeared in Home and Garden magazine. Her work encom¬passes metal embossed ceilings, metal friezes, metal cornices, glass and metal wall hangings, and architectural stained glass. She can be reached at 970-278-1804; for more informa¬tion, visit www.designata.net. KATHY SMITH IS A FREELANCE WRITER AND CHEF WHO WRITES ARTICLES FDH ARCHITECTURES, DESIGN OF THE WEST, COLORADO EXPRESSION, DENVER MAGAZINE AND DTHER LDCAL AND NATIONAL MAGAZINES. |