In mid 1975, Willie Manson showed me a Daffodil paperweight he had been working on. I thought it was brilliant, and it fitted in beautifully with a Four Season project I had been considering for a while. Spring was now in the bag, so all I had to do was to come up with traditional designs for Summer, Autumn, and Winter.
Summer was the first I attempted, and I took the flower style of Flower in the Rain, used much brighter colours and "ribbing" for the petals, and added miniature Paul Ysart style five petal flowers on the base, within a ring of fine millefiori cane.
Autumn was the most difficult to make. I had designed this piece using lampwork leaves, but on three different levels. The first leaf was on the base within a ring of autumn coloured millefiori cane. The second set of leaves floated above this, and the third set, floated one level higher yet! It was definitely Willie's least favourite weight to make.
Winter, by comparison was relatively straight forward to create. The snowy white millefiori canes were very attractive, and contrasted beautifully with the lampworked Holly and Berries. Each paperweight in this set features a WM cane for the First time during his time with Caithness, and ALL sets were signed by Colin Terris and Willie Manson.
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