Candlesticks: Seeing the Light
Bill Diemert likes to wax philosophic about candles.
He speaks eloquently of how candles often figure into special occasions like birthdays, how they are used for religious ceremonies, how they can set a mood with the light of a match.
“There’s a sense of celebration whenever one lights a candle,” says Diemert, who is vice president of the Pottery Shack in Laguna Beach.
In his home, he often lights a candle in a tall iron candleholder instead of flipping on a light.
“Candles have a certain charm and warmth you don’t get with electric lights,” he says. “If you put a few candles around, it has a real calming effect.”
Candleholders--and the candles that occupy them--are the simplest way for home decorators to make a design statement, to add a keynote of color to a table, mantle or shelf.
Candlesticks of every description can be found throughout the Pottery Shack. There are hand-painted ceramic candlesticks, many in floral pastels for spring, tall crystal candlesticks for more formal settings, candelabra of shiny brass and a three-tiered candelabrum of twisted wrought iron for a Spanish or Mediterranean decor.
“They can be made out of anything. This is a candleholder,” says Diemert, picking up a triangular-shaped wedge made of plaster and painted antique gold with a protruding nail to hold the candle.
There are glass candlesticks made to look like tree trunks, iron candlesticks shaped into twisted grapevines and crystal candlesticks that look so much like ice cubes one expects them to melt. Old wood bobbins from textile factories that were used to spin yarn now serve as candlesticks for a country interior.
Candlesticks match a wide range of budgets as well as tastes. They cost anywhere from about $5 for a tulip-shaped votive holder in pastel colors to $200 for the tall iron stands with hand-blown glass bowls to hold the candles that measure from 2- to 6-feet tall. Most candlesticks at Pottery Shack fall in the $20 to $50 range.
Some home decorators want candlesticks that match their china patterns for a coordinated look. Others are more adventurous.
Chelsea Passage, the eclectic home shop in Barneys New York at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, caters to more avant-garde tastes.
Its signature candlesticks are made from translucent resin in bright colors and glow as if they’re lit from within when placed on a glass tabletop. They sell for $275 each.
“We like to clump them together and treat them as objects that go in groups of threes or odd numbers,” says Chelsea Passage manager Cecil Widdifield.
Other contemporary candlesticks at Chelsea Passage include a snail-shaped spiral in frosted or clear crystal, a handblown crystal and a wavy ceramic available in blue, apple green or yellow.
“They look like they’re flickering,” Widdifield says.
Home decorators find candlesticks useful for drawing the eye to whatever small knickknacks occupy a table. They also can highlight a decor, bringing a focal point of color, according to Diemert.
“We have candlesticks all over my house. They’re able to add height to whatever’s on the table,” he says. “It makes a strong presence.”
One of the easiest ways for people to mark the change of seasons is to change the candles in their home, Diemert says.
“The first thing someone will do after the holidays are over is change the candlesticks from red to yellow,” he says.
Candles themselves come in all shapes, sizes and colors, from small votives to the 16-inch long tapers “for a grand statement,” Diemert says.
“In the past we carried one line of candles. Now we have six to eight lines.”
Long tapers by Molca are dipped in hot wax 24 times so the dense candles will have a longer burning time than those squeezed from a press. A company called Buonanno-Perin makes six-inch wide candles of hand-rolled beeswax that glow from within as the wick burns down through the candle’s core.
Flower-shaped floater candles can be dropped in the tub for a relaxing bath, while garden candles come in terra-cotta pots for the outdoors.
Many people are using scented candles instead of potpourri for adding fragrance to a room. Especially hot now are candles by Aroma Glo that come in white clay or glass pots in different colors and scents, including blueberry, vanilla, heather and strawberry.
“They’re like Kool-Aid,” Diemert says, giving the strawberry one a sniff.
While most candles cost a few dollars, some of the more exotic ones that qualify as wax sculptures can cost up to $50--but there is a drawback.
“When people spend that much for a candle, they’re often too intimidated to light it,” Diemert says.
