Sometime in the early 1980’s a man sits on the floor of his garage trying to put together two sections of a lampshade. His hands are desperately preoccupied with the task of soldering the pieces, while he tries to hold the two sections together with nothing more than his feet. The man is Scott Riggs. The shade: Scott’s first Tiffany reproduction lamp. “I felt like a little monkey,” remembers Riggs with a chuckle. After several unsuccessful attempts at getting the piece together properly—and several burns to his feet—Riggs ended the night by throwing the soldering iron across the room at the garage door.

Little did he know that Tiffany reproduction lamps would eventually become his life’s work and greatest passion. Like most lamp makers, Riggs began by creating stained glass windows. Though self-taught, he was introduced to the art by a friend.

“I had a friend that knew I could draw,” remembers Riggs of his first encounter with stained glass windows. “He asked me to draw him a sailboat in such a way that he could use it as a pattern for a stained glass window. Then I watched him cut out the glass, and next thing I knew I was picking up the scrap glass off his floor so I could go home and make my own stuff, and I kind of just went on from there.”. . . . .