Alison works on a skylight. She’s in the Lantern Room, looking down at the floor. The photographer is in the Watch Room, looking up at the ceiling.
Without a doubt, the most beautiful feature of Graves Light is the lantern, the glass room which housed the great Fresnel lens.
Built into the cast metal floor are 13 little round skylights that were the sole source of natural light for the Watch Room below.
The years have been kind (the heavy glass has turned from clear to a purply sun-colored amethyst) and unkind (several of them are missing or broken).
Not a problem for Alison MacDonald of ACKFire Studios.
Using one carefully removed glass tile, Alison has created a mold in her Nantucket glass studio and is busy reproducing the missing pieces.
We hope to report that by end of summer, the skylights will be fully intact again and ready for the next century of use.
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- One of the 13 skylights, containing the round tiles of glass. The larger circular area on the right is a skylight with the bronze-and-glass insert removed.
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- Original US Light House Service architectural floor plan of the lantern deck of Graves Light, 1903.
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- Alison made this mold to cast new pieces of glass to replace the missing ones in the Graves Light skylights.
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- Alison works on a skylight. She’s in the Lantern Room, looking down at the floor. The photographer is in the Watch Room, looking up at the ceiling.
