Sculptural Lighting
Creative Process
Working with Wood & Stone
"Make it look like it grew there," said my cabinetmaking boss some 40 years ago. I carry this idea as I spend hours fitting wood to stone. I may seek to keep the wood design simple to bring attention to a base stone with great character, other times I focus on the wood's form as I work to reveal its natural beauty.
Driveway Maple
Cut slabs of a large Maple branch laid out for drying
Closeup photo of the chatoyance or curl within this wood
The completed tabletop lamp with handmade shade is shown
Cut slabs of a large Maple branch laid out for drying
A Maple tree dropped a limb on my driveway maybe 11-12 years ago. The wood turned out to have an abundance of character (curl or chatoyance).
Sharing the movement of form and flow of my process, here is a visual story of how it became a lamp. Cut into slabs, it spent some years of slow drying; the form is roughed out; wood is fitted to stone — as if it grew there; the form is refined, and polished until complete.
Making Use of Materials
A closeup of one of the Coral fossils incorporated into a commissioned lamp.
A photo of the completed lamp incorporating fossils.
A closer look at the paint traces and accentuation of the green in Born Again
A closeup of one of the Coral fossils incorporated into a commissioned lamp.
Fossil Lamp
Some years ago, someone sent me a box of fossils that she had found in Florida after we met at an art fair in Chicago. Last year, when a friend requested a Lamp for his dear friend in Florida, I was able to incorporate two of the incredible coral fossils into that piece, one as a feature in the joining of materials, and another became the top finial.
Born Again Lamp
When my back deck started to show major signs of aging, I decided to harvest the posts and create a lamp from the wood. It turned out to be some great wood. I left traces of the green paint on the lamp I titled, 'Born Again'.
Making Paper
