Lanterns and Light

Light is probably the closest thing to worship in my mind. Sunlight through leaves brings a gorgeous jade glow into the world but also shows a gentle love to each vein and imperfection. Light makes halos of hair, and warmth of skin. It creates comfort out of the night.

So when I say I hate a type of light (e.g. overhead lighting) I mean it with the fervor of a long living vendetta. It burns the magic out of any room, leaves no space for secrets or softness. Overhead lighting has the anesthetizing effect of a hospital for any environment. So I will do anything to bring good lighting to a space. I love candles, lamps, fairy lights, disco balls, big open windows, anything but overhead lighting.

Some examples of good lighting:

Some examples of bad lighting:

My project this year was to make a new type of lighting for my spaces, that enchant rather than clear away. These are my lanterns. In my original sketches I cycled through a half-dozen ideas, fairytale stories and stylized suns, abstract patterns and draping vines. But the first design that felt right was a reuse of an old design of mine, my tag in high school.

This tag is a stylized coyote, many of which would howl across the hills of the undeveloped cemetery as we tagged and chatted. I chose it for their familiarity but it also comes from the mythology of the coyote as the trickster god, many stories of which I grew up with. The coyote is a creature of wiles and is not to be messed with, but it also reminds me of home. So I selected three other creatures that had a similar level of importance to me and to the coast of California. Next, the owl, whose hoots would wake me in the night. I used to memorize the scientific names of all the North American owls but now they are just familiar faces in the woods. Then, the jellyfish, my first (short-lived and accidental) pet and perpetrator of many a sting upon my skin. Swimming with jellyfish will always remind me of being a kid in the Red Sea and running out in panic as gentle touches turned to a stinging.

Then, for the last creature of the four walls I turned to my fellow Shift creators. Lucas suggested a snake and hell, my Kansan cousins have a jar full of rattlers from snakes they killed and rattlesnakes have always been the hissing fear while camping. So together, these creatures make my childhood mythology of the California wild and a full lantern.

For actually crafting, I converted the design into an Adobe Illustrator design. Then it was fairly simple to cut the design using the laser cutter at the Duderstadt Fabrication Underground. My prototype lantern ended up being my final design since the laser cutter stopped working halfway through this project. I tried using the laser cutter in the Shapiro as well but it was also rather nonfunctional. So, while the final product is halfway finished, there is still the prototype light to be had.