Belly of the Whale Series-

the Sun and the Rain

These lamps are what you get when you are studying Joseph Hoffman, a Vienna Secessionists, reading Joseph Campbell to get through midlife, and listening to a bunch of Fleetwood Mac…In my personal design work I try very hard to only made the things that feel like my soul. I guess this is what it looks like.

I saw a folk lamp in a shop a few years back and was overwhelmed. I felt so high and big I went for a long bike ride afterwards thinking about creating my own folk lamp. Folk lamps soothe me like therapy. My grandfather kept a bizarre wooden duck folk lamp prominently on the front porch of his four-square home. It signaled to me that I was in a place for the weekend where I would get to go on walks in the forest with him, be read to at night, and be tucked into a bed fitted with massive crocheted bedspreads. It was peace and the lamp was the first comfort I saw.

One time a partner held the duck lamp over his head threatening to smash it on the living room floor. I felt my soul crack in two and begged for it to be returned to the front window. I turn the duck lamp on when I leave my home at night. Pulling up and seeing it in my window is still a signal of peace, a journey.

I call the new lamps Belly of the Whale after the thoughts of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey; understanding we all need to embrace the Sun and the Rain. After all, everyone loves a hero.

For the lamps I use scrap as much as possible. The leather is Herman Oaks scrap veg tanned remnants, pineapple leather, or rawhide. I have decreased the use of brass by creating a tube and rod system where I insert recycled steel rod into brass tubing to create the frames.

They might reference where the world is. They might reference where I was…who knows :)

Looks hopeful to me.

I thought about different materials including making corn paper myself (?!!!?!) Enjoy some process photos below…

Belly of the Whale Lamp Series, 2023/24

Sun Large, 20 x 20 x 12

Scrap from the leather industry, veg tanned Herman Oaks leather. Expect surface scars, I call them eco-scars.

2024

Sun Small, 14 x 14 x 17

Scrap from the leather industry, veg tanned Herman Oaks leather. Expect surface scars, I call them eco-scars.

Completed in 2023

Rain, 18 x 18 x 14

Pinatex, Pineapple leather, left over biomass from pineapple cultivation.

Completed in 2024