About The Project
This floor lamp is part of my Whip-it bent lamination collection. The lamp features three spiraled interwoven ribbons. The ribbons are formed from ten plies of walnut, with the inner four plies being of shorter lengths. This results in the ribbon tops being thinner than the bottoms, which provides additional visual uplift to the piece. The ribbons are formed by rolling glue onto the plies and sandwiching them together. The plies are glued together in the order they were sliced from the log, which reduces the visibility of the seams, as the grain lines between the plies align. The sandwiched plies are placed in a long plastic bag. The bagged plies are wrapped and twisted around a scaffolding to form the curves. The exact form of the curves and twists is done by eye and feel. Multiple test runs are made with unglued plies to determine the best form. This is an organic process; how does the wood want to bend, what looks and feels like natural curves.
Once the correct form is shaped, a vacuum pump evacuates all the air from the bag. This causes atmospheric pressure to press the plies together while the glue cures (think of home food vacuum sealing).
The power cord is embedded inside of the ribbons and exists at the bottom of the ribbon onto the floor. The lamp shade is made of Shoji rice paper, whose asymmetrical shape complements the ribbon shapes. The cream color of the rice paper is also a nice contrast to the rich brown hue of the walnut.
Photo Gallery
