Lamp it up!

Lamp it Up @ Melbourne mini-Maker Faire

2012-01-13T21:05:00.000-08:00

lots and lots of people and herds of nerds in attendance at Melbourne (and Australia's) first ever Maker Faire. Organisers were planning for hundreds of people to attend, so I guess they were overwhelmed by the several thousand that turned up! Importantly for us, so many people instantly got the value of what we were trying to do with our Found Object Lamp concept....in spite of the more sophisticated robots, LED arrays, PCR machines and more on show around us!

Lamp it Up @ Melbourne mini-Maker Faire

2012-01-13T05:08:00.000-08:00

we'll be down at the mini-maker fair in melbourne tomorrow.

here's a simple found object lamp 'how-to' for everyone to use

Sunday fun at Lamp It Up workshop at Cultiver

2011-11-27T00:42:00.000-08:00

I feel that all those involved had a fun, challenging, and learningful Sunday lamp making workshop at Cultiver today. I feel empowered personally by delivering the workshop without a collaborator and I feel excited by another visit to the thriving and always surprising Cultiver.

One of today's creations. Exemplary use of zip ties.

Cultiver Launch Party

2011-07-11T04:07:00.000-07:00

Cultiver can be found in Ye Olde Ipswich in the 'Top of the Town' district a short walk from Ipswich Station.

This is their wonderful space. It has a two huge curved display windows at the front, and it's chokkas with handmade and upcycled stuff like 5 of my lamps!

This is Kyla's shot of 'Slivers' which has sold already!

This is a very special event for Ipswich! I'd love to see you there!

http://cultivershop.blogspot.com/

Cultiver Lamps

2011-06-27T06:12:00.000-07:00

Here are a few of my lamps that are going into the Cultiver Indie Arts and Design shop in Ipswich. Bec and Kyla are a super organised creative team bringing something very special to the Ipswich community.

Most Capped: Teaks bowls, bmx chain guard, ceramic draw knobs, Hong Kong games swimming cap, and glass ceiling shade

Slivers: Teak bowl with glass ceiling shade. The bowl had a split which has been dressed and replicated.

Red Roller: Red and white melamine bowls, ceramic draw knobs, knapkin rings, and glass ceiling shade

Lamp it up! An Exhibition at Donkey Wheel House

2011-06-01T21:05:00.000-07:00

They love lamp

After the end of the Lamp it up! workshops at ArtPlay we bumped out of ArtPlay and straight into the Donkey Wheel House basement gallery. We then spent two days fitting the electrical components and cable anchors to the 50 or so lamps in readiness for Gino our tagging and testing guy. We made sure each lamp was up to Australian standards as they were explained to us by the guys at lead lighting and lamp parts wholesalers Hartley Williams. We were joined by Diana from ArtPlay who collaborated (quite brilliantly) with us on two lamps which were included in the exhibition.

Donkey Wheel House basement gallery before lamping

Below you'll see a selection of the lamps from the exhibition

Loomy with finger knitted base band

Blue Lightning

The Fire Spirit

Mr Cowboy

The shredded red canary bird cage

What are you lookin at?

Special thanks to Briony for taking all the exhibition photos. I'd also like to thank Donkey Wheel House for doing us a great deal on the space. And lastly I'd like to thank all the design teams involved as well as the team at ArtPlay who were so accommodating and supportive. Greg and I would not have been able to make this all happen without these excellent people.

For more exhibition photos visit Gregs flickr site Lamp it up! Melbourne

Lamp it up! Workshops at Art Play

2011-05-17T20:26:00.000-07:00

After a long week of collecting and cleaning materials we bumped out of our little rented studio in Brunswick and into ArtPlay.

Rainbow of objects!

Greg talking through some design elements

Found object lamp making has its own special challenges. Supporting teams to make functional and lasting designs took lots of careful instructions before and during the workshops. The most important things for us was that everyone was happy, creative, and safe.

A proud design team with their lamp 'Black Swan'

Another proud design team with their lamp 'Fire Goddess'

A proud designer

Each day began with a presentation about how the compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL) is an integral part of the Lamp it up! process. We would explain how the lower temperatures produced by CFL's means a much wider range of materials are useful for making lamps. We introduced the idea of upcycling (recycling that adds value) and the idea of using play and experimentation to find the pieces that go really well together.

Me helping with a tricky bit

A design team at work. Hot glue guns were very handy for decorating lamps

Please look out for the next blog entry which will have photos from the exhibition at Donkey Wheel House.

More photos on Greg's flickr stream http://www.flickr.com/photos/corncolonel/sets/72157626425646555/

Tip shops and what not 2. The road to Art Play

2011-04-21T21:14:00.000-07:00

Installment two of photos from our week collecting odds and sods for our work shops. The small studio space in Brunswick was filling up quickly and we made a second visit to the Hume Recycling Centre in Cambbellfield in Melbournes north.

The foreman kindly allowed Greg to scuffle about in the plastics bay

Close up of a mountain of plastic

Loads of bits and pieces. So much colour

Collecting colours together

Tip shops and what not. Journey to upcycled lampage.

2011-04-13T04:45:00.000-07:00

We need enough bits and pieces to inspire 50 parent/child pairs. That's a lot of bits but tip shops are plentiful and are happy to hear that their bits are going to a good purpose

Our haul from hard rubbish collecting from Knox City hard rubbish.

Me emerging from a tip shop with a trolley full of goodies.

Ominus looking sorting building.

Outside goodies.

Lamp it up goes to Melbourne!

2011-04-04T06:15:00.000-07:00

I train it down this weekend for three weeks of upcycling, lamping and getting creative with parents and kids to make found object lamps.

The first week will be spent collecting materials from tip shops, second hand shops, and wherever else reusable goodies are available.

Week two we deliver workshops where parents and kids work together to create/design a lamp.

Week three we sit the gallery into the evening so the lamps can be properly shown off.

2010 Blog Gallery - New Wave

2010-12-19T21:32:00.000-08:00

New lamps! New lamps! I've joined madeit.com.au and I've set up my storefront with photos and details.

WHEELIE

Four retro wire fruit bowls, metal ring, retro melamine bowl, and white glass ceiling shade.
The four bowls are held together by a metal ring and when the lamp itself is dropped in the whole thing comes together.
Tagged and tested electrically safe.

COLOUR DOME
It's great when a colourful plan comes together!
Retro wine cooler, retro melamine trays, retro draw knobs, and white glass ceiling shade.
Lamp is tagged and tested electrically safe.

BAMBOO LOVE
Retro rainforest timber fruit bowl, retro bamboo ceiling shade, and white glass globe ceiling shade.
Timber and bamboo are restored using antique wax and linseed oil.
Lamp is tagged and tested electrically safe.

2010 Blog Gallery - Plasticular

2010-05-21T19:25:00.000-07:00

Draw knobs, melamine bowls, napkin rings, and glass globes.

These two lamps are the first in a series to feature in this blog as part of my 2010 Blog Gallery. I like the bright colours and mod style that comes from combinations of circles and upcycling of retro melamine bowls and draw knobs. These lamps will be available for sale soon.

For a preview come along to The Little market at Avid Reader book shop next Friday 28/05/10.

I'll be showing these two lamps and some others there among the crafty/upcycling types.

More 2009 lamps

2009-12-09T20:29:00.000-08:00

This set of lamps is called Three Moons. The bowls are teak, two small, and one large with white glass shades to match, and all recycled! I describe them as an ideal bedside and sideboard set. The photo is by the eminently arty and aesthetically unassailable Yukki Yukihiko Yotsukura who was staying with me at the time of the exhibition. I woke up on the day that Yukki took this photo to hear him playing Bach Suites for Cello on his special Classic Backpackers guitar in my back garden. I could have sworn there was a CD playing. Stunning! I felt so lucky!
These lamps were traded with my friend Jim in exchange for his old Concorde Vectra 14 speed. Good trade I reckon! I now have a bike with great frame geometry (awesome handling) and most importantly, Jim's missus Emma is happy with the lamps.

This year's lamps

2009-11-17T21:06:00.000-08:00

These are two of this years lamps commisioned by the photographer here, the endlessly stylish Darran Childs-Brown. Notice the very Euro 'sateen sheen', the result of hard wax antique polish, 2000 grit wet and dry, and loads of elbow grease.

More lamps on stream

2008-12-27T00:18:00.000-08:00

Here are photos of a slew of teak and other timber bowls I've been coming across lately.

These two and the one below them match nicely and will make a good set of bedside lamps with a hall or sideboard lamp.

New lamps on stream

2008-10-14T02:18:00.000-07:00

Many new lamps are on their way my friends.
Before photo: 1
This old art deco piano stool on the left was partially stripped and the upholstery is shot.
I'm going to lamp this one up. A scrub with steel wool and metho, and a shade that makes it not look like a stool.
I'll post to let you know how it goes.

Scoodi.com ROCKS!!!!!

2008-08-30T01:49:00.000-07:00

Scoodi has rocked my world! It's going to help me lamp it up yours. It's like the weekend shopper with pictures, maps of the general area where the seller/offerer/scooder lives, and you can search as close as 2km from your house. They have tag clouds to help you search and you always know how far away the scooder lives. You can arrange to pick up or meet in a public place. Trade or swap or sell or just network.
I knew straight away that scoodi could work for me and put ads up with good digi photos of some cool old stuff asking for jars of jam and lamps and old bikes and stories about the stuff I was giving away. Scoodi is perfect for upcyclers like me because we can't bear to see things go to waste and find ourselves with piles of amazing things we wish could have a more loving home but we only use some of our horde and need to pass it on.
Scoodi is like ebay without the conniving and the tricks but as local as you want to make it. What makes it great is that the more detail you put into your descriptions the more people are willing to do business. It is very much what it claims to be, a Social Trading site. It has a powerful ability to transcend the suburban landscape which can so often limit human interaction.

Just a post script on Scoodi: I met with the founder Peter shortly after writing this post. Nice guy! He was running Scoodi for free as a 'proof-of-concept' for a commercial application. Scoodi is gone now. It didn't grow into the Social Trading platform I had hoped. I put this down to failure to effectively moderate content and engagement. The responsiveness from Peter and his team were what attracted me to it in the first place but over time that responsiveness wained. I did pick up some bargains along the way though!

Thank youse and the wrap up

2008-05-02T23:04:00.000-07:00

I'd like to thank my collaborators for all their help. John, Dan, Clare, Tim, Tony, Greg, Akiko, Dave, and Chris, you all provided excellent support and advice. I'd like to thank those who bought lamps as well as all of you who had so many positive comments.

Aside from the last minute stress of opening night everything went pretty well. I sold 4 lamps and have a couple of small commissions and installations to look forward to. What I'm really happy about is that people I know have started to lamp it up themselves which is great.

Don't forget to follow the links to my flickr site and check out all the photos.

Lamp it up! Lamp it up! Lamp it up!

2008-03-28T01:43:00.000-07:00

Lamp it up! Lamp it up! Lamp it up!

Lampy photos old and new.

2008-03-18T19:59:00.000-07:00

If you go to VIEW MY COMPLETE PROFILE, click, then go My Web Page, click, and you'll find yourself at my Flickr page where you'll find old and new photos of my lamping. You'll find photos of I Love Lamp as well as shots of my Cloud 9 backpacker bar commission.

Many more photos to come!

Lamping up the Art Factory!

2008-03-15T23:52:00.000-07:00

Lamp it up! That's what my brother Tim said when I first asked him to help me prepare my lamps for 'I love lamp' (a little exhibition I had in my garage last year).
Now after several months of wombling and tinkering I'm nearly ready for the Anzac Day opening of Lamp it up!
The Art Factory has a great space across from the convention centre on Merivale St in South Brisbane. It has a large floor space and nice big windows for passers by to view lamps by night.
So if you can't make it to the April 25th opening, 6pm-10pm, then you can wander past and peak through the window (from the night of April 24th till April 30th).
This time around all the lamps will be made from scratch. There will be lots of wood, some metal, some plastic, and some backlit transperancies (just wait till you see them!).
It will be a feast of art, lamp, recycled, warm, objects. The fruits of my wombling labours.