Why is the light from most lamps so flat?

Last week I wrote about the journey a piece of furniture takes to a home. Today I want to show something that is created at the end of my own journey — in the studio.

It began with a question that would not leave me alone for a long time: why is the light from most lamps so flat? It shines, certainly. But it is not alive. I was looking for a material that would not merely transmit light, but play with it.

I found it in PMMA acrylic glass. It is an optical material — the same kind of material used to make lenses. It transmits more light than ordinary glass and does something with it that no frosted shade can: it guides it along the form, refracts it at the edges and distributes it softly across the wall. Light ceases to be a point. It becomes movement.

And that is where the name of the series comes from — FLOW. I form each shade by hand, so each one sets in a slightly different gesture. Two lamps from the same series are never identical — and I consider that their value, not a flaw. In a world where everything is cast in thousands of identical copies, the hand leaves a mark that cannot be imitated.

The first series is already taking shape. It will be limited and numbered — but I will tell that story separately, because it is a longer one.

And one final question: do you ever notice how much the light from a lamp changes the atmosphere of a room — more than the colour of the walls itself?