The Illuminators

Prospect Refuge + Hennepin Made

“Lighting is the jewelry of the home,” says Victoria Sass, whose Minneapolis-based interior design firm, Prospect Refuge, recently collaborated on the Ontologia collection with local lighting studio Hennepin Made.

Sass bonded with Hennepin founder Jackson Schwartz over the vicissitudes of the Midwestern climate, where winter days are long on darkness and short on natural light. To create the table lamp (floor and hanging iterations are available), artisans blow Swedish glass so that it appears to melt over—and partially encase—a wooden orb, which offers structural stability. Rather than something to be hidden, the cord is extra long by design—it can be looped, knotted, or left to trail. “Ontologia bridges that delicate place between function and form,” says Sass. “Is it art? Is it design? Is it craft?” All of the above.

hennepinmade.com | @hennepinmade
prospectrefugestudio.com | @prospectrefuge

Rogan Gregory

Malibu, California–based furniture designer Rogan Gregory seeks to soften the tyranny of slick, rectilinear interiors with biomorphic forms rendered in such tactile materials as gypsum, terrazzo, ceramic, bronze, sheepskin, and cowhide. The illuminated sculptures from his Fertility Form series reflect Gregory’s interest in organic shapes and ecological systems. Like a mash-up of Dr. Seuss and Isamu Noguchi, his lamps might variously suggest an exotic plant life sprouting from the ground or dangling from the ceiling, or—as with these gypsum floor lamps—fantastical creatures come to life in the living room. The opposite of static, they shed light in multiple directions with an expressive abandon that invites interaction. Gregory has stated that by introducing such objects into our environments, he hopes to spur visceral emotions, such as joy and awe, and to help foster a deeper connection to the natural world.

r-and-company.com | @rogangregory

Alison Berger

As a child in Texas, Alison Berger delighted in collecting fireflies in glass jars—early prototypes for her future métier. Today, Berger’s handblown lamps are made in her Los Angeles–based shop, where she favors personal expression over mass production.

The Word Pendant was inspired by a 16th-century ceremonial glass chalice upon which members of a secret Austrian society scratched their names in script. In Berger’s modern interpretation, the shade is etched with translated excerpts from Leonardo da Vinci’s sketchbooks. When shone on a wall, shadows reveal the text backwards—an allusion to the artist’s practice of writing from right to left. Not intended as primary illumination, Berger’s lamps glow with low-watt Edison bulbs, “like electric candlelight,” she says. Or like a firefly in a mason jar on a balmy summer night.

alisonbergerglassworks.com | @alisonbergerglassworks

Feyza Kemahlioglu

Although based in New York, the Istanbul-born Feyza Kemahlioglu looks homeward for material inspiration. Her Pillars of Meerschaum lighting collection incorporates meerschaum, a heat-resistant soft white clay mineral found mainly in central Turkey’s Eskişehir province, which artisans have carved since the 18th century. When the lamp is switched on, light animates the intricate floral and graphic patterns etched into the meerschaum tubes.

In conceiving her Sunset Drive pendants, Kemahlioglu sought to create an interplay of light and shadow. “I had an image of driving along at sunset, enjoying the cloud formations and the flashing of car headlights passing by,” recalls Kemahlioglu. The clay tubes are interspersed with handblown mirrored glass cylinders and sandblasted glass globes, which emit a soft glow “like the haze that sets in right before nightfall.”

feyzstudio.com | @feyzdesignstudio