White Totem Lights

The White Totem Lights were presented as a new series of totems made entirely in white. Each piece is built from individually sourced glass lampshades, collected one by one and stacked around a glowing core, and the whole column rises from a cast concrete base.

The series came in two sizes: a small version about 60 cm high and a large version about 110 cm high. The description that accompanied the series stressed that the forms were meant to work just as well switched off as lit, and the photographs below show both states: soft grey-white glass against a pale wall, and the same stack glowing against black.

Because the shades are found rather than manufactured as a set, no two totems are quite alike. Ribbed, frosted, pierced and smooth glass are combined in each stack, so the outline of every piece reads like a small piece of architecture.

Context

Working with found glass sets its own rules. Old lampshades come in a limited range of diameters and fittings, so each stack is assembled by trial: a wide frosted dome may need a narrow ribbed collar above it before the next shade will sit securely, and the order of the pieces decides where the light leaks through and where it is held back. The concrete base does two jobs at once, giving the tall column a low centre of gravity and adding a rough, matt surface against the smooth glass.

Seen together, the photographs show how much the series depends on its surroundings. Against a pale wall in daylight the white glass almost disappears and the totems read as soft outlines; against black, with the core lit, the same stacks turn into bright drawings of light, and the differences between clear, opal and patterned glass become obvious.