My DESIGN PHILOSOPHY has evolved and will evolve
It remains informed by storytelling and relationships with others…

STORY (-telling)

It took me years to discover that I am a storyteller.

 My design philosophy is as much about story as anything else. We should always start with story of the space, or project:

  • What does the client want to do, in the space?

  • Why are we building in this way, in this location, at this time?

  • How should people feel when they’re here, or when they first see it, or at the moment of revelation upon perception?

  • How far away should we be able to see it?

  • Is there a dramatic reveal?

 

First and foremost I help my client - whether a choreographer, diocese, or hotelier, etc. - to understand that they know what they want, even if they don't feel they can describe it as technically as I can. I believe it is my responsibility to help them understand what they want and communicate that to me so that I can give it to them. This might include nudges based on my experience and taste, but it doesn’t usually include dictation unless expressly requested.

Making a space comfortable is often the aim, but there are many ways to be comfortable, so how we achieve that with our tools is a matter of education and considerable discussion.

LIGHTING DESIGNERS ACHIEVE S-C-R-I-M WITH I-M-P-A-C-T*

OUR GOALS ARE:

  • Selective Visibility

  • Composition

  • Revelation of form

  • Information giving

  • Mood establishment and manipulation

 

WE ACHIEVE THESE WITH THE TOOLS OF:

  • Intensity

  • Movement (intensity over time, or position through space)

  • Position

  • Angle

  • Color

  • Texture

*Lynne Koscielniak, University at Buffalo School of Theatre and Dance

 

LOVE & INFORMATION

Good lighting often goes unnoticed…

…by those who do not spend their lives looking for it. Sometimes it is not even ‘seen,’ but it is always felt.
Music is the only art that activates the entire brain and all our senses.
Good illumination works similarly, activating the body, and communicating information to the mind without language.

The power of a story

or even a single instant to change someone’s life is effervescent, and generative. I make light/art that surprises people and that inspires in them a sense of awe in the expansive and renewable potential of our world, and ourselves. In any moment light can translate, guide, act as its own lens to change perception, surprise us, teach us, manipulate our emotions – all without language.

Light has the power to capture our imaginations

and spark our inspiration. The lighting of a moment or object tells us volumes in an instant. Most of our information comes from visual cues; our emotions are also visual. Our sense of ease changes with these changing qualities of light. I aim to use these observations to help people feel the history of where they are, as they inhabit the present.

Many have suggested that “architecture is frozen music”

Light is an analogue of music.
I want my projects to help people see themselves as awe-inspiring and humanity as an ever-improving self-evaluating growing community.

I want them to see the dreams in the work I do with others.
I want people to look at what we have helped bring into being from only a dream, see another dream that they might have, and be inspired to begin.

 

SUSTAINABILITY

We have the potential to impact the fellow inhabitants of our spaceship-earth in a myriad of ways. The resources that go into our fixtures and the embodied carbon, the energy that powers them, the quality of the light that comes from them and how that affects quality of life and quality of sleep.

It is our responsibility to be mindful of all of this, to specify a design that helps people live well, at a low energy cost for a long time that outweighs the material cost that went into its creation. Outside, it means being careful of excess UV to avoid bug-death maelstroms and shielding from the night sky to keep light where it is needed, and the stars visible.

Lighting Designers impact that natural world with a material that goes unnoticed by so many, but we must be aware that the consequences of our decisions have impacts that ripple through time and space, and cross inter-species boundaries.