Chandelier...Further In
For those of you
who are just tuning in this is (in part) about my first large
commission which is a 3 foot diameter octagonal chandelier.
Some of my first
errors were not discovered until well into the project. I didn't
know that they were my first errors at the time. In hindsight
earlier realizations would have been better, but regardless they
would still have been errors made and missed at the beginning.
Almost every time
I realize one of these mistakes (at the moment this is still an
ongoing project I am struggling with) it has thrown me into a
depression. Generally I am pretty low-key and fairly calm. On this
project I have thrown my hands up and cursed and had to walk away, (-
and go for a looong walk-) countless times. There has been the odd
mistake that has galvanized my will to solve the problem and move
forward, but mostly it has gone the other way.
That has been one
of the harder things for me. I try to be pretty resilient. I try to
be pretty optimistic. On this project my ability to be those things
has been almost non-existent. And that is important to recognize for
anyone who suffers these cycles. Why has this been so difficult for
me? Well, let's see...there are all those factors that I outlined
briefly that life has thrown at me...all that change. That is likely
a big part of it. All those things take a toll. Beyond that though,
this is the challenge I've always avoided. This is me facing the
thing I thought I couldn't do. And at every turn so far, it has
proved me right. That is why it has been so important that I keep
coming back.
Truth is, though,
that courage to come back takes way more time to work up than I'd
like.
I fill those gaps with work, and with life. Sometimes there are no gaps to be filled, there is just work, or life...
There is the
original slump of depression, and the best way to shake that is to
get busy. If I were more experienced, or perhaps just better I might
try to shake it by getting busy with the chandelier, but I am just
not that resilient.
So there are big
gaps of time between each and every stage of the project. Those gaps
all have reasons that sound like excuses – and they sound like
excuses because I guess they are. The biggest reason that the gaps
are there is because it takes me time to work up the courage to try
again, and to solve the problem that I have created.
Unfortunately,
by doing that I am creating new problems. The gaps mean this project
has been worked in bits and pieces, in fits and starts (literally.)
Being away from the project, I lose sight of it. I forget little
details. There is no flow.
Often, I forget a
crucial detail that I had figured out last time I worked on it – or
fix an error only to re-create it in a new and exciting way because I
remember that I fixed it...and then neglect to take it into
consideration for the next step.
And then there are the tangible problems to wrestle through...
There was another
element that I thought would be easy that turned out to be nearly
impossible – dependent on the timing. The light source. Yes, this
is a chandelier and I knew it would be important (I'm not quite that
daft.) What I didn't realize was that finding just the right light
source to fit was going to be quite so hard. I did know what I
needed and what I wanted. I didn't realize it would be so close to
being unavailable or non-existent in the trends of lighting design.
Particularly given the size.
When I began the
project I had seen several fixtures that would have worked. By the
time I got into the project none of them were on the market anymore.
The piece is a 3
foot diameter...if the light fixture is made for a normal household
lighting fixture the light will all be centred around a fairly small
area in the centre. This piece also needs enough light to penetrate
the art glass and still give the desired amount of light, so it needs
to be multiple bulbs...as close to 8 as possible since it is an
octagon. Strangely this is not easy to find without paying for
someone else's design or paying for an electrician to not only build
the thing but then get it certified....oops.
If I ever do a
lighting project again – and for all its difficulites I am
intrigued to do something (smaller perhaps!) - I would buy the light
fixture first and design around it. I am sure that anyone with sense
would do just that...but as this is my first rodeo, it wasn't
something I had thought would present quite as much of a problem as it
has.
So
far I have solved the fixture problem, but the at time of writing,
the attachment problem is still looming before me. I'm sure there
will be a lot of learning opportunities involved in that as well. I
have some ideas now, but whether they will be realistic ones is
entirely another matter.
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