Review: dark 'til dawn Poetry and Paper Lamp Collection
BY R.W. O'ROURKE I DECEMBER 2, 2009
Shelly Bryant and Peter Zhou have done for the lamp what tailfins did for the '59 Impala. Lamps are still lamps, but Bryant's and Zhou's contributions to the collection dark 'til dawn make them much more impressive.
An accomplished poet with numerous publication credits and a recent release of her first collection, Cyborg Chimera, Ms. Bryant began the process with a series of original haiku. Before now I had not thought of poetry as larvae for electrical lighting, and still wouldn't want "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" glowing from an end table, but, fortunately, someone with greater foresight felt the metamorphosis had possibilities.
In length and rhythm haiku seems the perfect vehicle for this application and, like the light from the lamp, provides insight and images previously hidden from view. While we are free to interpret these verses to suit our own sensibilities, Zhou has done a wonderful job of providing visuals for those of us too lazy, or busy, to exercise our imaginations.
Writings by an American poet living in Singapore utilizing a form of Japanese poetry envisioned functionally and artistically by a Chinese artist, these lamps cross international and aesthetic boundaries, providing an appreciation for the linear and lateral hours, days, and seasons through which all of us must dance. The design, structure and accompanying artwork become a complimentary reflection of the world created in verse. Edgy, earthy and optimistic lamps that foster rumination along with illumination.
Edison would be proud.
View the dark 'til dawn catalog (PDF). (This file is best viewed at 100% in your PDF reader and has been provided in reduced resolution to control filesize.)
View the dark 'til dawn lamp gallery.
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