MESQUITE & METAL LAMP

CONCEPT

This piece of live-edge mesquite was going to be thrown away by my shop teacher at the time. I set out to not let that happen. 

Nature guided this design. I first came across the piece of wormwood mesquite and thought it was the coolest thing. Flatheaded/ roundheaded wood borer larvae are these worms that turn into dark gray beetles, but in the larvae stage, they seek shelter in mesquite trees. People categorize them as a pest, but they leave a set of tunnels or “shucks,” if you will, that give a squiggly texture to the exterior bark of the tree. I wanted to show how natural processes can be beautiful. The bark was so interesting that I wanted to juxtapose it with a metal design that would complement the organic nature of the wood. The metal part of the lamp is meant to be complex, yet not take away from the wood. The metal base also is equipped with a touch dimmer so all you have to do is turn it on with a brief tap.

There were challenges along the way to building the lamp. I had to re-weld and grind over and over again to give it the finish I was looking to create. The exciting part was learning how to use some tools I had never used before, like a plasma cutter. I used a scratch tip which made it much easier to cut straight. Figuring out how to attach the wood to the metal part of the lamp was also a challenge as was the electrical component of the design.