Handblown glass making is an art that requires enormous amounts of skill to make the most beautiful of lighting from this amazing material.
This month, we’ve got a guest blog post from interior designer Lindi Reynolds who we’ve worked with on a number of projects.
I have been working as an Interior Designer in and around London now for 15 years, and with each passing year, the experience gets richer and richer, thanks to companies like Curiousa and Curiousa, who hold at their centre the importance of creativity and innovation within their field. That is why I, Lindi Reynolds, partnered with Curiousa and Curiousa to share my love for using coloured glass in interior design.
Curiousa and Curiousa are creators of exquisitely beautiful hand blown glass lighting solutions. Their glass shades come in 23 different colours, in varying sizes, shapes and formats, and they are all hand made by master artisans of glassblowing, or ‘Gaffers’ as they are more affectionately known. This is an ancient art form, dating back to the first century BC, so it is heartwarming to see that it is still alive and well and, judging by Curiousa’s continued success, that it is valued and adored by people the world over for its human touch.
A glass lighting shade being brought to life by Curiousa & Curiousa’s talented glass blowers.
Not for the faint-hearted, this art form involves fire, molten sand and a long blowpipe, a set of extraordinarily good lungs, creativity, patience and stamina. Every piece is individually formed, so there is no mechanisation involved in this creative process, and that’s plain to see in the products themselves.
Glass shades are handblown in a range of shapes, styles and colours to bring together in unique designs.
The commitment to the craftsmanship of each piece really is quite extraordinary. What this means for people like me, and my clients alike is that lighting design really does become a thing of joy. Light is a wonderful thing to start with, but stream it through coloured glass and something very special starts to happen. With 23 colours to work with and countless possibilities for construction, the creative process shifts from the Gaffer to the end consumer as the ideal colour and shape combination is decided upon prior to installation.
Lighting is one of those endlessly interesting areas for Interior Designers, because of course, it does and must provide a very functional purpose. Every home or workspace requires a combination of purely functional lighting and character lighting. As its name suggests, character lighting needs to be more than just functional - it must become an art form in its own right and that is what Curiousa manages to achieve every time. Each pendant, each wall light or each cluster of coloured pendants is something with a unique personality. The only aspect you need to watch out for with these little beauties is that you have balanced your scheme perfectly to work in unison with them because these purveyors of light have beautifully strong voices and will need to ‘tone’ with the rest of the room just perfectly.
As a colourist and lover of the arts, working with a company like Curiousa is pure joy! That is because they have at their heart the perfection of their art form and innovation. As a designer I know to manage the success of our designs through the products that we source. The products themselves are just as important as the way in which we offer them up through our designs. With Curiousa’s coloured glass treasure trove, I may as well have died and gone straight to heaven!
Our sincere thanks to Curiousa & Curiousa, who always show a very high level of product knowledge at the specification stages of lighting design, and are always happy to go the extra mile.
Lindi Reynolds
Lindi Reynolds is an interior professional with over fifteen years experience, working with clients in London and South-East England. She has started the Artist Appreciation Initiative to showcase work of talented local artists and to highlight that ‘Interiors without great art are never complete’. Most recently, her Lakeside project in Esher was shortlisted for the International Design & Architecture Awards 2020 in the Residential £2.5-5 Million Property Value category.