09/06/2020 - James Dieter, visionary designer based in Brooklyn, has always been guided by an attraction to the irreconcilable nature of provocative objects, interested in lighting designs that are out of the ordinary, but are clean and formally unencumbered.
Beginning a few years ago in idle moments, designer James Dieter began making a series of line drawings and sketches on an app on his iPhone.
They evolved into something more significant as he started to recognize potential starting points for lighting ideas. The cross fixture is one rendition of this drawing series brought to life in large-scale, 3-dimensional form. The surfaces of cross are all in a wool felt – most commonly in Maharam fabric – which covers its metal structure. The felt finish offers an additional opportunity to customize color, and serves to soften the geometry of the piece.
They evolved into something more significant as he started to recognize potential starting points for lighting ideas. The cross fixture is one rendition of this drawing series brought to life in large-scale, 3-dimensional form. The surfaces of cross are all in a wool felt – most commonly in Maharam fabric – which covers its metal structure. The felt finish offers an additional opportunity to customize color, and serves to soften the geometry of the piece.
The guston fixture is another interpretation of the drawing series, again translated as a large-scale, 3-dimensional suspended sculpture. Like cross, guston’s bands are all balanced arms with rigid connections, terminating in lit discs backed with flat glass diffusion shades (which can be specified in either white or colored glass). With an arm span of nearly 6 feet in its standard form, guston captures the calligraphic nature of the band concept.
Both guston and cross are available in chandelier or sconce form; and both were selected for participation in Sight Unseen’s Offsite Online exhibition. They, alongside elbo – which comes as a tower chandelier or sconce – are also featured in WantedDesign’s Look Book program, a partnershcip with ICFF and NYCxDESIGN.
A first for the studio, its guston design has also received recognition in the form of Interior Design Magazine’s NYCxDESIGN Award for best chandelier , within the overall lighting category. The news was announced earlier this month by ID’s Editor in Chief Cindy Allen during a virtual ceremony, and will be feted later in the year during an in-person celebration.
Bred from the desire for material and mechanical exploration – and with inspiration sourced from fine art, fashion, toys, mechanics, and quotidian industrial parts and systems – James intuits formal re-combinations and pursues creative technical problem solving to illustrate his inventive aesthetic visions.
