Lindsey Adelman on the Transformative Nature of Light

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TRANSCRIPT

SPENCER BAILEY: Hi, Lindsey. Welcome to Time Sensitive.

LINDSEY ADELMAN: Hey, Spencer. Thanks for having me.

SB: As I was preparing for this, I was— Obviously, this moment in time, we’re speaking the morning after Kamala Harris [spoke] at the DNC. I was thinking about her as a pathbreaker, as somebody who reflects not just this moment in culture, but the place of all the people who did work before her and all the incredible women who are now at the top of their fields, respectively.

LA: Mm-hmm.

SB: I think about the world of design, and immediately I think of you—as this incredible pathbreaker who has shaped and mentored the next generation, but someone who also, I think, was a pioneer in a field largely run and led by men. Let’s start there. What’s your response to that? What do you make of this moment in time when it comes to Kamala and just thinking about that?

LA: Well, that’s put me in an instantly amazing mood. That is a huge compliment of a comparison. Thank you. At the time when I was coming up, really the people that influenced me—that I admired, the icons I looked to—were all men, and I really didn’t think about it too much. For me, going through school and industrial design and emerging into the workplace, into the design industry…. I don’t know, I still don’t really think that much about gender when I think about people.

I was inspired by Ingo Maurer and Gaetano Pesce and the way they were using sculptural, sensual elements and making it part of product. The first time I saw that was really in Milan [Salone del Mobile], and it allowed me to dream bigger, and I felt— It just resonated so much more deeply than work I had previously seen. I feel like I kept following my excitement more than anything. It wasn’t as if I had a goal or even a career in mind or a path or…. I wasn’t really conscious of trying to break through to a new level.

SB: You weren’t thinking about a glass ceiling.

LA: Yeah, my glass globes mainly at the time. [Laughter] I was not at all, and I’m not sure why. It’s not something I was self-conscious of and going to all of the design events and it was mostly dudes, but they were fun and funny. That’s pretty much what I was thinking about. I wasn’t thinking, “Wow, this is really frustrating to break into.” 

Then there were certain things that I had to overcome, like even just making some of the first fixtures and going to a machine shop. And back then, it was just, like, a guy smoking and a cinder block of a machine shop kind of thing with girly calendars. And you’d go in with all of my specs, and they would look at you and be like, “So is your boyfriend going to show up with a project, or?” I just had to laugh my way through it and make the work, and it just didn’t really hold me back so much.

SB: What do you make, I guess, of the moment beyond you, your experience, and watching Kamala last night?

LA: Yes. It’s phenomenal. Even thinking about how quickly the country has come around to how we perceive her. It’s just a handful of months—people thought that she was cold, withdrawn. She really didn’t have a chance to shine as vice president. She was in the shadows, and so that’s an amazing thing as well. We are so open and receptive to something good. We’re craving a purity in our leadership for this country and the way that she’s such a natural—and it was a thrill last year to be able to meet with her in person. And I was invited—

SB: Wait, wait, wait. You met with… what? [Laughter]

LA: So, I know. What an honor. So I designed a light for her home in D.C. Her home is designed by Sheila Bridges, and I was invited to be a part of that. What I love is that they really emphasized American-made work, things that are using a lot of traditional craftsmanship, but all in our country. It was a really intimate dinner, which honestly, this is kind of funny. I didn’t realize, I got there. They were like, “Be there at 6:00,” and I was like, Oh, I’m sure there’s going to be a hundred and fifty people at a cocktail-hour dinner. I arrived and the Secret Service, I’m coming up the driveway and they’re like, [makes walkie-talkie noise] “Lindsey Adelman’s arrived.” I was like, “Oh, have I messed this up?” [Laughter]

But I arrived and it was all fine, and she comes into the room and she is just electric—and her husband [Douglas Emhoff]. They are so warm and welcoming and then having this privilege of sitting across the table from her at dinner, I was just like, This is someone who is truly put on this earth to do this job. I hope she goes all the way to the top. It’s like, her dedication to service and her love of holding court, telling stories, seeing through differences…. She kept bringing things together for these commonalities, even just amongst us at the table. She just rises above any small trivial issues that we might get caught up in. 

She just sees right through, and it is just with this huge heart, so much love, so much strength, and she would tell these funny stories like, her favorite time in the house so far was when she hosted a hip-hop party. And I was like, “That sounds amazing.” She’s like, “Yeah, ’cause I called Lil Wayne and he came to perform.” I’m like, “You are so cool.” [Laughs]

SB: They’ve been using the word joy in the campaign, but for me, the term “common sense” also keeps getting brought up. And for me, that’s the term: common sense. I actually feel like they should just do a campaign, “Kamala Sense.”

LA: Yeah. [Laughs]

SB: Because that’s what it is.

LA: Yeah. There is something about joy and pleasure, and that is a rebellion to embrace that in the face of such suffering and misery and darkness in the world. It’s pretty brave to be optimistic at a time like this—and radical and rare. And she exudes that.

SB: It sounds like you’re describing light. [Laughter]

LA: Yeah, pretty much.

SB: Well, you’re someone who’s spent a lot of time thinking about playing with and sculpting light, and so I wanted to ask: What, to you, are the most beautiful light sources?

LA: I love flame. I love fire at night. I love dim spaces. I’m not really that into bright, glaring, midday light. I really think there’s something beautiful about sunrise and sunset. I think it’s that tension between light and darkness—when you’re aware of them both existing is when light is the most beautiful.

SB: You recently had this exhibition of oil lamps called “A Realm of Light” at Tiwa Gallery here in New York, which centered around the idea of slowing down—something we think a lot about here at Time Sensitive—and also ritual and ceremony. Tell me about your thinking behind those particular objects.

LA: Yeah, it was such a pleasure to do that show and I loved the experience of working with Tiwa. The work—it is connected to time, for sure. Working with an old-fashioned, historically significant material to make light, there’s a depth and a heaviness to it. It goes back six thousand years. I was studying these ceramic oil lamps used in Ancient Greece and Byzantine times, and [they used] olive oil, and then the cotton wick would lay on its side, and these were carried through hallways. They were both functional and used in rituals and ceremonies. So just carrying that tradition forward already infuses the whole project with so much meaning.

But yeah, instead of switching on a light switch, I designed a matchbox and a snuffer, and you’re just aware of before the light and after the light when you’re really lighting each wick and the way they glow and hang. It felt more like playing with these raw elements to illuminate a space rather than something that’s rather automatic or not so conscious, which can happen in design. 

We can get into these habits of assumptions. This is what a light is. This is how you illuminate a room. So rising out of that, Why? What else can it be? How else can we experience this? I often think about light as dictating behavior in the room, too. If I want people to whisper, share secrets, or have it be more intimate or add some sort of mystery or murkiness to the situation, I go toward those forms and materials.

SB: I think it’s worth mentioning right now that we’re sitting in a recording studio with Isamu Noguchi’s Akari light sculptures to your left and right.

LA: Yeah, it feels pretty good. [Laughs]

SB: A neighboring street to the studio, Poplar Street in Brooklyn Heights, actually has some of the last remaining street gas lamps in New York City. I love that they’re still there. There’s this, I don’t know— The fact that there’s somebody from the city who comes and still tends to these flames when they go out.

LA: Yeah. Yeah.

SB: There’s something really remarkable about that.

LA: So beautiful. I know. Keeping this torch alive from the past…. Yeah, I guess there aren’t very many left. I didn’t realize that. But you definitely always notice them when you come across them, or maybe in other countries it’s more prevalent? It’s pretty magical. It’s because flame is alive. It’s moving and responding, and electric lights don’t do that.

SB: What do you think are the worst sources of light? 

LA: [Laughs] 

SB: For me, it has to be these new LED street light posts that have been going up all over New York City the past couple of years. They’re blindingly bright at night to the point that it’s awful to look outside.

LA: Yeah, I know. I think when I see lights like that, I can hear it also. I don’t know if you do too. It’s like alarms going off, my whole body. It’s assault on the senses.

SB: I’ve been so tempted to write this op-ed screed about how terrible they are because it’s like, I get it. You’re trying to provide light for passersby and create safe neighborhoods, but you’re actually destroying the entire aura of a city in the process.

LA: I know. I know.

SB: There’s already enough light. It’s New York City.

LA: Yeah, it’s pretty lit up. Right. And I feel like that type of light is everywhere if you’re looking for it. Not everyone is sensitive like us, so it’s not necessarily a priority or on people’s radar and people that are sensitive to it, really, it hurts.

SB: Yeah. I’m time sensitive, but I’m also light sensitive.

[Laughter]

LA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that.

SB: Could you share any particular transformative experiences with light that come to mind for you? Something that shifted your perception, your life, maybe, or even how you think about the world?

LA: Whoa. Have I ever had…. Well, a couple of things just came to mind. One was when I did a silent meditation retreat, which was out in Yosemite, and it was seven days of silence and we did meditation a few times a day. We gathered on this deck outside of all these redwoods around, probably a bit before six a.m. When you would arrive and take your seat and close your eyes, and you were in moonlight. And after the twenty minutes, we would open our eyes all together and it would be the sunrise, and that was transformative. It felt like holding onto time, actually, of how much happened with our eyes closed in twenty minutes, and you felt a deep, almost eerie connection to what’s holding us.

SB: It sounds like a James Turrell a little bit.

LA: Yeah.

SB: There’s something Turrell-like about that description. I think about some of the most miraculous—I would even use that word—experiences with light. And for me, it has to be probably moments inside James Turrell environments, whether in Japan or MASS MoCA, or even MoMA PS1, sitting in that room looking up at the sky.

LA: Yeah. Oh, his work is brilliant. And I don’t know if we’re talking about the same place in Japan. Did you spend the night in the house that he designed?

SB: No.

LA: So I spent the night there.

SB: Ooh.

LA: You reserve it for four people. It’s a private house, and the whole thing was so magical because it was maybe a couple of hours outside of Tokyo, and it’s almost like the town that it’s in doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal or something like that. So you walk in and everything’s just super low-key. And you have this gorgeous dinner delivered to you, and these bedrolls on top of your tatami mats. There’s a little hot tub spa on the bottom floor. It’s so beautiful, but at the same time, it’s simple. It doesn’t feel fancy.

So then you all get in your little sleeping bags [laughs], and when night falls, the roof retracts. It’s this perfect square that’s framing the night sky, and then this super subtle Turrell light show [happens] around the perimeter of this square. So the four of us, us with three of my very close friends, are like, “The sky’s yellow. The sky’s purple. The sky’s green.” And then after a while, it just closes up and it’s time to sleep. Yeah, that, I guess, you could say it was transformative. And then it started to snow…. [Laughs] Just beyond.

SB: And there is something about the light in Japan, it must be where it’s positioned on the sea and the world. The story behind Noguchi’s Akari sculptures is also really interesting in that respect. The first light he ever created, he called “Lunar Infant,” and—

LA: Oh, I didn’t know that.

SB: It stemmed out of his experience as a young boy looking out the window of a house in Japan at the moon and seeing this floating light sculpture in the sky, or that’s at least the romantic story he would tell. Of course, it’s more complex and dynamic than that because it also has to do with technology—something I’m sure we’ll talk about today—of rethinking these old paper lanterns that were used for rituals, floating candles down the river or objects in the corner of a room with a candle under them lit up by this washi paper, but transporting that into the technological moment of the mid-twentieth century by adding an incandescent bulb. So I don’t know. It’s interesting to think about this line from Noguchi to Turrell and—

LA: Absolutely, yeah. And thinking about Noguchi’s body of work and the focus on sculpture, and then the way he partnered with industry to get this idea fabricated is an amazing model for me, also, to look to and how he very comfortably did both is an inspiration for me, and that they are different, yet both hold such value. His lighting is such a contribution to society in so many ways, and there’s a reason that it still feels so just lovable and relevant.

SB: The glow.

LA: The glow.

SB: What ways, if any, do you think light impacts our sense of time?

LA: So many ways. As we were just talking about how it affects our emotions so much, and I think our emotions have a huge impact on how we experience time. We notice things when we want to notice things, which usually means that there is some element of beauty or gentleness or love, or we feel like we’ve been given credit to notice something, or that we connect with something—something resonates. When we’re in that space to notice so much, an hour feels like a day. And when things are harsh, which can be related to light, but we want that time to go back by fast, and it does.

I think about that a lot with travel and how the days seem so long, or even— I go out to L.A. fairly often and I’m going to go pretty soon, and I feel like I have a week and a day every time I’m there. And I think it’s a combination of the quality of light, but I also, of all the newness—you’re not in a habit anymore, even if I’m there for a while, like ten days or something. So working, you can kind of…. Time is elastic, it is responsive, and the more you tap into that, I think the more you squeeze out of life.

SB: Are there any texts about light that you reference or that have shaped your understanding of illumination? For me, it has to be Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows, but what comes to mind for you?

LA: I know, I had mixed feelings about that book, but—

SB: It is also racist—

LA: Yeah, there’s that.

SB: The book’s complicated.

LA: Yeah. For me, the first thing that comes to mind is the writings of Agnes Martin. And I don’t know if she really specifically talks about light in a literal way, but I think the whole thing is about light and darkness and the plainness of it, where she takes these very abstract concepts or moments and is able to form words around it. It really does mimic the visuals in her drawings, paintings, prints, and it’s almost like she allows us to see something without seeing it. It’s like we’re using our whole bodies to see. And her work carries a tremendous amount of optimism as well, even though when you look at her life story…. 

She went through terrible treatments for her mental illness and survived all that. And then the places where she writes and where she paints from, they feel so elevated above everyday life, and this perspective that’s hovering right next to the sun; I feel like it’s just embodying something so bright and also so natural, like the universe is inside of her. And I like that in writing in general, and I know I’m not really talking about writing about light right now. But I think when it embodies a lightness, it’s these crisp, simple words that can capture huge ideas beyond this life we can see with our eyes.

SB: Yeah. Hearing you say that, I immediately think of Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being….

LA: Yes.

SB: That would be…. Or the work of Jhumpa Lahiri, who we’ve had on this show, actually.

LA: Oh, wow.

SB: I think of lightness when I think of her work.

LA: Yes.

SB: It also makes me think of art. Obviously, you have been heavily influenced by art, and I recently spoke with Hiroshi Sugimoto on this podcast.

LA: I listened to that.

SB: We didn’t get into light so much, although we did talk a little bit about that in relation to his “Seascapes.”

LA: Yes.

SB: He is truly a master of light, I would say.

LA: Truly. Yeah, as so many artists are. And I think probably we each individually experience light in different ways, so that probably feels different to each one of us. What we notice about light and how we’re affected by it, I think, is so individual. There are very few artists that I’m not inspired by, so it gets kind of overwhelming. [Laughs]

SB: Yeah, as I was preparing for this, and I think we should say here that a lot of your work does fit squarely in what we would call design, but it also exists at the level of art. Some of your pieces, I would say, even fall more into that art category. And over the years, you’ve pulled all these influences. I’m thinking Eva Hesse’s rope sculptures. I know you’ve mentioned the films of David Lynch before. There’s the sculptures of Louise Bourgeois, the paintings of Leonor Fini. Maybe just elaborate a little bit on your taste in art and how it finds its way or wends its way into your work.

LA: Yeah, I like work that feels brave and also where I’ll say the method of construction is a bit transparent so it feels accessible. I love going to shows where I’m just fired up to go back to my studio to make something. Whether that’s just through a lot of manual labor of something repeated over and over, some sort of process or gesture. And then I just love when people turn mundane materials into something that’s super ethereal, but also work that can be really jarring. 

I love Paul McCarthy, for example. That installation at the Park Avenue Armory, which was quite a while ago, has really stayed with me. I make video also, and so I think about pieces that—and Matthew Barney, too, actually—when you’re using objects or materials as props and then using them in a film, and then the film is telling a story of what happened and you’re looking at the aftermath or residue of it. Even though my work doesn’t really look like that, I think what I’m interested in is this fine line between reality and fantasy and going back and forth.

Something that I quite love about being a designer is that it’s an intervention into people’s daily life, but it’s also hacking into their fantasies. So especially with the specific niche that we’re in, it’s a lot about reading how people are envisioning how they’d like to see themselves. Or when people are working on a home, they’re often working on, “This is the life I prefer to have. This is the path I want to take in my future. This is how I’m envisioning my friends coming over and seeing me.” There’s something that is, it’s subtle and it’s not really— People can’t necessarily put words to it; it’s not overt. But I like to tap into that, and so playing with that space of in and out of fantasy reality.

I was just thinking about the writing of [Haruki] Murakami, whom I’m sure you’re a huge fan of, and that going back and forth: fantasy, reality, fantasy reality, where’s the line? And so designing from that space is forever interesting. There are no rules, and it’s like, okay, I’m using materials like bronze or glass, but what I’m forming is something that we’re not familiar with. The work, I want it to have always some element of comfort so that we can go there and so someone puts it over a dining table, but it’s like, how far can you push it into fantasy? And people sometimes are drawn to things and they don’t know why, and that’s the best. So I design from that space, and I think the longer I’m in that space, the more I can harness it and get my arms around it and more efficiently actually do something with that fantasy space.

SB: I do want to transition here into your love of hosting, because I think it’s relevant when we talk about time. You host these gatherings of friends, often around meditative rituals such as sound baths. You’ve done figure-drawing sessions, and even as was covered in The New York Times, a two-hour cacao ceremony. So I assume you’ve read Priya Parker’s book, The Art of Gathering, or if you haven’t—

LA: No.

SB: —you should.

LA: Okay.

SB: I guess my question here is: What is it about these gatherings that so moves you and what compels you to host them and create them?

LA: Yes. It’s so similar to my craving for designing lighting, which is so much about setting up the situation for, then, real life to happen within it. So with the gatherings I’m really interested in how I can make people feel either about themselves, about each other, what their experience is, and I also love hosting dance parties, which I feel are sacred. It’s interesting because all of these things have a bit of dimness to them. 

So I love the idea as a designer of creating objects for an experience, whether that’s setting up an altar or doing oil lamps or even juxtaposing unusual things like ancient things and new things, and then I love assembling a guest list. I love doing a seating chart. I love thinking about cocktail hour on one floor and then a seated dinner on another floor. I love thinking about the whole experience of sidewalk into space. One event I had last year, the RSVP list got pretty out of control, so we decided to use multiple floors in our space.

Then for crowd control, I was like, “Let’s use the freight elevator to get the bodies up here.” But then we just put a giant boom box in the freight elevator and put a light in there and dimmed the whole thing. So the party started from the back sidewalk. I feel like that’s part of why I’m here. Do you know what I mean? Are these gatherings and extending appreciation and connection and having this other force take over—it’s electric when you set something up like that. I get a high off of even being around other people’s connections, unexpected conversations.

SB: Yeah, and there’s this spiritual side to you that we have to get into here, if I can call it that. [Laughs] How do you think that informs your life and work?

LA: Yeah, deeply. It’s not random that I learned how to meditate the same year I founded my company.

SB: 2006.

LA: You got it. [Laughs] That was a big deal for me when I learned—it was transcendental meditation. And with that, I’m able to drop in really deep and the rest of the world recedes, and there’s a spirituality to it. It’s almost like you can keep living the same life, but it’s this secret door to enjoying it more. There’s more softness and patience and observation. I’m able to notice the space between two people, the space between words, the space between decisions, the space between an inhale and an exhale that I didn’t have before. Before that, I felt like life almost had me on a collar and a leash, and I was just pleasing, just whatever, responding to demands rather than being my own inner authority leading things. So for me, spirituality is actually very practical, on many levels; it’s not separate from life. 

And then I have a deep belief that there’s something greater than us at work, and that that governs everything, and it’s connected to our subconscious. I certainly have a lot of practices and rituals that allow me to pay attention to my subconscious and without that, it’s driving the bus anyway. So if we can tap in to it and give it some compassion and patience, we have a chance to actually direct our lives in a more meaningful way. And I think in a way that has more of an impact on those around us and the world. Even if there’s still a mystery around it, we don’t even need to be that specific, but just being tapped into it and letting ourselves be carried by it, for me, that’s my experience of spirituality.

SB: Meditation as a guiding light to make light. [Laughs]

LA: That’s it. [Laughs]

SB: There’s also this notion of letting go that connects to this.

LA: Yes.

SB: We probably should have started the interview here, but it’s okay, we’re here now. You have some major news that you’ll be announcing soon after we record this, that after nearly twenty years of running your company, you’re going to shift from a production model to a studio model, with the majority of your in-house production moving to external partners. 

In essence—at least this is how I read it—you’re downsizing your in-house production to upsize your creativity and your artistry. Could you share why you’re doing this and what your goals are?

LA: Yeah, so every couple years I keep introducing a new collection and we keep expanding and making more and more work. And I’ve come to a point where I don’t want to keep doing that ad infinitum. I want to, again, be a bit more conscious of who am I now? I’m different than when I first started my studio, and the success of the collections is something that I didn’t anticipate. I didn’t anticipate everything to still be relevant, and I expected things to peel off more over the years. We’ve been lucky enough that most of them are still going. 

No one’s going to tell me to make less. No one’s going to tell me to return to a smaller studio practice, so I need to tell myself that. My original intention with studio was always really about design coming first, experimentation, exploration, innovation. And as it keeps growing, it becomes more about managing manufacturing and filling orders, and I loved it, I loved so much of it, but I think there’s other parts of me that I owe it to to explore and discover. There’s more sides of me and my creative expression that I want to give a chance to find out what’s there, and something’s gotta give. I can’t do everything. I can’t do it all. 

We have worked with one manufacturer for a really long time who’s done partial production and assembly for us, but they’re able to make an entire fixture from the raw stock of brass all the way to the finished goods, and I’m going to shift and lean into that. So we won’t be manufacturing so many of the collections in-house and we’ll be producing the specialty work in-house. 

And yeah, just giving myself the time and space to find out what else is in me that wants to come out, there’s really no other way of saying it. It’s not even a clear agenda. It’s more just I know something has to peel away in order for something else to grow.

SB: Well, yeah, this is a radical act maybe to the listeners—not in the world of design, it doesn’t sound like one. But to anyone running a company, it is a radical act. Most people in your position would probably consider selling, which you could have done, or just keep growing it, and—

LA: Absolutely.

SB: Business as usual, keep it going as it is. But you chose not to.

LA: Yeah.

SB: Why?

LA: It is radical, but starting the company was also radical. It didn’t make any sense at the time, and so I feel like for me, it’s the same. It’s so important to me to pay attention to this inner drive and this path that’s sort of unfolding before me. That’s really why: It’s honoring what I know to be true inside of me. Creativity is a really mysterious thing. It’s not like a manual or a program, and one person’s creativity is unlike anybody else’s. And I have a relationship with my creativity. It sounds so hokey, but it’s true. It’s big and small. It’s, like, hands-on if I’m just working on a clay pot one day, but it’s also so big, there’s this onslaught of ideas that come to me, and I can’t always find out about all of them, I can’t always follow all these paths. I want to carve out some space to be able to do that.

So changing to a slightly different studio model and changing the intention and the focus on more exploration and prototyping and collaboration and expanding the materials we work with, et cetera, it is a decision that has been internal and that now I’m taking to the external. And it’s not easy because again, when things are good, it seems like— It’s not like you’re going to get a tremendous amount of support to be like, “You should change everything. It’s going really well.” So it’s a hard decision and one that I’ve struggled with for a while. My team is phenomenal, and there’ll be fewer of them, but everyone is in studio now because they’re an overachiever. They deliver, they perform, and we’re like a family.

I actually have this strange faith that I’ll receive support even from people that are receiving news about change in their life that they might not want. I’m really proud of the deep relationships and mutual respect that we’ve created in our studio culture. I feel like the definition of success is shifting for me. My goals are shifting. So the way I define if I’ve had a successful year or not is going to be different; I want it to be more about my bravery really, and walking an unknown path and seeing where this goes. And I think as you get older, it’s harder and harder to change, actually.

SB: There is the notion: We become stuck in our ways.

LA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. When you’re in your twenties, it’s not that big of a deal, but in your fifties it feels more nerve-racking, but that explains a bit about the impetus behind it.

SB: Yeah. Well, scale is something I wanted to bring up because most people, or maybe not most people, culture generally at large, at least, though, does have this sensibility or feeling that bigger is always better. But I think you and I both agree bigger is not always better. And in a society that’s largely driven by growth and speed, there can be a certain power in slowing down and making less stuff, in your case. Fewer, better things.

LA: Right.

SB: I imagine this decision was super uncomfortable.

LA: Yes.

SB: Painstaking, even. I guess you’ve mentioned a little bit about success, but what’s your ultimate outcome or dream with this? What would be something that you would love to see happen?

LA: Yeah, that’s such a great question. In a way, I feel like I’m in the middle of it now because even experiencing this change and taking action, I feel a vibration just from that. I feel like the future will look like my present. So if I am changing the present and jumping in with two feet into something very new, the future will look different. I think I would do the future a disservice by trying to visualize it too specifically because it would be based on who I am now and what I know now. And I hope to be one year different in the future.

SB: That’s a very beautiful, spiritual sentiment.

LA: Thank you.

SB: While we still have some time, I wanted to bring up your first product—I believe it was your very first product or one of your first products—the Branching Bubble chandelier. And I bring this up because I’m sure half or more than half or many of our listeners don’t even know it. Maybe they’ve seen it but don’t know that that’s what it is. It quickly became a hit product when it came out. I think it certainly can be argued that it’s one of the more influential lights in recent years or of the early twenty-first century. What do you make of this, of its success? Why has the Branching Bubble chandelier been so copied, mimicked, knocked off, transported around the globe?

LA: Yeah, it really hit a nerve at the time, and it really tapped in to some desire I feel like at the time. And I think it was maybe both on a practical level and an emotional level I built a system where light could, in a very functional way, travel around the room using a real economy of materials actually. A ten-foot-long branching chandelier—before we build it it fits into a shoebox. All the tubes and joints and then the globes are separate. And so there was something about hitting on this structure, which is found in nature, or it’s just a hundred and twenty-degree angles, really like a Bucky Fuller…. It’s using a structure that we know, and then the globes added this very sensual, luxurious element to it.

So hitting upon that, but then also my nature is to be a people pleaser, and I feel like the level I threw myself into delivering what people wanted when they wanted it and just being in the back of the van, holding the fixture for all those first orders and getting out, meeting the electrician, getting on the scaffolding, just listening so hard to what people wanted and to negative and positive feedback. 

I honestly feel like that has so much to do with what shaped the company. It wasn’t like magic and it wasn’t like me designing in a vacuum; it was really listening to both what people hated and what they were into. Sometimes I feel like it’s not that random because not that many people are wired to throw themselves into giving the people what they want. You know what I mean? And then the emotional aspect…. I am a deep feeler with all of my work, sometimes I think it’s absurd. I’m like, It’s a light fixture. It’s going over a dining table at the end of the day. But I go through such— My depths of melancholy or drama or appreciation of beauty or…. An aching beauty is something I think about a lot.

SB: To make this really cheesy, it’s basically your “light-bulb moments.”

[Laughter]

LA: So good. I was talking about with sculpture I love, I like when the method of fabrication is transparent, accessible, and I intentionally did that. I intentionally didn’t make a system that was super smooth or swoopy. It was these hunks of these little Y connectors that were pretty robot-y because I like that tension, but it also really shows anybody how to make it. Then I put out an open-source light project so that we put the instructions out there and you could order off the shelf connectors from Grand Brass, and it’s still available. 

People can still download the instructions and order it for like a hundred dollars and make their own lamp. So I put it out there of how easy it is, yeah, and then just trusted that my drive to keep innovating would carry my career. Actually, my husband said something really sweet and he said it with this lighting product I did with David Weeks called Lunette and then with the Branching Bubbles. He was like, “It’s not your last good idea,” and that, honestly, has carried me through.

SB: There’s definitely now a known “Lindsey Adelman aesthetic,” so much so—and I need to give credit where it’s due—I found this in New York Magazine’s The Cut, they highlighted this, that your work even appears in Kevin Kwan’s third Crazy Rich Asians book in a bizarre way, where this character attempts suicide by one of your chandeliers, but it fails because the chandelier breaks and they fall. And you have quite a few celebrity fans, Gwyneth Paltrow to name one. I guess you’re in hopefully our future president’s house. [Laughs] What do you make of this pop-culture adjacency to your work? Why has your work found its way into the zeitgeist, do you think?

LA: Yeah, that’s a good question, and maybe it’s connected to this fantasy world that I designed for because they’re tapped in to that too, of what we want to look to or aspire to. We look to a lot of these people as models for our lives. A lot of their homes are pretty over the top on so many levels, and it’s pretty thrilling to see them and design for them. And humans to be like each other too. So if they see it in someone else’s house they’re like, “Oh, I’d like some of that, but I’m going to do it in my way.” I think it’s just a natural, human thing. We all do it. Of who we want to be.

SB: Yeah, it’s primordial. We probably went into caves and were like, “Oh, I like those cave paintings.”

LA: Yeah. Yeah, “Those are pretty, can I get a horse over here in my living room?”

[Laughter]

SB: Quickly, you’ve also expanded your work into other realms, including jewelry, tiles, wallpaper, music videos. I wanted to just ask about your jewelry in particular and what you think links jewelry with your work as a lighting designer.

LA: I love designing jewelry so much and still will make it as a one-off or a small batch occasionally. Decorating for the body or adorning the body is such an interesting challenge because it’s a moving, living thing. But it’s still just using metal and jump rings and things that catch light, and there’s a functional part of it. Designing an earring, you want it to feel comfortable on the lobe and stay there and feel light, yet you want it to have some sort of drama to it and have motion with these different facets or joints.

It’s not that unlike designing for a ceiling or a wall, but it’s just a static surface. But there’s something about these metallic finishes and catching reflections, and it mimics the surface of the sea in sunlight, or we were talking about moonlight earlier and—

SB: Back to Sugimoto.

LA: Yeah, yeah, full circle. [Laughter] I feel like it’s just all about bringing these natural phenomena inside into our lives. Either we want to wear it or live with it, and I certainly am always after reclaiming that fiery, elusive nature of all the ways we experience light in the natural world.

SB: Let’s end on the future.

LA: Okay.

SB: You’ve previously said that the future of design, in one word, is “dematerialization.” So now I’m going to ask you to elaborate on that.

LA: Alright, so good. Yeah, I think that’s where we’re headed. There’s so many ways of talking about that, but I think about it as on one level is institutions crumbling and things that seemed solid turning to sand or things that we once believed are no longer true or resonate. It does feel like a huge spiritual awakening is happening right now, and it does feel like there has to be tremendous darkness at the same time, which there is.

But what I find so much in daily life is this overwhelming…. It’s like an urgency of closeness and possibility, potential, and envisioning something better than we’ve ever known. And I think that all is connected with this dematerialization. It’s like, that’s all this veil. It’s not necessarily real. What’s real is what we can’t see, and that’s immaterial. And we’re so hooked on our physical vision for reality. But I really believe that is just a tiny sliver of reality, and I think a lot of people are getting tapped in to these beautiful other worlds that have been there all the time, and how can we value those as much as we used to value the physical world we can see?

SB: Lindsey, thank you so much.

LA: Thank you, Spencer. It’s been such a pleasure.

This interview was recorded in The Slowdown’s New York City studio on August 23, 2024. The transcript has been slightly condensed and edited for clarity. The transcript has been slightly condensed and edited for clarity. The episode was produced by Ramon Broza, Emily Jiang, Mimi Hannon, Emma Leigh Macdonald, and Johnny Simon. Illustration by Diego Mallo based on a photograph by Martien Mulder.