Erin Lorek

Erin Lorek is a multidisciplinary designer who explores the materiality of light through texture and form. In 2019, after a 20 year career lighting the performative arts, she turned her attention to the applied arts with her first collection: Iron and Glass. This brutalist collection of cast glass emphasizes the playful nature of light as it encounters marks made both randomly and with intention. Erin’s most recent body of work, Shiny Bits, focuses on the binary nature of the reflection and the evolution of the sequin into the diode. Plaster, acrylic and metal leaf are combined in reference to the Beaux Arts movement, vintage spectacle and the beauty found in dissonance between colors.

(Image above: Erin Lorek portrait, credit: Calla Kessler)

When you were a kid, what did you dream of becoming? Did any of those childhood ambitions lead you to where you are today?

Looking back I think it was understood that I would have a career in the arts. My childhood was full of various craft projects with my mother that boosted my skill set in ways that I’m still discovering. During my personal time I was mostly focused on drawing/illustration and honestly that’s where I thought I would end up.

Where and what did you study?

Originally I was to study illustration and graphic design at Syracuse University, but after taking a gap year I switched to theatrical lighting design at West Chester University. This led me to winning a national award at the Kennedy Center for my lighting design for Hamlet, which in turn gave me the opportunity to move to NYC and study under some of the top Broadway designers of the time.

How did you get your studio started?

In 2017 I was noodling around with the idea of creating lighting fixtures and taking a lot of random classes in maker spaces around the city. Classes like: jewelry making, metal forging, 3d printing, etc. It was when I took an introductory class at Urban Glass that I started to focus my attention solely on glass and I signed up for an 8-week intensive in casting and Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. Working with the metal shop I participated in iron pours where I created large, textured sheets of iron in which I let patterns and imperfections run wild. Shaping the glass into simple lenses was a natural continuation and the Iron + Glass collection was born.

How would you describe your design philosophy? Has it changed over time?

My core philosophy is that an object doesn’t need to actually “light up” to be considered a lighting object. Ambient light is something I continually strive to take advantage of in my work.

Is there a particular film, book, or piece of music that has influenced your creativity or approach to furniture design?

When I was seven years old my father took me to see the original Fantasia in the theaters. The opening piece, Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor”, started me on my lifelong pursuit of capturing the way light dances all around us. When I was a teenager we went to see The Lion King on Broadway and I distinctly remember watching Don Holder’s lighting shift around the stage and thinking “wow, I can literally create my own Fantasia for a living.”

 Tell us about your workshop or studio: How does your environment influence your creative process and craftsmanship? (Feel free to add anything you would like the readers to know about your studio.)

To me, it’s not about my studio per se but about the community that surrounds me. Currently I live and work in Red Hook, Brooklyn and it really is the most amazing place to have an art practice. It’s almost impossible here to leave the house without running into another artist or find inspiration. Often I daydream about becoming a hermit in a far off beach cabin somewhere, but every time I do I lament the potential loss of the support system I currently have in place.

Which piece or project are you the most proud of, and what makes it special to you?

My Iron and Glass collection will almost be close to my heart. Not only because it’s my first but because I feel it really is a genuinely organic way of making glass.

What do you see as the biggest challenge in furniture making today – whether in design, production or sustainability? How should the industry respond?

Like everyone else I get increasingly frustrated about how exposure has become so monetized. I think the only true way to combat this is to build up communities that support each other. I absolutely love how the micro-communities in various neighborhoods tend to trend differently from one another. Meaning: work made in Red Hook has a different tone than work made in Greenpoint or Bushwick. Maybe not a hard and fast rule but there is something to it if you step back and take a macro view.

What are you currently working on? Any exciting pieces in progress?

Recently I’ve become obsessed with early 20th century chandeliers and lighting fixtures, specifically those in the style of Edward F. Caldwell. You know, the ones that are big and gaudy and delightfully symmetrical? (Whatever happened to symmetrically anyway?) I’ve equally gotten really into Edgar Miller and his tile and mosaic work. I think it’s really interesting that these two were active around the same time and I’m extremely excited about discovering where they intersect.

Follow Erin Lorek on Instagram and visit her website here >>>

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