To the greatest extent possible what goes in our net zero house is recycled, repurposed, or locally-made. Bocci fits into the last category. So many of the things in the house are sourced for a song or half a song. On the Bocci lamp we splurged. The Scotts bought us the lamp on sale. The seven ball Random 28 series lamp is a beautiful object - Jules Verne bathysphere, crossed with party balloons. “28 is a hand-blown glass pendant with interior glass satellites. It is created through a complicated technique that involves adding and removing air while heating and cooling a glass matrix. MOVIE HERE It is emblematic of designer Omer Arbel's search for “specificity in manufacturing,”[14] essentially designing a system that produces form rather than designing the form itself. Our lamp has seven of these pendants. The glow from the bulbs can be seen from afar. When you combine the Bocci light with the marvelous leather and LED sconces that Scott and Scott made for the house there is a joyous oddball charm to the lightscape of the entire main floor. Proof that lighting can lift your mood - especially welcome during these long winter nights in the Pacific Northwest in the year of the Covid when no festivities are permissible.
Bocci is one of the stand out enterprises in the Vancouver Design scene of the last few decades. They emerged about the same time as the Scotts. Both outfits have gone on to great acclaim and helped put Vancouver on the international design map. This is not puffery. The article in WALLPAPER on Bocci and head designer Omer Arbel backs up the claim.
The Bocci chandelier was safely stashed for a year until a few weeks ago, when it came time for Tony of Arq Electric to hang it. The lamps functioned alright - but the pendants were dangling limply from their canopy. Clearly art direction was required. Taylor, our GC, gave me a dirty look when I said I’d need help setting the aviation wires so the pendants could “float and floof” over the table. The crew was pushing really hard to get all their major tasks done before the Christmas break. Tony had a whole house to get in order from electrical standpoint, so I dared not importune him. I obtained the necessary intelligence from the crew over snack about which size anchors I would need to buy from the hardware store for the ceiling to make the aviation wires operational - I beat it there and back on my bike in a rainshower. To assist with the “art direction”, I enlisted Ben Brannon at Bespoke - the owner and designer of the Oak Bay shop I turn to for paint and inspiration. Tony dismounted the canopy, gave me a few stern warnings about what NOT to do to his wires, before Ben and I set about calculating precise and perfect the drop and distance from the ceiling and the dinner table for each globe. We gingerly yanked (oxymoron) wire out of the tangle in the canopy to get the drop right and placed washo tapes on the ceiling to indicate where the anchors should be located. Then came the tense moment when Auggie drilled seven holes in the pristine ceiling so the aviation wires could be affixed. Now it was safe for Ben to leave. Tony, his assistant and I performed the delicate maneuvers of attaching bulbs and snipping wires, bending cables and reattaching globes one by one. The result shown is below.
A bright note on which to end this last post of a troubling year. Bye bye 2020.
Ignore the commotion past the French doors and just concentrate on how beautiful the chandelier is.