The Lamps


Lamp Shade

Erleuchten Lamp shades are made from thick skinned, dense hard wood gourds meticulously handpicked for their shape, size, and quality. High density hard wood gourds result in an intricately worked, time durable, collectable piece of fine, functional art.

During your lamps shade creation, the wood is petrified using a number of techniques further ensuring the longevity.


While the shade is a work of art, bases are equally designed and built to the same level of fineness.

Erleuchten Lamps bases are made from the highest quality and some hard-to-find materials. A base is hand forged, hand carved, hand branded, hand wrapped, hand painted or stained, and the electric components are hand wired.

Each base is designed and crafted specifically for each piece of art to ensure the dimension, shape, and position best suits the piece. One base takes roughly two weeks to complete.

Lamp Base

The bulk of the base is hand forged from three pieces of metal repeatedly softened with fire then incrementally shaped after each firing. Once forged the bulk of the bas is then tightly wrapped with a fine waxed thread.

Lamp Base End Cap

The bottom end of the base is finished with a hand carved and stained piece of locally harvested maple burl. This end cap, designed as a continuation of the lamp shade, is hollowed for the electric cloth wrapped cord to run through and hand branded using pyrography. Burl is used in part for its beauty, and just as importantly used for its density diversity irregularities and grain fingerprint. Burl has an incredibly complex grain pattern impossible to reproduce, protecting your investment from potential forgers.


Lamp Base Electrical

The wire used is a material wrapped and PVC insulated cord used for its timeless and classic look and feel. A NOS (New Old Stock) BAKELIGHT, American made rocker switch is used to ensure tactile enjoyment when clicking the lamp on and off as well as generations lasting quality.

Lamp Bulbs

As much thought that goes into the design of the lamp just as much thought is put into how the piece illuminates your space. A dozen bulbs variety in shape, watt, coating, and gas are tested in every lamp. Bulbs cast different luminosity, shadow and light definition, and wood translucency and clarity.

Lamp Branding

Erleuchten Lamps are branded using pyrography. Pyrography branding, done by hand displays variability gifting each branded piece on an Erleuchten Lamp with a mark individual to the piece. The security of your investment in an Erleuchten Lamp is as important as the aesthetic, quality, and longevity.


Lamp build timeline.

From concept to completion the process to create an Erleuchten Lamp besides being filled with joy is also incredibly complex, arduous, and time-consuming requiring master knowledge of a number of disciplines.

Below is a very high-level color line representation of the process time allocation.


Clean
Design
Clean
Color
Woodwork
Base

The Artist

"The founder of Erleuchten Lamps, based in Oregon, transforms humble gourds into ambient lights with a magical atmosphere." ~Robert Jobson, The Royal Editor

Earth is a master work of art while also being a canvas. Seen through Matthews eyes is abundant beauty where mundane items expose their vicissitude quality and transform into classic, functional fine art.

Photo: Matthew self-portrait.