Kirk Callahan
Born on Sept. 11, 1967, I grew up in a 1940s wood-frame home transformed by additions into a rambling, oddly built complex that gave visitors the subtle impression that its shape concealed hidden rooms. This house boasted a large backyard with a sizable vegetable and flower garden, a grape vine and a cinder-block fire pit where sacks of trash were burned at the end of every week, as was the custom of the time. There, rows of peonies and poppies ran parallel to a small stream with a sandy, gravely bottom and lined on one side by dense thickets of thorn bushes. In those waters I scouted for reptiles, amphibians and bristly-haired water-rodents that hissed upon approach. Dikes and dams were built there and small fish observed darting from the golden light into the shadows.
On this same creek’s grassy bank, catapults were assembled, modified fireworks were tested, smoke bombs detonated and experimental rockets launched with great fanfare as all the neighborhood children watched on. Away from this testing zone, I excelled in drawing, taking apart anything I could lay my hands upon and assembling vast complexes of Lego skyscrapers and factories. Dabbling in the mysteries of machinery and a love of art in school was followed by my fascination with science and nature.
At age nine I was diagnosed with dyslexia and assigned a label. I was pulled from my established school friends and sent to a new school the following year. I withdrew instinctively into a more orderly, logical world and adopted an outsider status. From this vantage I caught a glimpse and eventually long glances of a world seen from a perspective that would be alien to most. Being a quick study of humans, I assessed the masses’ stumbling, comedic plight at an early age. This endowed me with a correct foreboding view of a world devoid of a guiding hand and caught in a seemingly unstoppable decline ushered on by the devouring multitudes. From their trash-heap of consumption, my lamps arise.
Against this backdrop of drama I took a job at a small local printing company straight out of high school and soon ruled over an army of clicking and hissing printing presses. Later, after the near extinction of the printing industry, I took a job delivering and repairing furniture at a Danish furniture store - an assignment that led me to meet and soon marry a young Danish woman. A series of trips to Denmark followed, exposing me to Scandinavia's gray summer skies mixed with warming peeks of sunlight. These trips also bred an appreciation of Danish modern design as well as northern focus and application. My long love of science, nature, modern design and machinery eventually led me to begin building modern upcycled Machine Age / Modernist style lamps from the lustrous metallic debris of our society.
On this same creek’s grassy bank, catapults were assembled, modified fireworks were tested, smoke bombs detonated and experimental rockets launched with great fanfare as all the neighborhood children watched on. Away from this testing zone, I excelled in drawing, taking apart anything I could lay my hands upon and assembling vast complexes of Lego skyscrapers and factories. Dabbling in the mysteries of machinery and a love of art in school was followed by my fascination with science and nature.
At age nine I was diagnosed with dyslexia and assigned a label. I was pulled from my established school friends and sent to a new school the following year. I withdrew instinctively into a more orderly, logical world and adopted an outsider status. From this vantage I caught a glimpse and eventually long glances of a world seen from a perspective that would be alien to most. Being a quick study of humans, I assessed the masses’ stumbling, comedic plight at an early age. This endowed me with a correct foreboding view of a world devoid of a guiding hand and caught in a seemingly unstoppable decline ushered on by the devouring multitudes. From their trash-heap of consumption, my lamps arise.
Against this backdrop of drama I took a job at a small local printing company straight out of high school and soon ruled over an army of clicking and hissing printing presses. Later, after the near extinction of the printing industry, I took a job delivering and repairing furniture at a Danish furniture store - an assignment that led me to meet and soon marry a young Danish woman. A series of trips to Denmark followed, exposing me to Scandinavia's gray summer skies mixed with warming peeks of sunlight. These trips also bred an appreciation of Danish modern design as well as northern focus and application. My long love of science, nature, modern design and machinery eventually led me to begin building modern upcycled Machine Age / Modernist style lamps from the lustrous metallic debris of our society.
