Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Where Do You Find Inspiration? A Floating Cube of Amber Mums

Before I came to work at Schneider's I was a lighting designer for a family of live music venues in Columbus, Ohio. I did rock and roll light shows five nights a week for a long time. I didn't have much training, but I always tried to get outside my comfort zone and take risks. I learned a lot from the big arena shows that would come through town and I would always try in some small way to apply the ideas that I had seen. 

Like everything else in my life, my favorite light shows to watch and execute were the ones that were strange or experimental in some way. Kanye West is out on the Saint Pablo tour right now with a groundbreaking stage and lighting design that I think is really interesting. I've shared a couple images that capture the essence of the design for me.

The stage floats above the floor with the audience below

Brutal amber lights pointed straight down
It turns out Kanye is a big fan of sending fresh flowers. He recently sent Taylor Swift a giant cube of all white flowers from The Empty Vase Florist in Hollywood, California. 

"OMG its a giant Kanye cube!"
So all of this came together in my mind, and I created my own mini cube of flowers. It's a 3x3x3 inch cube of floral foam studded with amber button mums and suspended from a piece of copper wire. Then I photographed it in such a way as to be reminiscent of the Saint Pablo tour stage.




There's no real point to this post other than to show that inspiration can come from anywhere, and sometimes the best ideas are synthesized from other disciplines. What's your inspiration? 

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