Unexpected Lamp
Creativity comes in frantic spurts, often not making sense and consuming the artist’s thoughts until it has been birthed into physical reality. Just like human labor and birth, sometimes it happens extremely fast with joyous celebration. Sometimes it takes thirty-eight-and-a-half hours of continuous hardships with a story your family will know verbatim plus all the side stories from their perspectives of watching you birth a creation into life. Some people have a white whale. I have a white lamp.
Five minutes before writing this, I was kneeling on the floor with a roll of toilet paper in one hand and a brush with watered and floured glue in another. Months ago, I decided to re-do my office. After retiring from photography (do artists ever retire?) I felt as if my office needed a nice little make-over. I grew up watching 90’s and 2000’s Rom Coms so I know a make-over is the solution to EVERYTHING in life.
Insert lamp. I do not love lamp, Brick Tamland, but I am determined to.
The lamp is an outdated floor lamp that in its previous life, was nothing spectacular. It was an odd height, brownish in color and was lacking any special oomph. I need a lamp in the corner of my room though because the overhead light is great for making me squint and scowl more than I already do while I'm working. With newly painted clouds muraled on my office walls, the muse of 3-D (D for “destruction”) art lured me into her delusional spell. I would create a cloud lamp. Pinterest and TikTok are filled with cloud lamps.
“Oh how beautiful,” I thought to myself. “My lamp will be similar, but better. Bigger. A more whimsical and majestic cloud.”
I went to work unscrewing, drilling, sawing, taping, gluing and spray foaming until my little heart was satisfied. I glued the lamp shade with poly-fil and created a cumulus cloud that even God would be proud of. My idea for the stand was a stream of clouds for the cumulus to sit upon, like a crown of precipitative glory. A tower of clouds. Majestic.
When I was finished, I lovingly took the two separate pieces of the lamp and put them together. I was so excited! I plugged in my lamp, turned on the switch, and stepped back while I felt the excitement drain from my body. There was something off. It didn’t look majestic once it was put together. It looked disastrous. It definitely looked like a cloud…a mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb, as my husband and son pointed out.
Well, shit.
Exhausted and defeated, I kept lamp-baby in the corner and went about my life. The lamp would make her debut and let me know what she was supposed to be when the timing was right. I’ve been an artist ever since my eyes opened and I drew my first breath. I know not every project is going to be a win. To force it to be something it’s not would lead to a bigger disaster with wasted hours of extreme frustration.
A couple of weeks later, my friend Janelle was over. We looked at the lamp disappointingly and after tilting her head, she said, “What about making the stand a beanstalk?” Freaking. Brilliant. I have always loved the story of Jack and the Magic Beanstalk! Who doesn’t love the idea of a magic beanstalk that could sweep you up into the clouds of another world?
The cloud lamp would go through another make-over. When the timing was right, I took the lamp and carved the spray foam stand into a beanstalk. I could see the finished project in my mind and the giddiness returned. This was going to be an amazing lamp. Now I just needed to make it look more “beanstalk-y” and “vine-y”. This was a job for paper mache. I did the first layer and immediately recognized it needed to have a distinct vine wrapped around the stand. I created a rope of vine and affixed it to the lamp, coiled around its erect stalk. Perfect. This is a stalk that Jack could easily climb now. As I’m admiring my work, my husband, Adam, walks in the room. With a shit-eating grin, he says, “That sure is a veiny…stalk!” Damnit. It looks nothing like a penis, but the persistent one-liners of phallic humor continued.
I can see the finished product so clearly in my mind, but can’t seem to create it in reality. It’s been a challenge, but I am determined. I know it is going to be spectacular when I’m done, it's just taking a lot longer than I expected. Months longer. Long enough that the lamp has become a running joke in our household. From atomic bombs to throbbing rockets, this lamp will get its last laugh when it is the most beautiful beanstalk.
Down on my knees painting glue and separated toilet paper onto a pole, with all of these thoughts running through my head like a mad woman, when I realized how crazy I must actually look to my familial bystanders. Or at least, how ridiculous I would look to any other "normal" person.
Hormonally sweating, I had my notorious leopard print robe tied over my breasts, moo cow slippers on my feet, and my hair swept off of my forehead in a Dollar Tree headband. Constantly switching between freezing and sweating, I often wear my plush robe to keep warm and then rip it off and tie the arms around my chest when I start sweating. This is my uniform. I giggle to myself and think how I spent a career capturing families in perfect portraits to hang on their walls, when truly our kids will remember such a different version of us. Of course those portraits are beautiful and amazing to have, but how will our kids really remember us when they think of their childhood?
The woman in the formal gown, smiling for her portrait will be a gorgeous heirloom for the family archives. However, my kids will remember who I truly was. The woman who wore out her cherished leopard print robe and silly animal character slippers, who was always doing the unexpected. Take the formal family portraits, but don’t forget to capture who you really are too. Ask your spouse, friend, child, or take a timed selfie. Capture your silly authentic self.
Being your authentic self will help give your children, as well as those around you, the courage and permission to be who they’re designed to be. One of my favorite on-going jokes with my daughter is “...because you know, other moms totally do this too”.
In conclusion: Life is too short. Be your weird lil self. Shake things up and do the unexpected. Paper mache your phallic lamp bomb and be sure to take a selfie while you do it. ;)
