Erin Lorek

Erin Lorek’s path to becoming a lighting designer was unusual to say the least. The former rigger began working in New York City’s live entertainment industry in 2004. With a degree in theatrical lighting design from West Chester University, Lorek has spent a lifetime studying the way light works its magic onto the surrounding world.

Using real-life experiences, Lorek formed LOREKFORM as a way to explore the nature of life through material and form. She has made an art of experimenting in hot casting glass directly onto handmade iron plates. Lorek collaborates with artists and makers throughout the country to bring her lighting designs to fruition.

Lorek views light as similar to an animate object, she says (courtesy of Design Milk), one that can “come to life to dance, or even play.” The designer uses different organic and reflective textures and surfaces to make her fixtures look like art installations. It was experimentation that led to the company’s first collection. Working with those same organic and reflective textures on various surfaces, the idea for IRON + GLASS was discovered.

The IRON + GLASS series is manifested from the desire to create a surface that gives ambient light the chance to react in both expected and unexpected ways. Large iron plates begin as a slab of clay with fresh impressions of a texture that was chosen specifically for its refractive pattern. The clay is then translated into the final iron tool through an elementary technique called lost-wax casting. Along the process, the clay, wax, iron, and sand is pressed to its “limits.” This forces iterations into each layer so that each is unique with its specifically-woven original impression. Once the lenses are poured, the reward is a beautifully imperfect piece of cast glass able to collect AND refract light.

Important to Lorek is that the work is created with sustainability and keeping the life-cycle in mind. Each of the five materials, sand, glass, clay, wax, and iron, are re-used, recyclable, or both. The textures impressed into the clay are a function of the surrounding world; as such, each tool made is 100% unique. The company’s cast iron is produced at community pours in North Carolina and Wisconsin while the hardware and glass is produced locally in Brooklyn and Livingston, New Jersey.

Lorek loves the fact that there is so much differentiation between finished impressions; and the designer encourages custom designs. The hope is that eventually, LOREKFORM will employ an entire “library’s worth” of tools that are filled with stories from around the world.

Lorek credits her former life in the live entertainment industry for enabling her to create pieces that are easily adjustable and customizable. The Beacon Pendant, for example, is two-dimensional and can be easily styled as a sconce, whereas traditional sconces cannot be hung and elevated. In other words, it isn’t an option for a “traditional sconce” to hang in front of a window and a group of sconces cannot form a room divider. However, Lorek’s sconces can… and she is excited to see what different designers will put together.

The process is complicated… if the clay is allowed to dry, it will crack and split. If the wax is poured too hot, it often creates a swirling pattern. If the iron is poured too cold, it leaves behind gaping craters and these imperfections give the finished iron mold a story of its own. As tools alter over time, new marks are made with each use. Once a tool is no longer functional, it is sent to the iron furnace and re-cast into something new.

Minimal waste leads to constant evolution and regeneration… this is a story we can all get behind!