A New Opportunity In Lighting Design

"Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit. " Napoleon Hill said that in his best selling book "Think and Grow Rich."



My adversity has been, trying to making a living as an interior designer in this economy. When the phone stopped ringing and I wasn't sure how I was going to make ends meet, I knew I had to take action. I answered an add in the paper for a position at Lamps Plus.



My feelings were complicated. I felt like a failure because I couldn't make a success of my own business, but at the same time I was grateful for the opportunity to work when others were not as fortunate.



What did I know about lighting? I've used lighting all my life and pretty much took it for granted. I had "Lighting" at Interior Designers Institute in Newport Beach where I earned my design degree, but had never really incorporated this aspect of design into what I offered my clients. I thought it quite a coincidence when I picked up one of my favorite trade magazines, Veranda, and found a wonderful article about an Exhibit on Light.



Tey Stiteler started his essay on Light..."As we move through our lives illuminated night and day from sources so commonplace we never stop to think about them -- the phosphorescent dial on an electric alarm clock, the glow of a computer screen, the street light outside a bedroom window -- it is difficult to conjure up the time when the sun and its rhythms were all that made the world visible.



Until the mid-1700s, darkness limited people's lives. With the setting of the sun, they moved into the home -- away from the mysteries and dangers of the night. Inside, families gathered around the hearth and, in its warm light, discussed their day's activities.



Between 1750 and 1900, scientific and technological discoveries about light and its effects dramatically transformed the lives of people everywhere, and artists were moved to respond to these new discoveries in their work."



At Lamps Plus, I have discovered a whole new world of design. So, in my adversity there seems to be an equal or greater benefit.