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036


DETAILS interview


CHARGE OF THE LIGHTBRIGADE


Rhomney Forbes-Gray could qualify as a latter-day female Canadian pioneer, not by venturing into previously uncharted territorial expanses, but by establishing the country’s second woman-owned lighting consultancy a dozen years ago, Lightbrigade Architectural Lighting Design. Vilma Barr reports.


“These are exciting times to be a lighting designer, albeit challenging. No past lighting technology has evolved at the rate of LEDs.”


“During my first year of studying to be an actor at York University, I was exposed to the backstage life of the theatre. I imme- diately switched direction to the world of theatrical lighting... architectural light- ing came later as a result of taking an IES ED100 course.


“I started thinking about starting my own firm in 2000. But at that time, there was only one other woman lighting designer running her own private practice in Canada, Suzanne Powadiuk. So I contacted her to see what she could tell me about the op- portunities out there. She urged me to go ahead with my idea. ‘That’s wonderful,’ she said. ‘There’s enough work out there for all of us.’”


So Rhomney Forbes-Gray redirected her career path from the fantasy world of the stage to the realities of competitive com-


mercial architectural lighting design. After earning her BFA in Theatre, she worked as part of stage crews, first as a spotlight operator and moving on to designing light- ing for small shows and then on to larger productions in such theatres as the St. Lawrence Center, Toronto, and for the Shaw Festival, Niagara-on–the-Lake, Ontario. “Out of interest, I took the IES ED100 course which happened to coincide with the expansion of the lighting department at the consulting engineering firm of H.H. Angus. The director, Ken Loach, was in the process of convincing company management that there was too much work coming in and that it was time to expand the department to include someone from another avenue of lighting design. I joined the firm in 1988. Angus was the first Canadian engineering firm in Canada to have a professional light-


ing department.”


During her time with H.H. Angus, she worked on such major projects as the special function rooms at the Skydome Hotel in Toronto. “We integrated colour with changing lights and theatrical effects at a time when this type of installation was uncommon,” Forbes-Gray points out. It has won an IESNA/IIDA commendation, her first professional award program recognition. Most of her other assignments were for health care facilities and more utilitarian buildings. “I became interested in a greater variety of lighting projects than I was de- signing. My inner artist was feeling unful- filled,” she says. “At that time there was a real stigma that because you were affili- ated with an engineering firm you weren’t creative. It was assumed that you were all about numbers and came up short on the


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