People


Enchanted by glass


by Elspeth Pridham


8


Esther Patterson came late to lighting design, but made an impact with her ethereal, coloured glass creations created in Derbyshire and now sold all over the world


DID YOU SEE the Curiousa & Curiousa display at last year’s Clerkenwell Design Week? Deep in the bowels of Fabric nightclub the company’s outsized silk lanterns made a dramatic impression. Best known for its delicate, hand-blown glass lights, the silk shades, although a new direction for the company, maintain the Curiousa & Curiousa commitment to decorative and colourful alternatives. A stark contrast to the many pared-back, minimal lighting options currently available. The designer behind the brand is Esther Patterson, who says “there wasn’t really anything similar on the market” when she started. “If you wanted glass it was either Murano, which is beautiful but you don’t always want it or can afford it,” she says. “And then, at the other extreme, there was the architect-designed white, black, grey pieces, all very clean and simple. But what if you want something in between? The way glass displays colour is sort of magical. The lights appeal to women – they are not as scared of colour as men, they embrace it.” Patterson trained as a graphic designer,


but felt it wasn’t the right fi t for her. She started creating textiles at home but struggled to earn enough. “I was reasonably successful but poor. It is very hard to make a living from craft. My work was at Liberty’s in London and exhibited in the Ruskin Sheffi eld, but I couldn’t make ends meet.” In the meantime she had married and had two children and “ended up being sensible


and going back to graphic design.” Her desire to be more creative had not disappeared, however – it was merely dormant. When her children were old enough, she signed up for the decorative arts course at Nottingham Trent. “It was like doing an amazing foundation course,” she says. “We looked at paper, printing, metal, wood, ceramic, kiln-formed glass.” By her second year, Patterson had decided she wanted to specialise in bone china lighting, but then she spent a day with a glassblower and everything changed. “It was a eureka moment,” she explains. “I took my bone china lights and asked him to blow the same shapes in glass. They were table lamps, made up of three parts. It took him one afternoon, that same piece had taken me six months.” A year later, Patterson launched Curiousa & Curiousa at Tent London (now the London Design Fair). She exhibited wallpapers, fabrics, and her china lights but the glass options won the Elle Decoration award for glass lighting. An image of her shades appeared in a variety of publications – and the business took off. “It all started from this one image, and those shades are still our most popular pieces.” Says Patterson. “That was 10 years ago, but basically thanks to that photograph I am doing what I am doing now. It is amazing, the power of a single image.” Although Anthony Wassell, the glass blower who made those original designs, is nearing retirement, he still creates


the occasional piece for Curiousa & Curiousa and the company has a further four glass blowers they use. Patterson designs the key pieces for the collection herself and then there are additional designers working in the studio who help customers choose the individual elements and colours that make up each custom-made chandelier. The company is based in Derbyshire, on the edge of the Peak District in the picturesque town of Wirksworth. “I can’t function in London – I am not a city person,” Patterson says. “I have to go out for a walk every day to survive and be happy, I need the countryside.”


Does this inspire her designs? “I certainly notice colour,” Patterson says. “For instance, we work in an old converted textile mill and as I am talking to you now I am looking at the bricks – there is a whole colour palette to be inspired by. I can see rust red, deep maroon, and a bit of lichen giving a hit of acid yellow.”


The colourful and decorative style of her lights could be described as feminine and there are certainly very few women working in lighting design. Does Patterson feel outnumbered in the industry? “Like everything, men dominate and us women have to muscle in,” she says. “That is what I feel like I am doing – muscling in on their patch. But I think it is needed, because it is usually women who make decisions for the home so we have to produce something that appeals to them.”


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