In Italian language, “straziami” means “make me suffer” (the spleen in romantic literature) or “tear me apart” (in a much more radical way). I liked the idea of these meanings being associated with glass splinters.

I made this small fully functional abat-jour as a prototype for a series of large shades.

The larger project uses a whole wall or a ceiling, covering its surface with a patchwork of shivers from different types of broken glass sheets.

The random process of breaking glass sheets to make irregular shapes of shivers is followed by a design process of assembling pieces according to their size, thickness and shape. The final pattern is tranferred on tracing paper.

Pieces are assembled and fixed using nuts and bolts.

The light source can neon tubes, low voltage halogen, and more recently LED or OLED.

Tear Me Apart

bespoke light collection

1986-2006

glass, steel, copper, resin