onepeople first saw Christopher's magical lighted sculpture in East Atlanta at the Fountainhead Lounge. His work hung throughout the bar. Alan bought one, go figure.

moulder, inc.

SCULPTURAL LIGHTING DESIGN

I could never answer the question, what do you want to be when you grow up? until recently. I realized I always wanted to be a wizard, Merlin, Prospero.

I was born in 1966, raised in Jacksonville and Amelia Island, Florida, cultural black holes, but full of sparkling wide rivers, hot, white empty beaches, volatile lightning storms and a 90 year old rickety beach house where I was allowed to build whatever I dreamt.

This house has been struck by lightning four times in my lifetime. During the hot summer afternoon tempest, my family and I huddled in the center of the old shack away fromr the windows and electrical outlets. I perversely prayed for the lightning to strike closer and brighter. It took me four years at three colleges to finally reach a decision to take up furniture design and woodworking. The wood shop was on the prairie in Gainesville, FL, underneath foot deep waters and home to 10 foot gators. My boss and mentor held a mystical belief in woodworking. He was a poet. I used to say everything I learned in college I learned during the breaks when I was not attending classes. This changed when I returned to the University of Florida and studied under novelist Harry Crews.

You wouldn't want to meet Harry in a dark alley late at night; nor would you want your story to be the one he threw exasperatedly into the trash can as he asked the class if anyone understood ÒMr. so and so's #!!*?! story. He was harsh and sharp, but true as a mentor. When you left his three hour class you understood fiction, its point, its creation. Life is fiction and poetry. Everything is fiction and poetry. Subsequently, I majored in short fiction writing. After graduation in 1990, I moved to Germany. Haunted by residual mainstream convictions, I studied German law in Bonn. Much too dry for my palate, I took a whirlwind trip around Germany to see what there was to see. I settled in Freiburg, a provincial University town in southern Germany and found employment at Galerie Blau, an industrial and interior architecture design firm. I also found work a Massiv Moebel Bau, a furniture studio run by another mystical woodworker from Yugoslavia who believed in Anthroposophism.

Through Galerie Blau, I learned of the lighting designer, artist and visionary, Ingo Maurer. He became on of my most influential teachers through his books, shows and magazine articles. Not being the natural employee type, I vowed that he would be the only designer I would work for. It was at Galerie Blau that my fiction background underwent a metamorphosis into three dimensional works. Gradually, my stories took on more of an architectural structure, with sketches and schematics explaining poetry and fiction. Writing turned to hieroglyphics and shapes. With the help of Galerie BlauÕs tutelage, I realized the resonance in design and architecture, how it affects peoples lives, thoughts and emotional states. In 1991 I returned to the US and drove west. My first stop was Boulder, Colorado. I drove down into the valley at five in the morning on my 25th birthday. A thunderstorm had just passed, the sun was just rising and the entire mountain range was brilliant crimson. Springing from the enormous, 1000 foot outcrops of rock called the Flatirons were two violently colored rainbow spears. I drove no further.

While in Boulder I taught myself machine work, metal fabrication and started to research high tech materials. Boulder is home to an enormous engineering, biotech and aerospace industry. I was designing furniture at the time, until I designed a candle holder made from rings of slate with the candle in the middle. I realized this piece would be more effective with an electrical light source, so I stuck an MR16 at the top. This was the work which influenced me to choose light as my number one mistress and muse. This is no surprise in retrospect; I make decisions to enter buildings based on the lighting. I am enchanted by the short magical time called dusk, when night begins to hemorrhage from the cracks in the sidewalks and from between buildings. When I was six years old. I tried to cheat the sun by looking at its reflection in a mirror. Suddenly everything looked very complicated, super 3-D, as if I were seeing all sides of an object at once. Cubic vision. I formed Blue Dune Design Inc. in Boulder and started selling my original work. After three years in the Boulder marketplace I realized I needed to experiment and develop my ideas further. I applied to The Savannah College of Art and Design and was awarded a presidential scholarship. One year into this program, five graduate students and I went back to Germany to visit the Cologne furniture and lighting fair. It was there that I had the honor of meeting Ingo Maurer. We visited for a time, I showed him some of my work and he scheduled an appointment at this firm in Munich the next week. I met this design team over a round table lunch and after two hours of discussion and exchanging portfolio pictures and ideas, he offered me a position as a designer. However, I was committed to finishing my MFA and returned to Savannah. I realized that I did not want to work for Ingo Maurer as much as to be acknowledged by him, and one day meet him on his own level, as a peer in Milan. I earned my MFA degree in furniture and product design in 1997. The college purchased a reception desk I designed and executed for their main art gallery and I received an award from Absolut Vodka to design and execute a chandelier for their permanent art collection. This piece, "Absolut Enlightenment," hangs in "Drink" in Chicago. Since that time, I was commissioned for another chandelier for "Drink" in Las Vegas. My thesis show, held in a gallery in Atlanta, Georgia sold all of my thesis works. I actually turned a profit while earning my MFA. Presently, my company in Atlanta, -Moulder Inc." designs and manufactures commercial and residential lighting one-of-a-kinds, limited editions and products for licensing to outside manufacturers and distributors. With new advances in lighting technology, more designs from old, yellowed sketch books are becoming executable; kinetic sculpture which responds to temperature and sound, new work with 12 volt systems and innovative fixtures focusing on ambient and task lighting and emphasizing shadow patterns. I recently took a trip to Murano and Prague to source craftsmen who can execute my designs in cast and blown glass. I plan to exhibit in the Euroluce show in Milan in the year 2002. I am currently designing lines and one-of-a-kind lighting fixtures for restaurants, clubs and residential clients. Additionally, I am collaborating with restaurant and club owners to expand my design parameters to include interior architecture as well as products. I would like to execute my corporate art work designs, using often unexploited large atrium spaces for kinetic works which respond to their environment and the people in the space. I am presently seeking companies to license lighting and furniture designs.