Simon Johns Expands his Future Fossils Collection

"For the past few years, Simon Johns has been experimenting with a concept called Future Fossils. His pieces appear at once as relics ravaged by time and as sculptures made for this moment. The works, which the Quebec-based artist-designer says "loosely reference the sedimentary striations in million-year-old stone," have included bookshelves, tables and seating crafted in gypsum cement and slip-cast stoneware."

"But one piece in particular - the FF Magma Lamp - had astonishing presence. With its stacked boulders of ceramic and glass wrapped in a slim walnut frame, the light fixture plays with the sense of the primordial and organic. It also feels like a spontaneous creation - an object iterated in the making of it, rather than as a drawing in a CAD program. And for Johns, that is, at least, partly true."

"For the FF Magma Lamp, he hand-carved three similar moulds out of styrofoam, one for blowing glass into and the other two for pressing clay into. It took a few tries to get right. "In the first version, the clay shrunk and, because glass doesn't shrink, the proportions were off. I also wanted to go warmer with the tones, so I ended up choosing the dark walnut and amber glass." (The original version, which Johns still makes, has a frame in polished aluminum.) Weighing in at about 45 pounds"

Simon Johns creates the Future Fossils series that mimic sedimentary striations and present as relic-like yet contemporary furniture and lighting. Pieces include bookshelves, tables and seating made from gypsum cement and slip-cast stoneware. The FF Magma Lamp uses stacked ceramic and glass boulders contained in a slim walnut frame, producing a primordial, organic presence. The lamp reads as an iterative, hand-made object rather than an industrial CAD design. Johns hand-carved styrofoam moulds for glass blowing and clay pressing, adjusted proportions after shrinkage issues, and selected dark walnut and amber glass tones. The lamp weighs about 45 pounds and the original frame option is polished aluminum.

Read at Design Milk