Artist Jim White is an educator and practicing artist focusing on both sculptural and functional ceramics. His Masters in Fine Arts is from the Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of American Crafts, which was founded on and continues to train artists in the philosophy of the Bauhaus. He brings a strong attention to detail along with high standards for craftsmanship to his work. His love of process ensures that all of Lume Home’s products are of superior quality. Each lamp is made in Jim’s Portland, Oregon home studio and fired in the hand-built gas kiln in his garden. He makes molds for each lamp design and slips casts each body in porcelain. They are fired at cone 10 for a final hardness and strength. Lamps are individually glazed per the customer’s order and once removed from the glaze firing. Each element of what Lume Home produces is important: the wood components are turned by a Portland wood artisan, the shades are American-made, and the lamp parts are assembled individually in the studio before being shipped throughout the county.

Details are very important to us. We strive to make a superior handmade object that will reside in your home for many years to come. While Lume Home sells paired lamps, it is important to understand that no two are absolutely identical. As with any object made by hand from natural materials there exist small variations in each one—variations that make each lamp a unique piece of art.  Our wood, as it is found in nature, will contain natural inclusions or fluctuations in grain and tone. We purposefully finish our wood to accentuate these natural details and not to hide them. Just like the trees that gave us the wood, the glazes on our lamps often seem to have lives of their own—reacting to mixing, application, and firing in surprising ways. This can result in very minor differences in the surface of the ceramic components. And, since the applied decoration (slip trailing or carving texture) comes from the artist’s hand and not a machine, the resulting design is never a mirror image. At Lume we view these gestures as adding value to our lamps by revealing that they are more than just a mass-produced product; they are an object grown out of natural materials and the handmade process.