Drinking straw lamp skin a.k.a Mimer
This project was another rescue mission. We had a lot of left over drinking straws which wanted recycling. After thinking about it a lot over a long period of time, I suddenly stumbled upon this idea. I was not sure how straws would look on a lamp and if the refraction would be alright. But I set out to experiment.
I began by sewing through the straws with thread and planned to sew the finished piece onto the Styrofoam frame. But somehow sewing the straws straight together seemed impossible. The shape came of unkempt and rebellious wave-like. Yet, I decided to go with it.
Next I tried to thread in the straws to a thread already connected to the frame. This too came off very messy but I decided to thread the four sides in this fashion.
For the top, I decided to glue the straws to the Styrofoam which worked better than sewing. I was surprised once again when I had finally finished and lit the lamp. The skin has its flaws as most of these prototypes do as I had no prior education on this design and no means of acquiring proper materials for my projects. But their imperfect beauty is more than I have ever achieved by my own hands.
