Experiential Landscape Lighting Initiative

ELLI Training is Exclusive

It has been a while since I've posted, so I thought I'd share the new direction of the Experiential Landscape Lighting Initiative (ELLI). For the past 4 or so years, I've offered ELLI as a membership-based educational training entity for landscape lighting design.

However, beginning this year, we have eliminated the membership program and provide exclusive training to those individuals who are dedicated enough to advance in this art form. No other training program exists within our trade profession.

In the near future, we will begin to properly market this effort to identify the 3 Series available to interested parties--Design, Technical, and Art. Each series defines the necessary concepts, terms, and practices used to ensure advancement beyond what is currently taught.

Today, I am re-shooting a video production on a couple of the principles of composition--Pattern, Rhythm, and Movement. Each principle is part of the foundational learning one must have to excel in Design.

If you want to know or learn more about any of this, then please contact me at 916-532-9699, or [email protected], or visit our website at: https://www.landscapelightinginitiative.org/

Providing Integrity to the Landscape Lighting Trade

Over the past 5 years, I've seen a big decline in where the landscape lighting profession is heading. My position could be considered in a few different ways, but I'm speaking with regard to what is the priority of many service providers today.

Although I could dig deep into several examples on this topic, I'm going to only discuss how this relates to 'Design'...landscape lighting design, in this case. The reason that integrity is important here is that for too many years, decades in fact, our profession has provided "free" designs, as a means to win the job. This is wrong and bad! So, if you are still doing this, STOP...you are hurting the whole of our profession.

I'd like to share a statement made by a highly seasoned interior designer, Ed Mun of S.U.A. Interior Design, and now a friend of mine through LinkedIn. He states, "Every time you say 'yes' to free work, you hand over your dignity and intellectual property. You cannot demand respect while begging for scraps!" He continues by saying, "We've accepted Hunger Games as business development."

For those who do charge a design fee for your actual design work, congratulations and thank you for providing the higher standard and expectation. This is the only way our profession excels and becomes more respected. And for those who charge a design fee, but hide it within their installation numbers...who are you kidding?

Lastly, to the professional organizations and associations who claim to have our backs...to 'protect the profession', what are you really doing to raise this expectation with the consumer market and other trades? Realistically, here's what's happening with most associations...they remain more or less silent in this cause/effort. "They are asleep at the wheel...happy to collect your membership fees while ignoring your exploitation," as Ed also mentioned.

Integrity begins with the individual who truly cares about what and how they do their discipline. We must ensure respect, as a Designer if we are going to be relevant within this art form. Charging for our design time provides for this value...for the designer and for the customer. Free Labor = Slavery.
Activate to vi

Treating Light as Architecture

I wanted to share a colleague's thought (Michael Bamling from his book "Chiaroscuro") about how many landscape lighting providers view illuminating spaces. He states, "When you treat light as architecture, it stops being decoration and starts becoming structure."

Michael also states, "Lighting becomes a way to draw lines without walls, to create form without mass." This is an excellent way to approach lighting design within our outdoor spaces. The reason this is so effective is that we are not working with conditions of confinement, as is the case within an interior space, but we typically have an open ceiling (the sky) as well as an expanded visual space.

With that said, the use of light can provide non-structural boundaries or elements to a space, as it competes with darkness. We do not need walls to define a room or space. Michael also mentions, "These 'invisible walls' don't block your view. They guide your experience. They make you feel held, even in the openness of a garden. They create a sense of being somewhere, rather than nowhere."

It is my hope that many within the landscape lighting realm will take a pause in how they are illuminating jobs, because the majority are illuminating "to decorate", not to provide for atmosphere and affect.

Photo credit: Mike Gambino of Gambino Landscape Lighting