I recently interviewed Tom Kretzschmar with Illuminations Lighting Design to discuss the importance of working with art consultants. I wanted to learn more about Tom’s perception of art consultants in general, and the exact role that ILD plays as a resource in this very unique and eclectic field.
What is the role of an art consultant?
Art consultants provide a valuable service to individuals or corporations who are building or maintaining fine art collections. They work closely with architects, builders and/or
interior designers to integrate art and other design elements tailored to the project. Additionally, they may commission site-specific artwork, provide custom framing, ship and deliver artwork, as well as supervise the installation and lighting.
Does ILD have special knowledge of fine art that other lighting companies may not have?Yes. With a vast knowledge of both commercial and residential applications, we bring to the table a wealth of
lighting design and
electrical contracting experience. Our practical, yet sophisticated art lighting installations are tailored to the application and desires of the client. Whether you are looking for a simple recessed accent light or a high performance optical framing projector, the knowledgeable licensed electricians from ILD are up for the challenge. As a specialty
art lighting company since 1980, we have illuminated some of the world’s most popular artists such as Chagall, Picasso, Matisse, Renoir, Rockwell, Salvador Dali and Rembrandt.
As the owner and founder of ILD, what do you consider your greatest achievement?
There have been many over the years that we feel really good about. The one that stands out the most in recent memory is a project we did at Jones Hall.
Illuminations Lighting Design, a Houston Texas based fine art lighting company was contacted by the City of Houston Convention & Entertainment Facilities Department through its contract with the Houston Arts Alliance and following the recommendation of the Richard Lippold Foundation, commissioned ILD to engineer and install a new high performance lighting system for the
Gemini II sculpture in Jones Hall. Gemini II is the work of Milwaukee-born artist Richard Lippold and was commissioned by the Houston Endowment in 1966. It has been hanging in Downtown Houston’s Jones Hall for the past 42 years now.
Whomever the artist and wherever the artwork is located, you can trust the
fine art lighting services at Illuminations Lighting Design to design and implement a fine art lighting theme that will showcase your collection in the best possible light on a budget you can afford. Let trained
corporate art lighting consultants help you with your art collection.
Labels: Art Consultant, Art Lighting Consultants, Fine Art Lighting Company Texas, Houston Lighting Designers, Houston Sculpture Lighting, Lighting Consultants, Low Voltage Display Lighting Experts
2010 is the 30th anniversary of
Illuminations Lighting and Design. Over the years, our clients have come to describe us as a well-tuned machine unrivaled in its dedication to excellence, hard work, and prompt technical support.
We began three decades ago as a
fine art lighting company. Today, ILD continues to lead in the turnkey installation of the best fine art lighting fixtures found anywhere in the world. Our lighting designers know just how to configure this equipment so that it magnifies the full value of your most prized works of art.
Letters of thanks continue to arrive every month that compliment the organization and professionalism of our
professional landscape lighting designers. Our clients especially appreciate is the extreme care we take in preserving gardens, landscaping, tree roots, and hedge rows.
For homeowners who want their homes to stand out on the block, façade lighting gives Houston homeowners the ability to showcase the entire front edifice of their home no matter how dark the night is. Façade
outdoor lighting projects we have done in the past have made a huge difference in the way ha house looks at night and also provided the added benefit of security lighting.
Landscape lighting is also one of the mainstay service offerings that exemplify our company’s efficiency and uniqueness.
Low-voltage landscape lighting systems are both energy efficient and safe for children and pets. They are also good for the yard itself. One thing that clients often compliment us for is the extra care we take to preserve gardens, landscape forms, trees, and hedges.
Indoor lighting teams do a lot more than rewire homes and install general lights. They specialize in decorative, layered lighting effects. Chandeliers are one way to add an extra touch of refinement to any room of importance. Special
antique cabinet lighting fixtures and book case lighting adds emphasis to fine collections and private libraries. Complex aesthetics of such a nature require advanced lighting controls.
Fortunately for ILD clients,
lighting control systems can be customized by ILD technicians as turnkey solutions to custom home lighting needs. Further sophistication can be developed by installing a whole house audio system or
home theater system. Such home entertainment venues have recently made our firm renowned for transforming Houston homes from high-end living environments to high-end entertainment zones as well.
At times, a former client of a local electrical contractor one of these firms needs repair work beyond the scope of their original service provider’s support. Illuminations Lighting and Design is always there to assist them. As a fully licensed
residential electrical contracting firm, we can handle any repair or upgrade needed to get your home wiring, lighting, or lighting control system functional and safe.
Labels: About Illuminations Lighting Design, Art Lighting Consultants, Commercial Lighting Designers, Houston Residential Electrical Contractors, Houston Texas Lighting Designer, Landscape Lighting Company
What makes ILD the most qualified go-to source for art and light in the city of Houston?
In the 1980s, we originally began as an
art lighting firm whose specialty was the superior presentation of fine art. Over time, we expanded into other areas of lighting, including interior home lighting, architectural lighting, landscape lighting, electrical services, and home automation.
This expansion taught us many things about interior architecture and decorating, and the subtle impacts that these forces can bring to bear upon a collection of art.
Illuminating art requires not only knowledge of art and light itself, but also an awareness of such factors as lighting intensity, angle, and the relationship between light and shadow.
What do art and light have in common?
Art and light share a number of remarkable similarities that makes them soul mates in one sense of the term. To begin with, both depend on spatial relationships to establish aesthetic. Art depicts objects in relationship to one another. Light occupies space without consuming volume, and in the process shows all objects in the room in relationship to one another.
Both art and light utilize shadow to some degree to distinguish themselves. The variances in light and layers of light are clearly defined by proportions of luminance versus lower levels of light or outright shadow. Similarly, depictions of scenes and characters in art rely upon a blend of color, light, and shadow to create perspective and dimension—two essential attributes that distinguish fine art from run of the mill images of popular culture.
Where do we see the most complex relationships between art and light?
The similarities shared by
art and light allow for complex relationships to be formed between the two by the professional lighting designer. When art lighting fixtures are properly selected and correctly installed, the result is a multi-dimensional aesthetic that moves the viewer beyond duality.
General room lighting and average, daily life scenes are often nothing more than something we are looking at lit up by light coming from somewhere either over our shoulder or over our heads. With art lighting this is never the case.
Modern art lights are precisely adjusted to match beam spread and lighting intensity to the works of art they are showcasing. Layers of light are also created to fill the room with an ambience that is appropriate to the genre represented by any given collection.
How do art and light depend on one another?
We can see, then that light and art depend on one another in some very specific ways. Art in the dark cannot be seen, and light in an empty room is so much space illuminated without form or apparent purpose. Bringing the two together is in many ways a creation of a special reality where essence and form converge in layers of color, luminance, and shadow. At the end of the day, both the art and light in your private gallery become as much an expression of you as they are the work of the artists themselves as ILD professionals translate the sublime to the personal, the objective to the subject.
Since 1980, Illuminations Lighting Design has grown to include a team of over 50 talented and dedicated employees. Specialty divisions have been created to focus on such disciplines as
lighting design,
electrical contracting,
landscape lighting and
home automation. Having specialists in each of these disciplines, while remaining true to the mission of offering home owners the "complete picture" of lighting design, is key to continued success at Illuminations Lighting.
Labels: Art Lighting Consultants, Art of Light, Commercial Art Lighting, Fine Art Light Installers, Fine Art Lighting Company Texas, Houston Residential Specialty Contractors
ILD specializes in the professional installation of lighting for paintings. We have working relationships with the leading art lighting manufacturers of the world, and we possess all of the working knowledge and experience required to install the best equipment in any commercial or residential gallery that requires custom picture lighting solutions.
Invariably, when we first call on a new client, we find that they are already using some sort of lights for paintings. In many instances these lights are what we call over-the-picture lights. They attach to the top of the frame and shine down onto the canvas or print below.
While there is nothing wrong with over-the-picture lights for paintings, we strongly encourage our new clients to use them only for less expensive artwork lighting. This is because infrared heat builds up in these lamps that can damage the fine oils and delicate canvases of more sophisticated works. The distribution of light is also a problem, because these lights create brighter spots near the top of the picture and darker areas near the bottom.
More sophisticated lights for paintings are required for high-end lighting applications, and professional lighting design is necessary to make the equipment support the art without distracting the attention of the viewer.
When lighting any painting, it is absolutely essential to match the amount of light to the size and shape of the picture. If we have too little light, we will have dark areas on the edges of the work. If we have too much light, illumination will spill onto the wall and form hot spots. Creating the necessary precision lighting effect that matches light to art is quite the challenge for the do-it-yourselfer. Proper art lighting requires mounting each fixture from an optimum vantage point. It also requires choosing a halogen bulb that has an appropriately-designed reflector that will create a beam spread equivalent to the dimensions of the picture.
There is a special science to balancing these two requirements that calls for a strong technical knowledge of all the many different art lighting fixtures and corresponding reflectors that are made. It is never workable for the collector to try to learn all this. Instead, it is more practical and cost effective to let a professional fine art lighting company choose and mount the right type of fixtures for the paintings on display.
Specific types of lights for paintings include track lights, surface mounted lights, recessed lights (that go in the ceiling), and framing projectors. Track lights, as their name indicates, suspend from tracks that run along the ceiling. They are often used in galleries that hang professional photography and have some limited use in temporary art lighting design installations. However, the larger ones are very difficult to conceal. Smaller track lights can be used in home environments because they are more low-profile in design.
Surface mounted lights for paintings install on the ceiling or on the wall and shine at precise angles toward different paintings or groups of paintings. Because surface mounted wall art lights are typically bulky and visible, it is crucial that you let a lighting designer select the right fixtures for you in order to better match your interior decorating and home interior architecture.
Recessed art lights for paintings are a much easier to conceal. They hide in recesses that are cut into the ceiling. They will only be noticed by someone who is looking for them. They, too, need to be positioned by a lighting designer who is able to determine just where fixtures need to be placed and angled for optimal lighting.
Framing projectors are high-end lighting tools for paintings that mount on the ceiling and shine down on artwork below. Many different types of framing projectors exist in the world of modern art lighting. Some are designed to be installed directly into the ceiling itself. Others are made for retrofit mounting in an environment where ceilings cannot be cut.
Whomever the artist and wherever the artwork is located, you can trust the lighting professionals at Illuminations Lighting Design to design and implement a fine art lighting theme that will showcase your collection in the best possible light on a budget you can afford. Let a trained fine art and sculpture lighting company help you with your art collection.
Contact us toll free at 800-863-1184 or locally at 713-863-1133 to request a design proposal.Since 1980, ILD has grown to include a team of over 50 talented and dedicated employees. Specialty divisions have been created to focus on such disciplines as lighting design, electrical contracting, landscape lighting and home automation. Having specialists in each of these disciplines, while remaining true to the mission of offering home owners the "complete picture" of lighting design, is key to continued success at Illuminations Lighting.
We are located in Houston Texas but provide lighting in Austin TX, El Paso Texas, San Antonio TX, College Station Texas, Beaumont TX, Dallas Texas, Midland Tx and points beyond. Labels: Art Lighting Consultants, Artwork Lighting Experts, Houston Art Lighting, Houston Fine Art Lighting Experts, Lighting For Paintings
Just as the dimmer slide taught us that there is more to light than simply ON or OFF, Illuminations Lighting Design located in Houston Texas has shown the world the endless variation, the enchanting spectrums, the infinite gradations of light that can be painted across the wide canvas that stretches between night and day.
What began as a simple idea over lunch, evolved into one of the most sought after and most recognized residential lighting design firms in the country. ILD has grown to include five specialty divisions that focus on lighting design, electrical contracting, landscape lighting and home automation. Having these specialists in each discipline, while remaining true to the mission of offering home owners the "complete picture" of lighting design, is key to continued success at Illuminations Lighting.
Read what customers are saying about Illuminations Lighting Design:We are very pleased with the
art lighting and
Lutron dimmer controls you designed and installed for our reception area. Your crew was polite, professional and on time. Thanks again for accommodating our Saturday "after hours" work schedule.
Marvin Nathan
Houston, Texas
My customers over in Bellaire that you outfitted with Phantom Lighting this summer are absolutely thrilled. Thank you so much for your suggestion to illuminate the family room display shelves. You were only there originally for the Butler’s pantry lighting and now the family room shelf lighting is their favorite thing in the house!!!!
Susan White
Bellaire, Texas
We are very happy with the new low voltage landscape lighting system that ILD installed in our front yard. I never imagined that lighting could make such a huge difference. We now have the best looking outdoor lighting in the neighborhood. The motion lights you suggested on the side of the house are very effective. Overall, we are pleased with the lighting and electrical work and will certainly refer your residential electrical contracting company to our friends!
Lam Hoang
Tomball, Texas
I was visiting my next door neighbor over the weekend and she had just had your electricians out to adjust and install art lighting fixtures. She already had beautiful art, but your recessed art lighting looks amazing. I look forward to our appointment and meeting your lighting designer to upgrade our lighting as well.
Maureen Higton
Houston, Texas
Illuminations Lighting Design is the only “One Stop” destination for lighting design, engineering, landscape lighting services and installation in the state of Texas, and remains unrivaled by any lighting firm in the United States for lighting that is art. As homes grow larger and needs become more complex, having a single resource provides home owners with peace of mind. This translates into a smoother process, reduced costs and a better product.
We invite you to contact us toll free 800-863-1184 or request a proposal online.
Labels: Art Lighting Consultants, Home Lighting Services Houston, Houston Texas Lighting Designers, ILD Lighting Testimonials, Professional Lighting Designers Houston
The art of light will add function, dimension, and beauty to your home. It will add color to mood, and shadow to accent in a manner that strengthens the impressions of room decor and brings the most important room elements into the forefront of awareness. Lighting design specialists by ILD make this happen through a process that begins with consultation and concludes with superior luminance and lighting controls.
When we arrive at your home, we begin with a lighting design consultation. Our experts listen to what you have to say and get a clear understanding of your lifestyle requirements. They apply their years of experience in interior decorating and architectural cross-training to look for innovative ways to layer light as art in every room of the home.
Once we have a general design plan in mind, we take a look at your electrical service panel and your home wiring. This is to ensure that your current electrical home systems can support the light fixtures we plan to install. If an upgrade to the panel is necessary, or if new home wiring is needed, we can make these improvements at this time. This very necessary foundational component of art as light is something that only a trained residential electrical contractor can provide, and we offer you the advantage of getting both design and electrical services from the same team of professionals.
The installation of fixtures then begins according to the home lighting floor plans we agree upon and the mitigating factors of room interior architecture. Light travels in a straight line, so any object in its path will cast a shadow behind it. Contrary to assumption, we do not want to do away with all shadows in the room. Shadows create interest and a feeling of added dimension. This is one of the things that differentiate the art of light from general, functional lighting. The decor created by varying degrees of illumination in different areas of the room works to accent special objects, furnishings, and nuances of interior decorating.
Another attribute of the art of light that makes it very different than simple task lighting is its intentional use of color as a tool of design. Varying the color of lights changes the way we perceive contents. In whole house audio systems and home theaters, we rely upon colored light to support musical themes and to create specific atmospheres for different genres of music and film. This requires home automation and control systems which we install along with your lighting fixtures.
These lighting controls can be operated completely by computer, and they can be manually controlled through user friendly wall panels and hand-held remotes. Preprogrammed themes can be set to turn on with music at certain times of the day. Home theaters can be programmed to emulate the mood lighting of public cinema. This turns your home into an entertainment center that can rival any night on the town.
The most important lighting controls are those that handle intensity. Dimmer controls allow you to raise and lower the light levels of different types of fixtures. You may want to increase general room lighting in certain places to give you greater visibility for reading or working in the room. At other times, you may want to lower these lights and turn up art lighting to create a warmer, more intimate setting. Halogen lights are ideal for this type of lighting control. They produce a very white light which can be raised and lowered at will and is excellent for setting mood, recreating shadows, and art lighting.
We normally install a variety of halogen style lamps in various shapes, styles, and wattages. This allows us to create multiple layers of illumination that emphasize different elements of room design. Architecture, interior decorating, fine art, statuary, and furnishings can all be embellished in this fashion. The combination of quality and quantity results in a blend of ambiance, shadow, and varying intensities that bring room elements to the forefront of attention and fine living to the best possible light.
Since 1980, Illuminations Lighting Deign has grown to include a team of over 50 talented and dedicated employees. Specialty divisions have been created to focus on such disciplines as lighting design, electrical contracting, landscape lighting and home automation. Having specialists in each of these disciplines, while remaining true to the mission of offering home owners the "complete picture" of lighting design, is key to continued success at Illuminations Lighting.
We invite you to contact us toll free at 800-863-1184 or locally at 713-863-1133.
Our offices are located in Houston Texas but provide lighting and design services in Austin TX, El Paso Texas, San Antonio TX, College Station Texas, Beaumont TX, Dallas Texas, Midland Tx and points beyond.Labels: Art Lighting Consultants, Art of Light, Houston Residential Electrical Contractors, Residential Art Lighting, Texas Landscape Lighting Designers
To get superior results when lighting your art collection, we recommend you obtain your art lighting fixtures and art lighting design services from ILD. The type of equipment we provide is high-end, sensitive, and requires considerable technical and design expertise to select, install, and maintain the appropriate high quality art lighting fixtures.
Our first priority is to make sure that your artwork lighting fixtures are performing at optimal levels. We have seen, in many cases that the integrity of some lamps will gradually deteriorate and depreciate. On MR16 lamps, for instance, this degradation causes color to shift either to the red or green end of the spectrum. People typically do not notice this shift, because the change is so subtle and gradual that their eyes adjusted to the change daily without ever consciously being aware of the deterioration. It is for this reason that we recommend you have a trained professional periodically examine your artwork lighting and test your equipment for this deterioration and upgrade to a better, more efficient replacement when necessary.
Many times as well, we run across clients who have installed high voltage art lighting fixtures. This is often done by people who purchase retail-grade equipment themselves and hire an electrician to install it. The problem with high voltage equipment is that it does not have the same lamp selection as line voltage fixtures use for fine art lighting applications. Low voltage lights generally have better beam control, far less UV radiation, and consume much less power than high voltage equivalents.
If you upgrade now, you will start saving you money on electrical costs in two respects. Cooling costs will be lower if the room temperature remains at a lower constant. Power bills will also decrease because there is less electricity consumed by the lamps themselves.
Low voltage recessed art lighting equipment has become so effective that manufacturers now make a plethora of art lighting fixtures in low voltage models. Everything from optical framing projectors, eyeball fixtures, recessed art lights, pinhole lights, and even track lights can now be obtained in low voltage models. We advise that if you are using any high voltage lights that you upgrade now to more current, more energy efficient low-voltage fixtures. You will both recover your investment through power cost savings, and you will be able to light your paintings for longer periods of time without fear of heat buildup. For those with track lights, you can even upgrade the fixtures without having to replace the track itself.
Because so many of the systems we service have been not really been strategically designed, but instead piece mealed over time, it is not unusual for us to encounter a mixture of specification grade and retail grade art lighting fixtures in a single room. As a professional lighting design firm that maintains a relationship with art lighting manufacturers, we are always happy to help our clients select and replace inferior grade products with high-end upgrades. This saves corporate art consultants and art curators a tremendous amount of money in cumulative replacement costs. Specification grade fixtures usually feature a longer lamp life and a more predictable performance curve. By upgrading the entire system now, you will only spend money in the form of a onetime purchase. Over time, you will get money back through the savings you accumulate by minimizing constant equipment replacements.
We always save our clients money by giving them as much direct control as possible over their picture lighting fixtures by installing lighting control systems. Lighting control can be placed completely in the hands of the end user and combined with other light sources in the building to create scenes and added convenience. ILD represents a number of home automation control manufacturers whose advanced, whole house lighting control technologies will allow you to set any light level you wish for both groups of lights and individual lights. This creates a multiplicity of luminance layers and effects.
Both specification grade art lighting fixtures and advanced technical services are much more affordable when managed under an interior lighting maintenance service agreement. Both curators and private art collectors can depend on receiving all of the above benefits more consistently and at better labor rates with a marginal investment in consistent, periodic visits by an Illuminations art lighting designer.
ILD is a premier fine art lighting company in Houston Texas. We have worked for and lighted some of the world’s most prestigious public and private art collections including works from renowned artists such as Chagall, Picasso, Matisse, Renoir, Rockwell, Salvador Dali and Rembrandt. By calling upon the most innovative artwork lighting techniques in the world, you can rest assured that your treasured pieces will shine as brightly as the artist’s true vision. Visit our testimonials page for customer feedback.
Simply stated, our staff is Illuminations Lighting Design's greatest asset. We are fortunate as an electrical contractor to have built such a highly skilled workforce of craftsmen and mechanics who enjoy what they do. Working with integrity and efficiency, they will treat your home with respect while ensuring the job gets done right. Their pride, persistence, quality and determination are the hallmark of Illuminations Lighting Design's tradition.
We are located in Houston Texas but provide lighting and lighting design in Austin TX, El Paso Texas, San Antonio TX, College Station Texas, Beaumont TX, Dallas Texas, Midland Tx and points beyond.
You can reach us toll free at 800-863-1184 or locally at 713-863-1133. Labels: Art Lighting Consultants, Artwork Lighting Experts, Custom Art Lights, Fine Art Lighting Equipment, Houston Electrical Contractors, Phantom Contour Projectors
Lighting for paintings is best accomplished using commercial grade equipment engineered just for the purpose of illuminating galleries and private collections. Retail fixtures, even if labeled as art lighting fixtures, typically feature shorter lamp life, less adjustability, and less advanced optics. Specification grade fixtures have consistently been shown to offer much better results when lighting art, and they save the collector money with more energy efficiency and minimized replacements.
With few exceptions, recessed low voltage lighting fixtures are the best luminaires for lighting art. This is because they tend to produce considerably less heat than high voltage equivalents and consequently save money on cooling costs. They are also safer for the artwork itself, some of which can be damaged very easily if overheated.
In fact, much of this heat is invisible, falling in the infrared portion of the spectrum. Though unseen, it can still damage painting by dehydrating oils. Ultraviolet light does this on an even more severe level, and it can damage the canvas itself. To protect color and canvas integrity, recessed art lighting fixtures are engineered with technology that block these wavelengths and allows only visible light to reach the art.
Within these simple guidelines, then—low-voltage, specification grade quality, and filtered lamps—there remains a huge realm of choice available to the collector in terms of fixture intensity, type, positioning, and end user adjustability. So many options exist, in fact, that lighting art has now become a form of design unto itself. Lighting control technology adds even more value to this aesthetic by placing a great deal of adjustability control directly into the hands of the collector or curator. Dimmers, wall boxes, and hand-held remotes allow the private individual to fine tune modern art lighting levels both on a system wide and individual fixture level.
This allows you to set different levels lighting and to layer them one on top of the other. Such layering places a special emphasis on any collection, making it appear almost removed from time and space. To achieve this multidimensional effect, of course, we have to install more than just one type of art light to accomplish our goals. A myriad of architectural custom lighting luminaires dedicated exclusively to the task of lighting art and statuary exists that we can use to build a custom lighting array for any private or professional collection.
Framing projectors are the most unique and fascinating type of art lighting device invented to date in residential art design. The most notable brands will project an invisible beam of light onto a canvas or sculpture that will then suddenly transfigure the piece as if from within. While you cannot light an entire gallery with projectors they are nonetheless essential keys to creating the most splendid effects and showcasing the most important works.
Other art and house lighting fixtures like recessed low voltage halogens, slotted apertures, pinhole lights, and eyeball lights are all basically circles in the ceiling that create variable effects based on aperture shape and size, angle of incidence, and mounted positioning. Art collections look best when illuminated by an customized array of several different fixture types installed specifically for a particular collection or type of collection.
To achieve this blend of feeling and hard science, we recommend you call us and let us help you create such a system for lighting your art and show you how to plan lighting. Both as a design-build company can both plan and install the equipment, and as a art lighting consultant with a preferred electrical installation vendor, we have delivered consistent value to art collectors and galleries throughout the nation since 1980.
ILD is a premier fine art lighting company in Texas. We have worked for and lighted some of the world’s most prestigious public and private art collections including works from renowned artists such as Chagall, Picasso, Matisse, Renoir, Rockwell, Salvador Dali and Rembrandt. By calling upon the most innovative artwork lighting techniques in the world, you can rest assured that your treasured pieces will shine as brightly as the artist’s true vision. Visit our testimonials page for customer feedback.
Simply stated, our staff is Illuminations Lighting Design's greatest asset. We are fortunate as an electrical contractor to have built such a highly skilled workforce of craftsmen and mechanics who enjoy what they do. Working with integrity and efficiency, they will treat your home with respect while ensuring the job gets done right. Their pride, persistence, quality and determination are the hallmark of Illuminations Lighting Design's tradition.
We are located in Houston Texas but provide lighting and lighting design in Austin TX, El Paso Texas, San Antonio TX, College Station Texas, Beaumont TX, Dallas Texas, Midland Tx and points beyond. Labels: Architectural Lighting Houston, Art Lighting Consultants, Artwork Lighting Experts, Fine Art Lighting Consultants, Projector Art Lighting Equipment, Texas Art Lighting Specialist
ILD creates custom house lighting plans for the eclectic homeowner who is looking to transform his or her home interior into truly exceptional living space. House lighting plans are always unique and very personalized because they are meant to function as an extension of the homeowner’s mind and a reflection of personal taste. This requires extensive consultation to understand the desires and needs of the homeowner, and it takes a great deal of professional know-how to transfer the purely conceptual elements of a client’s "wish list" into a workable house decorative lighting plan that blends function and form. It also requires superior grade lighting fixtures that are designed with energy efficiency and extended lamp life in mind. This keeps operating and replacement costs to a minimum and allows for a network of interconnected subsystems to be linked together so that each element of home interior lighting design compliments and contributes to the success of all other elements in the overall scheme.
The lifestyle of the homeowner is the foundation of the entire house lighting plan.
Some custom homeowners see their home as a sanctuary to which they can retreat at the end of the day to get away from the stress and worry of busy urban life. Many of these people save their money and eventually move into a large custom home at the end of a long narrow street, or in a rural area just outside of a major city and require outdoor tree lighting. Such a home needs sophisticated layered lighting effects that can be dimmed at will to create a more relaxed mood and feeling of retreat from the outside world.
Other homeowners see their house more as a hub of entertainment and socializing. Sophisticated lighting themes, home automation systems, and one-touch controls are essential, supportive elements to high-end media systems such as whole house audio and home theaters. Dedicated circuitry is often required to power the lights and the equipment in these systems, and our licensed electrical service personal can provide this service as a part of your house lighting plan.
The homeowner’s decorative tastes define the aesthetics of any home lighting system.
No custom home can be complete without new home wiring, high-end decorations and fine furnishings. House lighting planners have to remain ever mindful of interior decorating and make certain that they isolate the major motifs in the home’s interior decor. Accent lights are critical components in almost every house lighting plan. They have to be concealed as much as possible, and they must feature the very best in optics and glare shielding so as to place just the right amount of lighting in key portions of the home’s interior.
Fine art and specialty lighting constitute sub-disciplines unto themselves, and require specialized equipment found only through a professional firm such as our own.
House lighting plans must never lose sight of practicality.
The successful blend of function and form for which our firm has earned great renown is due largely to our expertise in home wiring and electrical service work, and also to our extensive knowledge of residential architecture. Our lighting designers clearly understand the simple fact that no matter how ornately decorated a custom home is, at the end of the day, it is still essentially a functional living space where all the practical needs of daily life are attended to. While there are many consultants who can achieve amazing effects in specialty lighting, art lighting, and accent lighting, few companies like ours can do all of these things and at the same time create a house lighting plan with photometric lighting calculations that provides general and task lighting for the basic activities of home living.
Where is your lighting design studio located?
We are located in the heart of Houston just west of Downtown at the corner of Durham Drive and Blossom Street, which is located between Memorial Drive and Washington Avenue in the Rice Military Subdivision.
Although we are located in Houston Texas we provide lighting and design services in Austin TX, El Paso Texas, San Antonio TX, College Station Texas, Beaumont TX, Dallas Texas, Midland Tx and points beyond.Call us today at 713-863-1133, visit our lighting blog or request a consultation online using our contact us form.Labels: Architectural Lighting Houston Texas, Art Lighting Consultants, Home Lighting Plans, House Lighting Plans, Houston Home Light Plans, Texas Residential Lighting Plans
What do corporate art consultants do?
Corporate art consultants choose and hang art that is appropriate for a specific office environment. They use a number of selection criteria are used to choose the hospitality lighting design for these environments. Art may be chosen to reflect the lifestyle or hobbies of an executive on staff. Other organizations may prefer images and themes that relate somehow to their mission statement. Still others may desire to establish a more formal atmosphere with classical images and symbols. It is the job of the corporate art consultant to help companies make these determinations and then select the appropriate types and genres of artwork that fulfill the wishes of the client and offer the best fit for the corporate culture of a particular organization.
Do corporate art consultants also do art lighting?
Most develop a conceptual design for lighting, then partner with a fine art lighting company like ours that will actually install the lights for them. After they have selected, framed, and hung artwork, consultants call on us to help illuminate these works in a way that blends into the general, lighting scheme of the office and yet distinguishes the art as “special space” within office space. When three dimensional abstract pieces, modern art or sculptures are installed, our work is even more important to that of the corporate art consultant, because many of these works require several layers of light, and often a blend of light and shadow, for effective display.
What types of lights are used for corporate art lighting?
Fluorescent lights are the corporate art consultant’s worst nemesis. In spite of their energy efficiency and superb color rendering as a general lighting source, fluorescents ability to bring out the diversity and intensity of the full color palette found in most works paintings. Halogen light sources are much better for this. Colors appear true and fixtures offer a smaller format with high performance results. We often install recessed halogens, picture lights or lighting projectors with halogen bulbs in the ceiling that will direct light down onto a canvas, photograph, or sculpture. We add our expertise to that of the consultant, recommending the best wattages, lamp types, and accent lighting equipment to appropriately accommodate their work.
Does ILD hang art?
We do not hang art or install statuary, but we do offer advisory services to corporate clients who are working with an art consultant firm, or who have worked with one in the past. Many times, companies hire us to rewire and replace existing art lighting fixtures and improve the illumination for their overall collection. This is almost always needed when companies have undergone a major remodel, or who have had existing lamps replaced by maintenance crews. Many crews can locate replacement parts relatively easily, but they lack the training in art lighting design that a corporate art lighting consulting firm has. The result of several well-intended overhauls of the lighting system is a hodgepodge of general office lighting mixed in with high-end, decorative art lighting—not a good combination.
Working with an ILD corporate art consultant can resolve these issues expeditiously and cost effectively. Something as simple as a simple trim change, or perhaps a few new fixtures, will transform existing art into a conversation piece. Works that have existed for years appear alive and now hang prominently like a shining star.
Where are your main offices?
We are located in Houston Texas but provide lighting, consulting and design services in Austin TX, El Paso Texas, San Antonio TX, College Station Texas, Beaumont TX, Dallas Texas, Midland Tx and points beyond. Visit our lighting blog or call us today at 713-863-1133 to request a consultation online using our contact us form.
Labels: Art Lighting Consultants, Artwork Lighting Experts, Corporate Art Consultants, Fine Art Lighting Experts, Houston Texas Art Lighting
ILD art consultants provide art lighting advisory services to private and professional art collectors on a nationwide basis. Our clients range from private collectors and commercial organizations in a variety of high-end markets and eclectic industries. Art collections themselves often contain everything from high-end photography and statues to abstract art, prints, and fine paintings. Most collections contain more than one type of art and require complex lighting designs and a combination of sophisticated lighting fixtures, to properly illuminate. This is where ILD art consultants step in to advise and recommend artwork lighting options. In most instances, clients call us because they are having difficulty on one or more of three major problem areas: glare, spill light, and shadows.
Minimizing and Redirecting Glare
Art consultants work to light art from the best “angle of incidence.” This term describes the angle at which light strikes the surface of an object. In art lighting, this is very important to minimizing glare. It is impossible to eliminate all glare, but it is possible to direct it enough of it away from the eye of the viewer so it remains undetected. Art consultants are trained in these modern art lighting techniques, having worked extensively in for 27 years now with interior designers and museum curators. By adjusting where the light strikes the artwork, art consulting teams also change where the reflection of that light travels. This keeps the light it from striking another large object, a nearby wall, or the eye of a viewer looking at the piece.
Eliminating Spill Light
Spill light is never good. It looks sloppy, and it distracts the eye away from the work of art being viewed. Spill light is most often caused by lighting that is too intense. Retail grade art lights are often the culprit for this because they lack the ability to be adjusted. Art consultants install commercial grade picture lighting equipment that can be dimmed or brightened at will. They also prefer to use fixtures that allow the light beam to focused and shaped to match a frame, canvas, or three dimensional object on display. One of the most popular methods for achieving this effect is the use of a framing projector mounted in the center of the ceiling that can direct an invisible beam of light toward any piece(s) in the collection. When the beam strikes the piece, it suddenly becomes visible in the form of an aura of light that appears to emanate from within the art itself.
Shadows
There are many types of shadows in the world of recessed art lighting. Most are undesirable and have to be eliminated. Frame shadows are the collector’s worst nemesis. When light from an inappropriately chosen or improperly positioned fixture strikes the frame, the frame blocks the light and casts a shadow over the picture. Art consultants will either move the fixture to a different lighting angle of incidence, or replace the fixture with a more controlled and adjustable lighting source.
When it comes to three dimensional art, fine art lighting companies and consultants are less absolutist in their insistence on eliminating shadows all together. Statuary and modern art features contours and angles that are often “flattened” by too much light. Art consultants integrate certain shadows into a comfortable level of illumination that is appropriate to each piece. This helps create a more lifelike, realistic presentation of statuary, and it contributes as well to the avante guard nature of abstract pieces on high end lighting projects.
Visit our main website here to learn more about specific services that we offer in fine art lighting and interior lighting systems for homes, offices, and hospitality organizations.
Illuminations Lighting Design has mastered these mini-disciplines and has been lighting art in Houston, Beaumont, Austin, and San Antonio areas for many, many years. Our staff holds licenses in electrical service work and understands the complexity of fine art lighting, home automation and interior design.
Illuminations Lighting Design is a full service design build firm specializing in residential and commercial indoor lighting and outdoor lighting, electrical service and maintenance as well as home automation, home theaters, emergency generators, surge protection systems, phone systems and lighting control systems.
Call toll free 800-863-1184 for a complimentary lighting consultation.
Labels: Art Consultant, Art Lighting Consultants, Fine Art Lighting Experts, Hidden Art Lights, Projector Art Lighting Equipment
Here at Illuminations Lighting Design we understand that not every job requires the services of a professional lighting consultant and that's why we have an experienced sales staff to assist you. If all you need is a new fixture in the kitchen or just some advice with your electrical wiring we can help you identify the problem and provide a solution.
We are always happy to meet with you and prepare a written estimate for the work in your home, typically at no charge. Estimates in some locations outside Houston city limits may require a trip charge. It generally takes about thirty minutes to survey your needs and develop a lighting solution that is tailored to your lifestyle. All our lighting professionals are experienced in indoor lighting, landscape lighting, display lighting and home automation.
To schedule an appointment you can contact us at 713-863-1133 or by email at SCHEDULING. We look forward to serving you!
Labels: Architectural Lighting Houston Texas, Art Lighting Consultants, Christmas Lighting Designs, Commercial Lighting Designers, Houston Lighting Design Company
