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They look like the abandoned contraptions of a mad scientist, or the feverish dreams of an art history scholar. Next to the exposed wires and steam engines, Baroque and gothic and art nouveau adornments twist around each other in a mishmash of style. They are an exercise in synergy – the hodgepodgery of their parts forming together to create a cohesive whole.

 

The man behind the lamps is Noel DeGroff, an effervescent 28-year-old from Philadelphia who looks like an over-sized toddler with a stain of red Kool-Aid around his mouth. DeGroff began constructing the lamps 4 years ago as a way of maintaining his creative flow when not working at his art store, Art of the Mind, in Long Island.

 

“We have newspapers on our living room floors because people shit themselves when they see them,” DeGroff says jokingly about the lamps. He leans back on a busted antique sofa found on the street.  “I think we’re gonna have to upgrade to wood shavings.”

 

DeGroff says that each lamp has a theme based on how he can finish the phrase “wouldn’t it be cool if this lamp could…”

 

So he has a lamp powered by steam, a lamp based off of the Bride of Frankenstein, a lamp with a glass globe of Earth used as an on/off switch. And while bizarre lamps sprung from the mind of one very creative man is all well and good, it’s not as interesting as the way DeGroff constructs his lamps – everything is scavenged from the trash.

 

DeGroff really means everything. From the lamps’ decorative outers to the wires and screws of the innards, DeGroff salvages every part from the rubbish.  It’s an eco and wallet friendly project that has garnered attention and money. In October, an independent art film used the lamps for backdrop, hardly a rare occurrence when photographers pay DeGroff to use his lamp art in photo shoots. But despite offers from hotels and intrigued art collectors who have offered him up to $1500 per lamp, DeGroff steadfastly refuses to sell any of his creations.

 

“They satisfy the pirate in me,” says DeGroff on his drive to create the lamps. “Or the little brat that likes to destroy things and take things apart.”

 

Mechanical knickknacks are spread around a wooden coffee table. Lamps in various stages of completion line the perimeter of the room. There is an antique lampshade there, a broken printer here, but very little room for people.

 

“We had a cleaning lady come in one week,” says Terezka DeGroff, Noel’s wife who is curled up on the other end of the sofa, “and after that we never saw her again. I think she was overwhelmed; it can get overwhelming.”

 

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