Rustic Lux Modern: Designs by Dan Landrum

This past summer, I ran a feature on Dan Landrum and his beautifully unique, eco-friendly designs called “The Rounded Flute Collection”.   Recently, MAKE magazine  published an article called, “My Quest to Turn Smart Craft into a Sustainable Business.” They asked him to tell his story about making laser cut cardboard products over the past year.  Today, Dan is doing some pretty incredible things.  I want to do my part to help him.  Please take a look at Dan Landrum’s incredible home decor products, and in turn, help him own his own laser cutting machine.  He is offering his baskets, lamps, and lights for those who back him, based on the dollar amount you donate.  Not only will you get to back an incredibly generous and talented man,  but you will also help to forward his business ventures. Sitting in your home you will own one of his fantastic creations.  Take a look at what he is offering you for your support HERE.  Dan is an incredible supporter of all indie artists and fine art and I want to take the time to ask all of my readers to take a look at his work.  Thank you, Dan, for your generosity and encouragement for our endeavors here at Indie It Press.  We wish you all the best, and a really great laser cutting machine.

Rustic Lux Modern came to be for Dan Landrum in a way that evolution of life happens for many of us. Many years of schooling, drifting, and a variety of jobs helped to form the man and his art.  Due to Dan’s out-of-the-box thinking and years of being a creative dreamer, his design lighting and home artistry is visionary and stunning to behold, and now available for all to enjoy in their own homes.

His background and degree is in Fine Art painting, printing, and photography. In the 80’s & 90’s he worked half-time as a silversmith for a jewelry designer and spent the other half creating large format non-objective paintings.

Today, Dan transforms corrugated cardboard into elegant lamps and home decor accessories using a laser cutter. Rings of the freshly cut cardboard are stacked one on top of the other, held together by eco-friendly white glue. From the precise, crisp edges, intriguing aesthetics emerge from the organic textures and patterns of the cardboard’s rounded flutes. Thinly cut in one direction, the assembled cardboard appears virtually transparent, like lace, and in another view like finely tooled wood. The structure is surprisingly strong and durable; functional yet visually striking. When either lit from within, or in natural light, the openness of the lace-like rounded flutes affords a soft, ambient illuminance, its own unique lux. Though the feel is rustic, the overall shapes of his lamps and home decor accessories are modern. Hence, Rustic Lux Modern.

Dan Landrum quit his desk job and started learning and making with the laser cutter a year ago, but RLM didn’t evolve until last month. Dan started with laser engraving on Panolam but soon saw the uniqueness of the cardboard lamps and accessories as a more marketable product. They found their way through development and into the first gallery in December of 2012. The original design name was taken at Etsy, so he came up with Rustic Lux Modern for the retail shop.

I asked Dan about his schooling, passion, and about setting up his design business where Dan relates, “My schooling is an organic blend of the School of Hard Knocks and cherry picking, through higher and extended education catalogs to fill-in what I needed to learn next. It took me 20 years to get my BA as my hair grew and I gave up my tennis scholarship at the U of Florida to become a homeless wandering hippie for the next decade and a half. After a twisted path, I finally settled down with the love of my life, Carol to live simply in a place of beauty and add what I can.”

Dan relates, “In a nutshell, I’d say the thread of my passion has centered around contributing socially, politically, artistically to the Cultural Creative movements of my times, including all those ’60’s rebellions, the revolution in desktop publishing, the cyberspace dot-com boom and now the Maker movement, which Chris Andersen calls ‘The New Industrial Revolution ‘. I love the edge of the new. But the only way to hang out there is to connect with intelligent, heart-full, trustworthy others who will take turns holding the lifelines for each other as we reach for the stars. ‘You may say I’m a dreamer, ‘but [fortunately!]’, I’m not the only one.'”

A very special thank you to Dan for sharing his story with me.  We here at Indie It Press are grateful to you, for your gifted artistry.  Leisa Greene ~ Indie It Gal

Below are links to contact Dan, look at other designs, or make a home decor purchase.

     Rustic Lux Modern

         Dan Landrum

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