TARDIGRADE by Micah Heimlich

SEA SPONGE SERIES (“RHINOCEROS”) NATURAL LIGHT Powder-coated bronze-cast sea sponge, red agate, raw uncut rubies, halite stalactite, leather-wrapped lead straps, antique bronze foot...

SEA SPONGE SERIES (“HYDROTHERMAL VENTS”) NATURAL LIGHT Bronze-cast desert burl, Sonora Alandra double-terminated amethyst & ghost amethyst, milled aluminum base, LED lights, cloth-covered cord, 2019-20, 7.125 x 3.375 x 10 in. Micah Heimlich is a versatile artist and designer whose Furbishure collections further demonstrate his California Surrealist sensibilities. Heimlich uses naturally sourced materials to create unique and thoughtful pieces that combine the functional with the fantastic, resulting in far-flung product designs such as furniture, fittings, and fine art. Heimlich’s uncanny looking assemblages can even be described as “art sponges,” with whimsical surfaces that belie their deep subterranean sources from art, architecture, and design. While some Furbishure collections feature minerals such as mica and gemstones, others, like the recent “Oumuamua” series, incorporate organic remains such as sea sponges and desert burls. Heimlich makes colored metal casts of these found objects and then combines them to form lamps, standing “shadow pieces,” and other novelties. The resulting formal hybrids oscillate between fine art and Gebrauchskunst, on the one hand, and Baroque architecture and Bernard Palissy’s decorated grottos and ceramic dishes on the other. As with another of Heimlich’s recent collections, the “Sea Sponge Series,” these new “Oumuamua” pieces chime with the traditional Wunderkammer, which, like the Opificio Delle Pietre Dure in Florence, Italy, is dedicated to the curiosities and rarities of the natural world. For “Oumuamua,” Heimlich’s multistoried sources include Yves Klein’s Blue Sponge paintings and objects, Jean Dubuffet’s impish sponge figures like Le danseur, and Piero Manzoni’s Lines of Infinite Length traced by an ink-soaked sponge. Furthermore, by extending these tracings to the Dutch designer Marcel Wanders’s “Kaleido of Life” and other organically intertwined works, such as his 1997 “Sponge Vase...

DESERT BURL SERIES (“DUMBO SQUID”) NATURAL LIGHT Bronze-cast desert burl, fluorite, polished agate stones, LED lights, cloth-covered cord, 2019-20, 11.5 x 5 x 5 in. Micah Heimlic...

DESERT BURL SERIES (“OYSTERS”) ILLUMINATED SCULPTURE SCONCES Black nickel and silver plated bronze, LED lights, 2020, 9 x 11 x 2.5 in. The decorative metal plates mount over (2) t...

2022, mica panels & applied color powder coating on ceramic fiber paper, 15 x 15.5 x 2.25 in. mounted in maple floater frame. Designer Micah Heimlich has incorporated mica into his creations for over a decade. This versatile mineral has found its place as cladding for furniture, decorative windows...

2022, mica panels & applied color powder coating on ceramic fiber paper, 14.25 x 14.25 x 1.75 in. mounted in maple floater frames Designer Micah Heimlich has incorporated mica into ...

In 1967, Olivier Mourgue invented a flower shaped lighting device, made of aluminum petals fixed on two chromed metal wires, for sconces, ceiling lights and standing lamps. He used t...

Pair of fine carved diamond form rock crystal lamps with nickel-plated bases, created by Phoenix Gallery, NYC. To the top of rock cr...

A pair of fine carved diamond form rock crystal lamps with polished brass bases. Created by Phoenix Gallery. Each lamp installs 2 sock...

Pair of fine carved smoky rock crystal lamps with polished brass bases. Created by Phoenix Gallery. To the top of rock crystal height: 17 inch. (Lampshade not included).

Pair of fine carved smoky rock crystal lamps with polished brass bases created by Phoenix Gallery. To the top of rock crystal height: 17 inch. (Lampshade not included).

Finely carved smoky rock crystal. Carved and polished into a natural form and waves. Polished brass stand. Created by Phoenix Gallery, NYC.