Elegant and Innovative Ceramic Light Fixtures Built to Last

Ted Bradley crafts intelligently designed ceramic lighting.

2 hours ago

James Farrell,

Mobile Series Porcelain Dome lights are mounted on free-hanging mobiles for these fixtures. “Every mobile is hand-balanced to the millimeter and to the gram,” says the artist. | Photo: Courtesy Ted Bradley Studio

Ted Bradley left his tech job in November 2019 to pursue a dream of making handmade sculptural lighting fixtures. A lifelong ceramicist, he works with a rare white porcelain. The closed rings he envisioned had a simple elegance, but they were anything but simple to make, Bradley recalls.

“At the beginning of the journey, a couple of master mold-makers told me it might be impossible,” says the artist. What he thought would take a few months became a year of hard work. There was no easy “light bulb” moment, but a long process of trial and error leveraging his background as an engineer to invent techniques. “I went through about 1,400 pounds of clay, hundreds of failures,” he says. “I created seven different systems. But that seventh one, we’re still using today.”

Ted Bradley The craftsman lives and works in Boulder. His innovative studio’s latest collection offers domes that range from 8 to 22 inches. | Photo: Benjamin Büren

Bradley’s Boulder studio implements that system to bring beautiful lighting to the Mountain West. The pieces are not only a feat of innovation involving new methods and a custom fire chamber; they’re also built with as many sustainable practices as possible, using what might be the industry’s first return-packaging program to cut down on waste. But Bradley recognizes that real sustainability needs to be aesthetic as well as practical. “It’s not just about how we create. It’s also about what we create.

High-quality pieces that use timeless design will be with clients for a decade or more,” he says. His light fixtures rise to that challenge, displaying true elegance. Whether nesting together on linear supports, hanging like fruit from weighted branches, or floating in arrays of pendants, there’s a quiet autonomy to each glowing formation, as if they were naturally occurring organisms.

Swag Pendants Hanging from graceful, sweeping lines, the pendants are fully customizable. | Photo: Courtesy Ted Bradley Studio

Bradley designed his latest Dome series, which launched last summer, with Colorado specifically in mind. It uses an entirely new process that took another two years to develop. While the Ring series skews to ultra-contemporary, the Domes capture an ageless, versatile look suited to a wide range of styles, from transitional to Mountain Modern. As with the Rings, he offers a variety of fixtures: mounted on armatures, arranged in constellations of three or more or ornamenting balanced mobiles that can undulate with gentle air currents, their arms articulating freely without colliding.

The studio now produces 35 proprietary glaze finishes, further tailoring each piece to its home, adding texture and color to porcelain that would otherwise be a clean, contemporary white. He encourages clients to mix and match finishes and fixture types. “Everything’s à la carte,” says Bradley. “Folks often come up with their own configuration.

Rhythm Series Punctuating space like measured quarter notes on a sheet of music, this timeless series can be mounted in a straight line or on a circular armature. | Photo: Courtesy Ted Bradley Studio

We rarely make the same piece twice, so the piece people end up with is usually the only one like it in the world.” He helps homeowners brainstorm what’s possible and find an arrangement that’s right for their space. “That’s the fun part. We can sketch something new together. We’re always rolling out new designs,” he says. “And we love to invite people to tour the studio and see what we’re up to.”

Sconces Complementing spaces from large to small, these light fixtures emit a soft glow onto the wall behind them. | Photo: Courtesy Ted Bradley Studio