The American Craft Council Atlanta Show
10 a.m. – 8 p.m. March 14; 10 a.m. – 6 p.m March 15; 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. March 16. $5-$28. Cobb Galleria Centre, 2 Galleria Parkway S.E., Atlanta. 612-206-3100, www.craftcouncil.org/atlanta.
Craftsman Omar El-Khalidi, whose unique lamps can be seen at the upcoming American Craft Council Atlanta Show, recalls a light-bulb moment while working in the dark.
The Savannah-based general contractor who specializes in historic preservation was underneath an 1800’s house in Darien, Ga., on his hands and knees, venturing into the dark crawlspace.
While working on a beam in the cramped confines, wiping the occasional cobweb from his face, El-Khalidi kept noticing a peep of light in his peripheral vision. Yet each time he would turn and look in that direction, it would be gone.
Armed with only a tiny work light, El-Khalidi kept his focus, resisting the temptation to give in to curiosity and chase after it. Then it happened again.
El-Khalidi shut off his work light and set his eyes on the mysterious section of the crawlspace.
“All of a sudden through the floorboard glowed this most beautiful color of ruby red about the size of a dime,” he said. “That’s when I figured it out.”
Sunbeams coming through a window in the room above were interrupted by floating clouds, and as the beams would hit the floor’s surface, they would illuminate and shine through a tiny, thin spot of the longleaf heart pine floor board. The sunlight caused a brilliant, heavenly gleam.
El-Khalidi was onto something.
He says heart pine, when cut thinly and correctly and lighted, luminesces into the same striking color he first saw from below that house in Darien.
Whether he’s fixing the walls of a modest plantation cabin or working on a scaffold nearly 200 feet in the air outside the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Savannah, El-Khalidi often comes across copious amounts of that treasured longleaf heart pine.
He takes these historic, finite raw materials left over from repair and salvage projects and transforms them into lamps, ranging from smaller table models to larger floor lamps and elaborate chandeliers. He uses the wood to make bases for the lamps, but the shades are composed of a matrix of pine and glass. Using a paper-thin cut of longleaf heart pine as part of the shade allows the lamp to blush in a palette running the gamut from pale yellow to deep amber.
And each piece of wood he uses has its own story. While on his day job as owner and chief operator of Sterling Builders & Restoration, Inc., he works on some of the most storied structures in the state. Of course, history remains rich in Savannah, running thicker than a bowl of hardened grits.
He catalogs every damaged chunk and beam, documenting where each remnant originally came from. One is a piece of beam from a circa 1842 warehouse, which still sits on the Savannah River. Another might be a residence’s baseboard chewed up by termites. El-Khalidi draws upon scraps from Savannah’s Massie School, the first public school in the state. Some wood comes from the birthplace of Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low. He says as many as two or three lamps may be cut and shaped from the same source.
“The species of longleaf pine was so integral to the success of the colonies,” El-Khalidi said. “At the time it was the most sought-after wood in the country. This particular tree was a special, wonderful natural resource for building, because it’s one of the most hearty trees, and it’s impervious to disease and fire.”
The result of his discovery is his second company, Longleaf Lighting. Expect him to bring approximately 25 of his creations to the American Craft Council Atlanta Show March 14-16 at Cobb Galleria Centre.
The lamps range in price from $300 to $450 for the smaller ones to $900 for larger and more complex lamps.
Each light comes with a background card, which tells the tale of where the wood came from. El-Khalidi lists the name of the building, its function and age. He uses his restoration detective skills to look at the ring count on the lumber and the saw curves to determine when and where the lumber was milled.
The background stories prove to be as colorful as the lamps’ glow. The beam from that warehouse on the Savannah River can be traced back to the Civil War itself. The building was used by Sherman’s troops, who spared the city for the general to give it to President Lincoln as a Christmas present. While restoring the warehouse, El-Khalidi discovered a wall featuring a hand-drawn map of part of the Southeast, courtesy of Sherman’s men. It was “uncanny how accurate it was,” he said.
The same adjective might be used to describe the union of El-Khalidi’s professional and artistic expertise.
“I think Omar is very detail-conscious and his job requires it,” said Ken Spriggs of the Spriggs Group, a Savannah architecture firm, that’s worked with El-Khalidi for the better part of 20 years. His art “sort of came out of his preservation work and transitioned into the work you’ll see at the show.”
El-Khalidi will be one of approximately 240 artisans at the American Craft Council Atlanta Show, its 25th anniversary edition.
