Nine paper lamps occupy three shelves in Oswaldo Chinchilla’s New Haven apartment. Some swell into globes or pears; others flatten into flying saucers. Slender wooden legs support their oversized shades, whose ribs show through the paper like lines on a globe. Switched on, they reveal a web of natural fibers and cast a warm yellow light.
On the shelves below sit rows of collected wooden vessels, their rounded shoulders and narrow necks offering clues to the shapes above. Nearby stand vintage Eames Storage Unit bookshelves rescued from a Noguchi Museum annex in New York, whose paper lamps helped inspire Chinchilla’s own. A Bertoia poster hangs among portraits and botanical art. And beside a wooden flat file, another of Chinchilla’s creations blooms: a pair of flower-shaped speakers, their red and yellow petals surrounding speaker cones atop green stems. He has collected some of the things around him and made many others. His newest rescued find is a puppy, still unnamed at publication time.
Chinchilla came to Connecticut from Guatemala at 14. Finding his place took time. The Educational Center for the Arts on Audubon Street helped him develop an early ability to draw. At the Rhode Island School of Design, he learned how to make things in wood, metal, clay and cloth. Yale brought him back to New Haven for architecture, first for a master’s and now a PhD.
Meanwhile, he was collecting, occasionally reselling and studying the things he wanted to live with. These days, other people want to live with the things he makes too.
Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Thank you for the delicious coffee. Let's jump in. What did you expect America to be like?
The movie I was thinking of was 21 Jump Street. It was fresh in my mind, and I was like, “That movie’s gonna be real.” It was exactly like that. I mean, I wasn’t a police officer in disguise, but literally my first day, someone offered me drugs. I was like, “No, no, I’m good.” And they never spoke to me again.
I spoke very little English—little things here and there. For orientation, this guy called, and I still don’t know if he was asking me for glasses for drinks or glasses for my eyes. I showed up the next day with both just in case.
My story is incredibly privileged and really lucky. My dad already came in with a job, and we had family who took us in while we figured out a house. Then we moved to Woodbridge. But in my first year, I struggled a lot with meeting people. I had maybe four friends. I’m really close to one of them still—my earliest friend in the U.S.
What changed when you found the Educational Center for the Arts?
That school changed my life. Some students there encouraged me to apply. I always knew how to draw. I was always okay at it. So I applied to visual arts for my last two years of high school.
I was able to really focus because I only had two years, and that’s very little time to put together anything. When I came in as a junior, they immediately started putting me on college prep. A scouting guy from RISD came by, and he liked my work and told me I could be much better. I think that made me work hard.
How about when you got to RISD?
I like building. I’m a builder. I majored in industrial design, and I took classes that helped me learn building, construction and fabrication: woodworking, metalworking, machining, molding, clay working—anything. I took lighting design classes, stitching, sewing. I tried to soak it all in.
I loved Providence. What a nice city, with so many makers. And that’s the nice thing about having a network of artists and makers: You can ask them. I always look for advice from classmates because they all have different skills.
Where did the collecting come from?
When I was a kid, my dad was always concerned that maybe I was watching too much TV. There was this show, Kenan & Kel, and he hated it. He was worried I was going to try to replicate the super dumb things they were doing.
The funny thing is, he had no trouble with me watching the History Channel. And the History Channel had something worse: Pawn Stars. Instead of gravitating toward Kenan & Kel, I gravitated toward antiques.
Based on that show, I knew America was filled with all these beautiful objects and furniture that no one was fully paying attention to. When I was in college, I began collecting stuff.
On occasion I’ve seen you carrying some amazing finds either in or out…
You can always find something new. You can always find more stuff. If I didn’t sell them, I would have way too many. I can only sit in one chair at a time.
So I began selling, trying to keep what I loved and selling the excess. But I don’t want to turn it into a business. I thought about it. There was a point when I furnished two houses. Professors from undergrad were moving from Brooklyn, and they were like, “Would you help us furnish this house?” I was like, “I have plenty of stuff to furnish a house.”
For a second, I might have gone that route, but by then I was already in grad school in architecture, so I didn’t have time to do it full-time.
How did you get from industrial design to architecture—and back to making household items?
I was graduating in 2020, and I already had a job offer. Then COVID started, and they froze hiring. Another company hired me remotely, consulting for fabrication and construction. That turned into freelancing. But I told myself, “I have this degree in industrial design. I want to make something that I enjoy, that actually talks to me.” I set up a studio in my parents’ garage in Woodbridge and was building things from there.
I went back to school for architecture. It was incredibly tough, but I was lucky to find faculty I really gravitated toward. One of them is my PhD advisor now.
Because I’m doing this PhD in architectural sciences, where I don’t work with furniture specifically—which is something I love—I needed to find something I could do from home. Something I could make multiples of, and that didn’t occupy all my time. When I made a live edge table, it took me months to place the legs where I wanted them. These lamps are different. I wanted something I could control, where I knew what the outcome was.
What inspired you to make lamps?
There’s a very rich history of lamp-making. Japanese artists and makers have been making them for centuries. There are people like Isamu Noguchi and George Nakashima. I love what they do. I love going to their museums and exhibitions. And George Nelson, too.
Because I like design and designed objects so much, I’ve always wanted to buy a Nelson lamp, a Nelson saucer. All those things are very pricey. I found myself in the lucky position of knowing that I can build those things, so I do it.
I’ve been trying to branch out, because at the end of the day I realized these are heavily inspired by a Noguchi or a Nelson lamp. I think there’s so much more volume to be seen.
What did your creative process look like?
The first thing that happened was I made the wooden bases. I turned them on a lathe, which is probably one of my favorite woodworking tools. I knew they were going to be lamps, but I didn’t know what the shape was going to be.
I built two shapes, put them on, and they were wrong. They didn’t look good. I kept them for maybe a month, and then I was like, “I’ve got to try again.” I made another one, and it was even worse.
Then I was like, “I don’t want to get rid of these. They’re kind of nice. I’m going to make a base for them.” I figured if I wanted to produce that from home, I needed to build the base from home, too. So I printed a jig that lets me drill into a thick wooden dowel to put legs in.
That was one of my smartest moments: making this little base I could produce in a few minutes. At that point, I was like, “I’ve got to make a series of these.”
For the, well… less creative, how do you get started?
I usually start with drawing. Pencil, paper. I draw the outline and build into it. For nine shapes, I probably modeled 40. I tweaked them, moved them, scaled them.
I build the shell, the shape itself. Because I have a Rhino model, I can extract the surface that’s going to cover it and laser-cut a plywood die, then use a knife to cut the paper by hand. I stack 12 pieces of paper and cut them all at the same time. Then I apply glue slowly through the entire piece. Some shapes are simpler than others. The more complex ones take custom panels at every stage.
From start to finish, maybe it would take four to five hours. But I batch them. I can glue the bases together and let those dry while I cut the paper. At one point, I redesigned this entire space to be like an assembly line.
What has it been like seeing them leave the apartment?
I didn’t make these to sell them. That was not my intent. I posted a photo on Instagram, and friends were like, “Are you selling them? Will you make me one?” That’s how I got the ball rolling. I’ve sold 46 now.
I sold one to a guy in SoHo. He asked how I was going to get it there, and I said I’d do it. I brought it in my car and drove down. He came down to the lobby and said, “Oh, so you deliver it yourself.” I was like, “It’s just me. I have no one else.”
His apartment looked like a Design Within Reach store. He told me this was the first thing he’d bought handmade. He felt [the space] was lacking warmth.
I love seeing my lamps in people’s homes. It’s such a fulfilling feeling. I hope that one day my architecture, my building, also follows that trajectory, where I can share it with more people.
What do you hope other people take from your work?
Overall, I hope people start making for themselves again. People are too quick to buy. I’m guilty of that as well. But if you want a table, you can potentially make it. If you want a hook to hang your towel, you can make that with wire.
When I was a kid, I would grab a metal hanger and bend it out and do something with it. My first sculptures were wire sculptures and balls of tape. There was a woodworker who worked with my family, and I was the one asking for things to be made. I think maybe that stuck with me.
Finding solutions for things you want is a more rewarding experience. I would like everyone to feel empowered enough to build their own products, their own whatever it is they want to make.
For more of Oswaldo's art, check out his website and Instagram.
Written by Daily Nutmeg Staff. Photographs by Oswaldo Chinchilla.
