Butter emerged from the ability to see beauty in a mistake. One day at the turn of the millennium, designers David Weeks and Lindsey Adelman, who had met in Brooklyn, were working together in Weeks’ Brooklyn design studio. They were collaborating on a lighting project that involved folding and sewing large sheets of paper. The project was not going well. Failed prototypes lay strewn all over the floor and the duo had put down their tools in dismay. It was then that they noticed what Adelman calls “a sweet little curved shape” lying on the floor amid the debris. She picked it up and began to flex and fold it into different shapes and hold it to the light. There was an abstract and sculptural quality to this piece of pliable fabric; they both felt they were onto something.
During a lunch at Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, Adelman and Weeks talked only about their discovery, and how they would put it into production. By the time the check came, Butter was born and so was its first product: Lunette, a low-cost stitched fiberglass paper lampshade that clips onto a bare light bulb. Lunette went on to sell 10,000 units through stores such as MoMA and Urban Outfitters, to fill the windows of Bergdorf Goodman, and to pick up awards at London’s 100% Design and New York’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair, and a Design Distinction award in I.D. Magazine’s 1999 Annual Design Review.
Butter lighting products were known for being accessible, fun, and low-cost. The raw materials of lighting were often central features of a Butter design. Focusing attention on the bulb, socket and electrical wiring helped people appreciate the beauty in such humble industrial forms. The Daisy Chain, for example, was a string of low-watt light bulbs linked together with a wire spring that clasps each bulb so that the cord loops out behind them—just like the stems on a daisy chain. And Bucket Light, a large shade made out of a five-gallon translucent bucket liner, made a feature of the robust industrial orange cord that attached to the bulb.
Following the runaway success of Lunette–magazine editors, it seemed, could not get enough of it—Butter continued to add innovative products to their lighting line. Some of them, like Dumpling, evolved a theme contained in Lunette: the idea of using volume—the space inside a stitched fiberglass paper pocket—rather than a reflector, as a way to both contain and diffuse light. The Tong Wall Light focused more on light bulb itself: the way in which it is delicately trapped between the two curved aluminum walls of the sconce; and the way that, seen from above, the whole fitting formed the shape of a light bulb.
As Butter continued on their uncharted course, they began to receive commissions for interior lighting installations in stores, hotels, restaurants and spas. In parallel to the production of such lighting pieces, Butter began to take on the role of a champion for other kinds of products made by the duo and their acquaintances. The first product to catch Adelman and Weeks’ eye was a pair of miniature busts Ray and Charles Eames made by Charlie Becker as a gift. Adelman and Weeks commissioned Becker to produce a limited edition of 50 of the busts. Butter news tended to travel fast; no sooner had the plaster dried than a Cease and Desist fax arrived from the Eames Foundation. Undeterred by this inauspicious beginning, the designers continued to seek out objects that resonated with the Butter sensibility of fun, eclecticism, and wit. Butter Editions celebrated, amongst many other products, a stylish ceramic bird feeder, a CD sampler of the music of Turntables on the Hudson, and a bowl made entirely of rubber bands.
Butter’s website was the primary means of distribution for these products, but their most inspired and memorable retail vehicle was surely the Butter vending machine. The designers sourced the machine from a company in New Jersey, and filled it with necessarily small and limited-edition objects by such acclaimed designers as Jonathan Adler, Ted Muehling, Blu Dot, and Sigerson Morrison, as well as lesser-known talents. The vending machine, which made its debut at the 2003 ICFF, was a typical Butter concept: it was equally intriguing to participants, customers, and the press alike; it elicited the beauty of a prosaic form for others to enjoy; and it encapsulated the company’s democratic and unpretentious design ideals. It was also typical of the energy and attention to detail that went into creating each Butter experience. For instance, Adelman and Weeks even made an infomercial to accompany the Vending Machine. Dressed in jumpsuits and shades and an array of products, the two designers and a motley cast of their friends played their roles in a video that parodied the graphic formulae of late-night television advertising.
Butter’s range of products expanded and their collaborators multiplied. Their presence at the 2004 ICFF, for example, presented the fruits of collaborations with designers Ross Menuez, Elodie Blanchard, and Pat Keesey. The collection of woven polypropylene Jakarta totes hand-printed with bold graphic animals, MDF tables topped with veneer and silk-screened drawings, and a Rod Laver bean bag chair, was supplemented by Butter’s eclectic home accessories such as the dryly titled Sing Sing powder-coated lunch tray.
This increasing eclecticism and diversification began to suggest to Adelman and Weeks new paths along which their personal careers might develop. They were reluctant to let go of Butter and the winding down process took almost a year. By the end of 2005, however, it was clear to the designers that Adelman’s new priorities lay in art and conceptual design (she’s already had several solo shows) and that Weeks saw his business developing to include more furniture and products (in addition to his light fixtures available through Ralph Pucci International).
Adelman and Weeks are already nostalgic about the years they spent together as Butter. Misty-eyed they recall the company’s inaugural party, held in a Dumbo studio that still bears traces of the many Cosmopolitans consumed in honor of a small, white flat-packed lampshade that cost only $25.
visit the old site, or order something from the shop
