In Conversation with Carl Everett
IESNYC President Zachary Pearson initiates conversations with creators and innovators whose work intersects with light in meaningful ways. To keep our community dynamic and fresh, we seek out design professionals who are inspired and curious. Only then can we look towards a future where new ideas and crossdisciplinary communication lead to smoother processes, more shared discoveries, and elevated project experiences.
Carl Everett
Principal Designer, Sense Lighting Design
IESNYC: My first experience with your work in the built environment at full scale was at Lightscape. Could you briefly touch on how you got involved, and how that kind of immersive, dynamic work has shaped your studio practice?
EVERETT: The 2 years I was involved in Lightscape [at Brooklyn Botanic Garden] were a fun diversion from my day-to-day. It brought some of the more experiential, theatrical side of my roots back together with architectural and large-scale installation work. An old friend and colleague got me into it: he'd worked on Lightscape in LA, and when the New York team needed a designer, he threw my name into the hat. Classic case of, who you know. It comes naturally, because I was involved in that kind of project for years before I really sank my teeth into what I'm doing now. But it requires spending 3 weeks on-site in November, and the planning starts in March. I needed some of that time back to focus on other things.
IESNYC: With that creative spark of getting back out in the field, did you find any adjustment in how you approach the more permanent pieces, coming back to your studio?
EVERETT: Actually, not really. In the studio, for my permanent work, I'm already a pretty hands-on, detail-oriented designer. When I'm in the field with electricians for final aim and focus, I want to be on top of the ladder myself. (Half the time the electricians seem put off by that; I have to tell them, it's not that I don't trust your work, it's that focusing the lights is my favorite part of the job.)
That happened at Lightscape too. We had a team of 10 electricians used to a designer standing around pointing. I told them: Let's save your time for laying out fixtures and power and data, because I'm going to focus every light myself. I still want to touch every light. So that didn't really change when I came back to the office. That's just the kind of designer I am.
Redesign for every venue
IESNYC: For exhibitions that travel from place to place, do you still do the focusing every time, or do you leave instructions referencing how you did it in the first location?
EVERETT: For most of those, the concept and freestanding elements remain from city to city, but the layout is redesigned for every venue. So yes, I generally travel to supervise the installation and do the aim and adjust myself. But it depends where we're installing… A detail-oriented crew of German electricians in Basel is a different experience than a crew four times the size in Shanghai, who are very good but work at a different pace and a different level of detail.
Much of my brand exhibition work is in high-end watches; we’re essentially lighting jewelry using display cases, custom conceptual displays, and millwork-integrated lighting. But those elements sit inside an environment we also want to treat, so there's usually a second layer of lighting design that’s more theatrical. It's a combination of working my architectural muscles while also stepping back into the theatrical designer [role], directing a local team up on a lift.
We've always been lucky to have a thorough prototyping phase on the brand exhibitions. The client travels to the fabricator's shop and everybody looks at it together – a lot of time in design charrettes and reviews. Surprisingly, as I've moved into more permanent institutional work, I've found less of that. Fewer mock-ups and more drawing on paper, for installations that are supposed to last a lot longer than the temporary projects.
The world of luxury brands can fund a process that allows for a lot of back-and-forth. The expectations for an “elevated” experience are so high. We're talking about elaborate theatrical-style productions. The opening date is set months in advance, and there is often a kickoff event with lots of VVIPs. We might spend 6 to 9 months planning, designing, and test building these types of projects; but it's all got to come together in sometimes as little as 10 to 12 days once you're on site.
In the most extreme cases, we'd go a step further than mock-ups and do a full test build of the entire project, off-site at the fabricator's shop before it ever gets crated and shipped. Bringing together museum-quality millwork integrations with environmental design and event production can be intense. The timelines and schedules come naturally to me, but I can handle 18 hour days in small doses.
It's been a treat to participate in a level of mocking up and prototyping that I don't think we're able to see very often in the architectural world. You can't argue with seeing it all come together first. It's time-consuming, but it works out the kinks in advance.
Timelines getting tighter
IESNYC: For a quick pop-up, you'd want products that are readily off-the-shelf. But with high-end brands, do you find opportunities for customization or mods on fixtures?
EVERETT: Sometimes, sometimes not. Over the last 10 years, the production timelines clients expect have gotten shorter and shorter, and the opportunity for mods has diminished with that timeline. In the earlier days (I think the first large-scale traveling exhibition I did was 2012) we had about 9 months between contracting and delivery. A healthy design process. We'd order display case lighting with custom powder-coated interior bevels. We don't want a 10 mm snoot, can you give us a 7 mm snoot?
That’s hard to do now, because we don't have the time. I'm finding first calls from clients 6 to 8 weeks out. I got a call [earlier this spring] from an agency that wanted me to design all the display lighting for the [confidential] store on Fifth Avenue. And they wanted to launch around Labor Day. I told them: pick three or four treatments you really want to invest in, but I can't commit to a full scope for the entire store or the production timeline will burn all my rep relationships. That's a hard project to turn down, but you've got to think about what's realistic.
Agency as architect
IESNYC: Can you talk about the experiential side of traveling exhibits? There are high expectations for both production and storytelling.
EVERETT: Yes, these projects are directed by a brand's marketing department, so storytelling is a heavy element. I've rarely been engaged directly by a marketing department, though. These projects usually find me through a branding or marketing agency, which can be considered a sort of architect for these projects. There usually isn't an actual architect involved, since these are traveling exhibitions. An agency will manage the assembly and fabrication and design, and there's often an outside concept designer working with the agency, the brand, and consultants like me.
As someone with a theatrical background, what I bring to that process is the immersive, storytelling piece. Even though I'm merely the lighting designer, clients and artists sometimes ask me to help decide on other elements, like wall placement, wall color, finishes. Because that's all part of the storytelling. Some clients appreciate that finer understanding of how light can tell a story more than others, but it's always wonderful to be brought in at that root level.
IESNYC: When you do get to collaborate with an artist at that level, are they often collections already assembled? Or are you working with artists creating work for the exhibition itself?
EVERETT: For many years I worked with a luxury brand on the design of their presence at Art Basel. Every year we'd develop a new concept that involved commissioning an artist to create work for the exhibition. So I’ve worked with artists in many ways: sometimes on small scopes within larger projects, other times they’re large solo exhibitions.
But I've also had relationships with individual artists to develop exhibitions that are self-produced, gallery-produced, institutionally produced…. They’re all a little different. I’ve been lucky to be involved not only in the big-picture exhibition design, but occasionally in the development of certain artworks.
So in some cases, yes, I'm involved in the real material development of the artwork. But I don't think of myself as an artist. I consider myself as someone who supports art, and helps create environments that facilitate the experience of the artwork.
IESNYC: How do you find the people you work with on a project: the collaborators with the same vocabulary and problem-solving instincts?
EVERETT: Every project is different. If we're installing a small art or brand exhibition, Sense Lighting Design sometimes acts as producer, and for those I might hire a project manager and a team of event or production electricians. Those teams are generally theatrically trained, and I've developed a network. I stay away from producing on the larger traveling exhibitions, because it's cleaner to draw the line and act as a creative consultant alone.
For architectural workflows, it’s more challenging to bring in assistants and associates. So for most of that work, I'm a solo practitioner.
Projects that require both architectural design and experiential lighting are often the most interesting.
Do you have to choose?
IESNYC: Did you ever have to choose between architecture and theater?
EVERETT: My first job in architecture was a summer internship at Fisher Marantz Stone. A year after that I worked at Focus Lighting. At a certain point, finishing my training, Paul Gregory told me: Carl, you've got to make a decision. Architecture or theater? You can't do both. I told him, No, I'm not going to choose just one.
For 8 years after that, I kept working as a theatrical designer alongside the architectural work. I think of myself as a lighting designer, non-specific. In the beginning, I made an effort to keep the two bodies of work – theatrical and architectural – separate, because I didn’t want my architectural clients to know about my theatrical background. These days, my mentality is: let's have a conversation and see if it's a good fit. If it’s an interesting challenge, let's take the next step.
Ultimately, though, I think Paul was right. There was a point in 2015 when I started to transition away from theater, dance, and opera. Then I stopped. As a designer now, I think it would be hard to do both.
IESNYC: You're not really a lighting designer in the traditional architectural or theatrical sense. You're a designer and creator whose medium is light.
EVERETT: I just try to be me, and take every day as it comes.
