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This week on the Blog of Light, we’re catching up with master craftsman Gwyn Carless, the man behind one of The Light Yard’s most popular ranges, the GCD collection…
Expert craftsman Gwyn Carless keeps his head down in the studio – so much, in fact, that the collaboration with Jeff and the Light Yard team almost passed him by. “I completely missed his email and it nearly didn’t happen,” said Gwyn. “But Jeff was persistent. He rang to see why I hadn’t responded.” The collaboration that ensued would prove immensely fruitful, both creatively and in terms of commercial aims. “Before I met Jeff, I was trying to sell and make and do everything else. And to be honest there were days I just wanted to go and get a proper job.” But since he began working with The Light Yard, Gwyn has been able to place more focus on crafting, which has led to a surge of creativity, resulting in a flurry of new products and a rise in client briefs. “Over the last few years, things have gone up and up,” added Gwyn. ‘It’s been really exciting.”
The Light Yard first teamed up with Gwyn Carless Designs to handle sales of Gwyn’s eponymous GCD collection and has led more recently to their exciting joint project, the aptly-named Alchemist Collection.
The GCD range, however, is where it all started, and Gwyn can trace the collection back to its initial inspiration when, while still a design student at Loughborough College of Art and Design, he observed the effect of light passing through a stack of mirrors delivered to his father’s warehouse.
“The mirrors used to come in by the hundreds,” explained Gwyn. “The sun came in and would shine through the edges of these stacked up mirrors. I found out that it looked great both with natural light and unnatural light shining through.”
With breathtaking results, stacked glass would eventually become a hallmark feature of Gwyn’s collections.
Lovingly crafted by the hands of an artisan, the Acier Beacon Pillar Light exemplifies the quality and originality that can be found throughout the high-specification GCD collection, which is available at The Light Yard. According to Gwyn, clients who are focused on quality should choose products made by a craftsman, as opposed to opting for something from a high-street brand, since the materials used and the attention to detail may diminish when subject to the automation of mass production. 
Gwyn spends a lot more time thinking about lights and glass than the average person. He uses normal ‘float’ glass for most of his projects, which provides the lights with their vibrant green edge. Alternatively, clients can choose an opti-white clear-sided edge, which comes in handy if they are planning a particular colour scheme and the white-edged version better complements their chosen palette.