As with language, design leverages semiotics – the study of signs and symbols regarding their messaging, associations, and emotions – to imbue creations with meaning beyond their material presence. Blue Green Works announces the release of Crown, a new lighting collection that translates the centuries-old emblem of authority into contemporary, sculptural forms. Designed by founder and creative director Peter B. Staples, the collection explores the object’s semiotic resonance while adding to the contemporary language of American Craft.
A crown is not merely a jeweled headpiece; it is shorthand for inheritance, ceremony, and the gravitas of tradition. Staples’ Crown collection enters this symbolic arena with intention and humility.
The initial inspiration arose from a story reporting on medieval crowns discovered hidden in a Lithuanian cathedral wall, wrapped in wartime newspapers. Stripped down and minimal, these relics resonated not only as objects of metal and form but as symbols of survival and meaning. “I’ve always been fascinated when something is both object and symbol, literal and figurative,” Staples notes.
Crown comprises four variations: Pendant I, Pendant II, Pendant III, and Flush Mount. Each balances symbolism with pragmatism. Unlike historical crowns decorated with embellishment, these fixtures are distilled to silhouette and glow. They hold the memory of their source material but reframe it in a modernist vocabulary of curves, proportion, and restraint. By abstracting the crown into glass and metal, Blue Green Works detaches it from its historical weight while retaining its symbolic charge.
The resulting pieces do not coronate, but illuminate. Available in seven colors, hand-formed glass “petals” radiate from a polished steel or brass core, a visual metaphor for rays of light emanating from a single point. The fixtures capture both the physical quality of illumination and the cultural echoes of the crown as an enduring sign.
“I like the idea of light itself, rays of light, as a sculptural element, how it shapes and cuts a space,” Staples adds. “Crown gives these leading lines of energy in reflections and glass, emanating from a central defined point.”
Subtle nods to Pierre Paulin’s biomorphic forms situate Crown within the lineage of modern design, while its reliance on American glassmaking roots it in the present craft landscape. Developed with master artisans in the Pacific Northwest, the collection embodies the fusion of experimentation and precision. Each piece emerges from a multi-phase process requiring patience and expertise – the kind of specialized knowledge that only a handful of workshops in the United States can achieve.
For Staples, who studied film before turning to design, the collaborative nature of craft is central. “It’s exciting to work with people who know more than I do,” he says. “We’re not dressing anything up here – we want good, honest materials. To tap people with this level of expertise is what allows us to have such rich material handling.”
The process is inseparable from the product. Crown’s subtle twilight glow and concentrated downward beam are not incidental but the outcome of thoughtful experimentation, refining glass into an expressive yet functional form. The fixtures embody an “affective presence” – the ability of objects to resonate beyond utility, eliciting sensory and emotional responses through their tactile and visual qualities. Here, craft is not about nostalgia or trend. It is about clarity, fidelity, and presence.
“We’re not designing for hype or collectability,” Staples emphasizes. “We’re interested in making work with a solid ethos, a clear idea, and the integrity to hold up over time.”
Though deeply rooted in American craft traditions, Crown has an international presence underscoring how symbols traverse cultural boundaries, economies, and styles. A crown, after all, is globally legible, but here its message has been reframed for contemporary interiors – distilled, elemental, and versatile.
Staples is cautious about assigning national identity to the work, but he acknowledges its place in a broader cultural dialogue. “I think our work feels American, but it’s also varied and still being defined. What matters most is that it connects – that it reflects the culture it exists within and has presence and longevity.”
Crown is available now through bluegreenworks.com, SCP in London, and Triode in Paris.
Photography by Matthew Gordon.
