Snail Lamp

A lamp in the shape of a snail, with the spiral shell forming the body of the piece and the head and stalks lending it the slightly comic, slightly tender look that snails always seem to carry. It belongs to the small genre of creature lamps that pass as ornaments during the day and only admit what they are for after dark. A spiral is a rewarding subject for lighting. The coil gives the eye something to follow instead of one blank curve, and the whorls of a shell carry their own rhythm before anything is switched on at all. This is a soft-hearted design rather than a stern one, which is worth knowing going in. It belongs in a nursery, a cosy reading corner, or in the hands of someone who collects odd small animals and has run out of shelf.