Both of you have different backgrounds, with Ben having a graphic design and furniture background and Aja having an art history and museum background. Being partners and long-time collaborators in the machine that is your studio, who specializes in what and in what areas do you converge or diverge?

We have always converged on the visual story of each piece that we make together. That is true whether I am physically making the piece or Ben is physically making the piece. We each have our own personal visual impulses and goals and they are very strong. As individuals we have strong opinions. The work of the partnership is the push and pull between the two of us bringing those personal impulses together into each object – the adding, removing, altering and shaping of this combined vision.

Lighting can be a more technically demanding and difficult field for designers. How closely do you work with the engineering aspects of your lights? You’re always innovating in terms of design, are you making similar advancements on the technical end?

We are. Despite being artists first, engineers second, in regards to how we move through the world, we created a custom LED light board that is the heart of most of our lighting collection. Not surprisingly, by innovating the engineering and design of the lighting’s technical aspects, artistic and aesthetic possibilities opened up to us. Shapes, forms and materials become possible alongside the technical specifications our clients need.

One of the most unique aspects of your studio is not only the amount of materials you choose to work with, but how far you’re able to push these materials. How do you balance between looking for new experiments and perfecting your current set, especially when there are products you’ve gained a reputation for like your mirrors?

This is when a partnership is helpful and brings a sense of balance. When one of us is interested in a new material, the other is usually the counterpoint and spending their time with a material we already work with. This interplay keeps us pushing boundaries and experimenting, while also maintaining a strong foundation. We are each other’s litmus tests.

We’ve seen firsthand that you do everything in house, from branding to shipping to even developing technology. What enabled you to get to that point, and why do you choose to do everything yourselves as opposed to outsourcing parts of the process?

I think doing most everything ourselves suits us well. It suits the nature of our studio as well, where we are largely creating made-to-order and custom commissions that use rare or expensive materials and skilled making techniques that we are creating in house. Who better to speak to, photograph, brand, packaging and ship the work than the people who made it? But perhaps that is what anyone with control issues might say.

Horsehair is a common motif in your work. What inspired you to start working with horsehair and what are all the different ways you’re incorporating/working with it now?

We often start with a material and find ways to best express that material through an object or function, which is different from starting with an object and asking, what is the best material for this object? Because a lot of compelling and evocative materials, like horsehair, may not not be the answer. Starting from materiality leads to more interesting experimentation and outcomes for us. We had been using various fibers such as silk, wool and mohair and this led to material research of other fibers. Also, we were living in an old house that had horsehair plaster walls. It was a sign.