Seven crates, one wall of light

At the end of September we closed the workshop for half a day and packed. Seven crates left for India, each lined with foam our makers cut by hand to the shape of one lamp, because a shade that survives the road from our benches to somebody else's hall is a shade nobody has to remake. Design India opened in the middle of October, and for four days our work hung under a ceiling we did not build.

We brought a small family of pieces: the hand-beaten wall sconces that throw a copper shadow twice their own size, two pendants in smoked glass, and a floor lamp whose stem we bend while the brass is still warm enough to argue with. Nothing on the stand was new. We wanted the fair to meet the objects our hands have lived with for years, not a collection invented for the occasion.

What the days were like

• Mornings began with our lights off, so the hall's own daylight could show what the metal does without any help from us.
• Visitors touched everything. We stopped guarding the pieces and started explaining them, and the explanations grew shorter each day.
• Architects asked about the finish first and the wattage second, which told us something honest about what our work is for.
• Two interior studios asked whether the wall sconce could be made taller. We said yes, and we meant it.

The reception surprised us by how quiet it was. Nobody applauded a lamp. People stood still, tilted their heads, then asked how the seam was hidden, and that is the question we like best, because the seam is exactly where a hand has been. We answered it as often as we could, and every answer ended the same way: slowly, and by one person.

We came home with lighter crates and heavier notebooks. Design India gave our objects a room we do not own, and the room gave them back to us slightly changed. Light travels. It still has to be carried.