Lamps I made for my installation Chuck’s Scraps the Chewing Fat show at Kristina Kite Gallery curated by Nancy Lupo

For Chuck’s Scraps I made replicas of a pair of homemade fluorescent lamps made by a man named Chuck. For his lamps, Chuck used sheet metal from the Douglas aircraft factory, where he worked. For my lamps, I used materials from Chuck’s scrap pile.

During the duration of the show, one of my lamps went out. I went to trouble shoot it and it seemed to be a problem with the lamp ballast, rather than the tube.

So I brought the lamp home to fix it. I only had one night to fix it because the gallery was open the next day. The electronic ballasts I used for the lamps were unusually short- they had to be to fit in the base. I went to the hardware store and all the electronic ballasts there were too long to fit. Then, I remembered a fluorescent desk lamp I bought at a garage sale a few months earlier. Its magnetic ballast was much smaller than the electronic ballast and would fit in the base. I took apart both lamps and wired in the magnetic ballast. The magnetic ballast was a lot lighter than the electronic ballast, so I had to add in some weight in order to anchor down the lamp. I used some hinges that I found among Chuck's scraps.

That’s when I learned the difference between a magnetic ballast and an electronic ballast: a magnetic ballast needs a “starter” to turn on.

I had seen starters at the hardware store but didn’t know what they were. I went back to the hardware store and bought one. They didn’t sell sockets for the starters, but the mount was similar to a two prong halogen light socket, which they did sell. Similar, but not exactly compatible. I had to bend the prongs and break the casing to make it fit in the socket. It’s not pretty, but it worked.

I wired the ballast and starter all together and arranged them in the base with the hinges and sealed the lamp back up. It worked!

My fix was actually closer to the internals Chuck’s lamps– which also use an old magnetic ballast and starter.