Ovarana takes its name from the Hindi word वारना (vaarna) - circling light around your loved one, to draw away what troubles them and leave warmth in its place. In Marathi the same gesture is ओवाळणे (o-vaal-ne): waving a small lamp in a slow circle before someone dear. In Gujarati, the ritual manifests as ઓવારણું (o-vaar-nu), a warm tradition of passing one's hands around a loved one's head and cracking the knuckles against one's own temples to take upon oneself their misfortunes and shower them with blessings.

The word holds both ideas at once, encircling and protecting, and both of them are made of light. We build lamps in that spirit — a few shapes kept for years rather than seasons, made one at a time in our own studio, for the corner of a room where someone is glad to be.

A light in whose presence you feel calm, composed, protected.