Pipe Dreams

When Channel 5 reporter John Atwater isn’t piecing together stories for the day’s newscast, you can often find him at his South End kitchen table, where he assembles quirky, sculptural floor and table lamps from iron pipe, bulbs, and other hardware-store finds. Atwater attributes his industrial design sensibility to growing up in manufacturing-heavy Milwaukee, and to the lasting fascination with filaments and wires he developed as a child while tagging along with his father, an electrical engineer. Now he’s lighting up our lives — and living rooms — with a collection sold exclusively at J.E.M. that will soon include one-of-a-kind sconces and hanging fixtures.

Lighting by John Atwater iron-pipe table lamp with halogen bulbs, $525, J.E.M., 470 Shawmut Ave., Boston, 617-391-0490, jemhome.com.