April 13th, 2026Let there be light
Kyle Barnes caught up with an old mate, artist and sparky extraordinaire Gary Miles, who with his wife Jen, has recently opened an eclectic shop in Creswick called Imperial Lighting. Kyle chatted with Gary and used the opportunity to roll out every lighting and electrical reference and pun he could think of. Apologies in advance.
Kyle: So, what sparked your interest in lighting enough to start a shop?
Gary: I started getting a real shine for lighting about 10 years ago, renovating a lot of properties around Hepburn Shire and starting to work with people in their kitchens and dining rooms. I had a real interest in how light plays a role in our lives and in our homes. And what started out being a small thing started to grow. And as we started to look for more and more ways of doing things, it forced us to research and discover and to learn what light does in a room space. We play with things and break things down, light fittings, all sorts of things, from outside garden lighting to inside lighting in a lounge room. The past 10 years have been very interesting in what we can do with light, from light bulbs themselves to the fittings, where we put the light and where we put contrast in the room.
Kyle: Do you have any formal education in lighting?
Gary: It’s a self-taught thing. Jen has an eye for things and she’s half of the equation, she’s a really harsh critic and she is certain when I’ve got it wrong. I find it’s one thing to have a trade background being an electrician and to morph over a little bit into, I won’t say designer, but I’ll say it’s a keen interest in lamps, lights and styles.
Kyle: When did you hit the switch to kick off the business?
Gary: It was probably five years ago that we started collecting bits and pieces but Jennifer and I, going back maybe 15 years ago were bumping around through second-hand shops everywhere and Jen would look at an old Murano chandelier in the corner and tell me to buy that. And I would and I’d restore it and it’s probably an $8000 to $12,000 Murano that hangs in our bedroom today. We opened just on December last year and had a flurry of activity. Before that, every time I left when I was constructing the shop and I’d haphazardly leave the door unlocked, people would come in and start scavenging over all the stock, and our shop wasn’t even open yet.
Kyle: What about the task of fumbling around in the dark, getting stock in?
Gary: We started with Facebook Marketplace and in the early days I would do a two-day run around Melbourne. I’d go out to Berwick, Hastings…I’d go everywhere and I’d look at all these lights. We would also go to auctions only to discover that there’s a whole scam of people reproducing things, throwing them into auctions with a bit of dirt over them and you get it home and it’s a piece of junk. Straight in the bin. So now we’re researching heavily because you’re investing time in all this, finding out what’s real and reading the wording very carefully and what people describe things as. A Tiffany-style is not the same as Tiffany. It’s very different, despite the fact the light will look drop dead gorgeous. I have just recently purchased a Tiffany- style lamp and it’s sitting on my table over there and I can’t take my eyes off it. It’s gorgeous but it’s not a $4000 lamp.
Kyle: Your thoughts for the future and where will this little lightshow end up?
Gary: The exciting part will be to fire up a kiln and start casting. I want to make my own light, bend a bit of glass and do a bit of casting in metal and see if I can make something that I truly love myself. That’s for my old age when I’ve stopped running around being an electrician to the main street of Creswick. When that day finally comes, I’ll sit down in front of the kiln and we’ll start doing other things.
Image: Kyle Barnes | Scan the QR code for a wander around the store.
