December 12, 2003
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At long last, it's a dodecahedral expansion of Ora. That makes four in the family: Ora for the tetrahedron, Metatron/ino with cuboctahedral symmetry, and this one. Just one more to go!
December 2, 2003
This image was part of a proposal for a site-specific wall piece at MSRI in Berkeley. It didn't win, but it was the runner-up in a rich field, and the jury said it was "richly poetic". Oh well, maybe I can use it again sometime. I had written a mildew growth simulator at the New Kind of Science conference last summer, and this was a chance to run it.
November 18, 2003
An idea that's been hanging around for at least eight years, waiting for the right tool. Surface Evolver to the rescue! The finished print in steel/bronze: Squares.
After a slippery assembly, the four parts and seven marbles (one 35mm, six 25mm) fit together quite strongly without glue or other cheating. The parts in this picture are very nice stereolithography models by American Precision Prototyping.
I'm especially happy with the reflections on the central marble.
October 29, 2003
Something different planned for casting in pewter. This piece, if it works, will incorporate 7 glass spheres.
August 14, 2003
No more Mr. Nice Guy -- this design will put the ProMetal process to the test. A first draft went well, so there's good hope that this will succeed. (Update: It worked!)
July 22, 2003
A new design to be printed in metal. It went fine.
June 25, 2003
New technology alert! These pieces weren't cast, they were printed directly in metal by the ProMetal process used at Extrude Hone Inc. This was done by binding layers of steel powder to create the part, and then sintering the whole together and infiltrating with bronze.
The resulting parts are a curious composite metal, quite heavy, with a texture that is qualitatively like a sand casting, but with more structure. These particular parts were darkened (the surface takes a chemical patina similarly to bronze) and tumbled lightly; the texture is left untouched. This Metatron is 3" in diameter, the Noom a little longer.
I hope that this technology will return some of my bronze designs to currency. (Yup.)
May 4, 2003
Steel designs continue.
April 23, 2003
This will be another steel piece, if all goes well.
March 10, 2003
What's happened since last year? Perhaps not much. I've tuned up the Colorplanes sculptures, and done proof of concept for them in steel. I've brought in several new scientific crystals, and developed tools for rendering protein structures in this medium. I've made hard decisions to take a break on making bronzes and drop the jewelry line. And I've overhauled the website, so everything new is online already.
Changing direction is always difficult, and I look forward to spending the next few months more creatively.
December 9, 2002
I'm exploring several possibilities for these designs, including construction kits, large-scale versions in welded plate aluminum or steel (these would be cut with CNC plasma or waterjet), and multicolored exotic woods. Onwards and upwards into the new year.... |
November 11
Moving ahead with some more ambitious designs for laser-cut wood.
Transparent acrylic may be an option for these as well, or it may prove too fragile; experiments are in progress. Anodized aluminum has proved to be practicable but rather expensive.
October 28
Sea Star went very quickly from CAD to its final form: cut by laser in birch plywood, it assembled with beautiful precision. I am very happy with how well this realizes my intent, and also with how affordable it is.
October 15, 2002
Something different: I'm having a look at designs to be laser-cut in wood. Maybe color anodized aluminum could also work for these - it's hard to tell until the experiments come back.
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