FDM Rendering and Sculpture

I found a beautiful piece of coral on Miami Beach several months ago and I have been wearing it around my neck ever since. I am completely enamored with the form so I decided to use the fused deposition modeling project to abstract and recreate the small coral piece on a slightly larger scale for the table. The FDM process is really great when I think about how it can be used for casting. I would ultimately want to cast this in both bronze and in plaster. For now, here it is painted and mounted on mahogany. I designed this piece to stand up straight and then a good friend came along and knocked it over. Best thing that ever happened to it.

This is my rendering of the Coral FDM that I printed. I placed it outside of the "The Deep"- An aquarium in Hull, East Yorkshire that was designed by Sir Terry Farrell. I couldnt decide which color I liked better so I posted both.

Laser Cut Waffle

This project was very important to me. My father died July 6, 2008 and I have been running from conceptual art ever sense. I didn't want to be the girl who "just makes art about death," and "needs to get over it." Instead, I decided try and get over that attitude. Death is something that everyone in the world experiences and can relate to. Art is another thing that everyone in the world experiences and can relate to. So why not make art about death.

This piece was created by waffling a sphere and printing it out on luan. I wanted the sphere to be large enough to get inside but I was restricted by the size of the laser cutter bed. Tired of restricition and ready to solve problems, I cut the sphere into four pieces in Rhino and waffeled them seperately and then bolted them together once they were constructed. The skin is made out of spandex that I sewed together from a template constructed by using the "smash" command on my sphere in Rhino. I made the clock in my enamaling class using the process of "burning out" organic matter to leave a ghost in its place. It represents death going by its own unstoppable time and the loss and memories that are experienced by the living left in its wake. The sphere acts as an egg or a womb. I sit inside and wait for my spiritual rebirth after my fathers death.

Milling Maquette

I treated my milling project as a maquette. The ideal placement for this piece is in a large field surrounded by woods. It would be made out of bronze and the rock in the maquette would be the size of a boulder for sitting on. When putting this sculpture into context I was greatly inspired by Henry Moore's sculpture "Sheep Piece". I loved working with the REN foam. It sanded so nicely and I feel like I was able to paint it as a 3D object and enhance the highlights and lowlights successfully.

Milling drops

This is my prepared Maya model for milling out of REN.


























In order for the machine to be able to create this form, it had to be sliced down the middle and printed in two parts. These are the two parts once printed out of REN:

Not a fan of waffles.

I tried waffling two different curves, both of which were derived from my weight loss and gain over 52 weeks. Neither piqued my interest.

I also tried to waffle one of the forms I created for the FDM project. Two many bugs in the script. On left. the contours, on right the waffles with missing surfaces.

Project 2

Project 2, iteration 02 derived from data collected over thirteen 4-week spans: weight loss and gain; exercise in hours; hits to blog

Project 2

Project 2, iteration 02, 07 and 08 derived from data collected over thirteen 4-week spans: weight loss and gain; exercise in hours; hits to blog.
iteration 08 printed, awaiting the sodium hydroxide bath to remove the support material.

Project 2

Project 2, iteration 02 derived from data collected over 52 weeks: weight loss and gain vs. exercise in hours

Project 2

Project 2, iteration 01 derived from data collected over 52 weeks: weight loss and gain vs. exercise in hours

Milling video

Quick shot of milling process

Coral (in progress)

Milling Project

Project 1 derived from data collected over 52 weeks: weight loss and gain vs. exercise in hours

File being processed for milling

Milled in two pieces and glued up