Exploring 3D Printing and Design

There is so much going on in the world of 3D printing and it is exciting to be dipping one's toe into it. For a several years now I have been teaching basic SketchUp to middle school students and a few 4th grade classes (via the Seeking Shelter Design Challenge) . This year I will be exploring Tinkercad with students. Below is the first design that I have created in Tinkercad and uploaded to Thingaverse. This coming summer I hope to have a 3D printer to use with middle school students in the Alum Rock Art & Design Thinking Camp.

Recently I learned of a company called Sugar Lab and it amazingly prints .stl files as sugar art creations. I hope to be exploring their services in a future project! Below is a design test I created of an abstracted cherry blossom flower that could be 3D printed in sugar.

 Shapeways Creator has interesting tools and options for 3D printing (to their services). I wish it enabled export of .stl files. Maybe it does and I just have not found the function yet. Here is a design I created with Sugar Lab in mind for output.

Finally, Sculptris is a great tool for organic 3D designing. I am just beginning to explore it. Below is a wasp I am making in Sculptris. It looks like I will need to download Blender to convert the object files of Sculptris to stl files. I would like to create components in Sculptris and import them as stl files into Tinkercad to complete the forms.  The very bottom image is a Sculptris design created by my nine year old when I walked away from my computer for five minutes!

Butterfly Sculpture Sample

Last week I sent off a miniature sample of a butterfly sculpture and two color/sample material boards to a client. Today I heard that the design direction was approved so I am moving forward on making the final large scale sculptures.

Below: miniature sample study of butterfly sent to client:

Detail showing Chinese knot cording that will be added to the butterflies.

materials samples board include Asian food wrappers, chopstick wrappers, origami paper, organza, and tissue paper.

Butterflies for Mayo Clinic

Sketches were recently approved for the creation of two large butterfly sculpture for the Pediatric Cancer Care Clinic at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. The butterfly colors will harmonize with the carpet and furniture of the waiting area. The butterfly on the left is an interpretation of a Tiger Swallowtail butterfly and the one on the right is an interpretation of a Gray Comma. Both are found in Minnesota.

I am currently working on the wire forms for these pieces. The process begins with twisting magnet wire with electrician wire twisters and then bending this twisted wire into shape against large sketches drawn on bicycle box panels. When the wire forms are completed, they are removed from the cardboard box panels and the fabric and papers are glued and stitched on. The last stage is the application of a two part surfboard epoxy resin.

Progress Made on Freeway Overpass Art

Last Tuesday I visited a Santa Clara Valley Transit Yard to see the test pours of student pattern designs which will be used on the freeway overpass of Tully and 101 in San Jose. It was very exciting to see the art brought to life at this scale and it will be wonderful to see the final pours done on site at the freeway pedestrian and bike overpass.

In addition to the student patterns on the walls of the overpass, there will be student patterns showcased on the laser cut steel panels on the entry pillars to the bridge. Below are images of one of the three panel designs. The final panels will be powder coated with color. Past postings on this project can be seen here: Student Pattern Reflections on Community and here: Student Patterns for Freeway. 

Some of the digital photo patterns students created were integrated as large window decals for a conceptual bus stop shelter for the 2012 Zero1 Biennial.

A Show of Pies

I am honored to be participating in a November show celebrating artist Flo Oy Wong's 75th birthday at the  Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco. The theme of the show is pies (she has invited 75 artists to create art pies!) Here are process images of the one I created to honor my great great grandmother who journeyed from Ireland as a child lacemaker and came to to the United States via the Port of New Orleans. She worked in the textile mills of Tennessee until her 90s. She made perfect pies and corn bread in the wood burning stove and was able to gauge the heat by holding her hands over the oven. The pie I made is made of wire, silks, muslin, tea stained lace, photo transfer (of Irish garden door in Galway), thimbles, buttons and pearls.

Exploring form and materails for neuron tapestry installation

I am experimenting using Sunbrella fabrics in combination with kimono fabrics, silk remnant scraps and Sashiko stitching. These images show sample elements for a large tapestry installation. Fabric is sewn over wire form frames. The back of the pieces will be covered with fabric of contrasting colors. This clean finishing of the backs is important as some of these pieces will curve away from the wall and the viewer will see glimpses of the underside as they move about the center from different angles and elevations.

 Early concept sketches can be seen in this earlier blog posting. I will be creating more refined pencils sketches soon. This 40ft wide x 15 ft tall  installation will in the main lobby outside the lecture hall at the Albert Sherman Center in Worcester.

Tipping Bowls Installation Completed

I am finally getting a chance to upload images of the final installation of the Tipping Bowls commission. This piece now graces the dining room of a lovely San Francisco home.

Tipping Bowls is inspired by my childhood memories of meals at my grandma Okada’s house on Maui in Hawaii. I wanted to reflect on the organized chaos of the kitchen. My grandma’s cooking was an art and it was very much like watching an orchestra at work when family and friends were there to prepare for big events like Japanese New Year’s feasts. The rice bowls, soup bowls and soup spoons were used for all meals and I enjoyed studying the patterns on them. When at my grandma’s house, we enjoy the cuisine of many cultures that worked in the plantations. Our meals blended Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Hawaii foods. Many of the cultural foods I enjoyed as a child are reflected in the wrappers used in this collage sculpture.

Tipping Bowls honors the creative thriftiness of both Meji Era Japan and Hawaii plantation culture, as mainly re-purposed materials were utilized to create this piece. The piece is backed with a lining of old rice bags saved by family members in Honolulu and Maui. In my grandma’s day, cotton rice bags were made into children’s clothes, undergarments and sheets for beds. The silks in this piece are remnants from San Francisco couture designer Colleen Quen. The netting is produce bag netting from fruit and onions as well as netting recycled from flower deliveries to my aunt’s Ikebana classes. Many Chinese and Japanese preserved fruit wrappers, tea bags and chopstick sleeves are also included in the piece.

Below are images of the installation day.