Fast Co Design Article

I love love love the article you can find at this link.

It discusses a new line of minimalist designs by Patrick Smith depicting mental illnesses.  It hearkens back to our fundamental design classes and the simplicity to the images is gorgeous.  You should definitely go check out the article to see all the designs but here is one of my favorites.

Brilliance.

Studio Therapy

I was feeling overwhelmed last night so I literally ran in to the studio for some therapy.  I went in with no plan and just made the first thing that came to mind.

Those are hollow formed silver bubbles and a bezel set little blue lace agate cabochon.  It's on a 14 gauge silver wire shank.  It fits me perfectly and is surprisingly comfortable.  The whole process went very smoothly and I made it, from start to finish, in 3 hours.  It was a great, calming experience.

The best things in the studio happen between the hours of midnight and 3am.  : )

Metals New York Trip 2011

Here are some of the pictures I took while on the NYC trip with the Metals department.  We first stopped at MOMA and then got dropped in soho for some free time.

Warhol exhibit

Iconic

 Lichtenstein has always been one of my favorites.  His work is way bigger than I imagined.  Wall sized.

Oh Rothko...I just don't like you.

Neat architecture.

The wondrous things that this little boy described seeing in that plain black canvas...I wish I still saw the world like that.

Van Gough has his own security guard.

An old friend.

Jess and the tiny painting!

View out a fourth floor window at MOMA.

Freida!

One of my favorite pieces of art.

Indiana Jones X 2      hahaha

On to soho!  This was the absurd line outside Dash.  I guess maybe the Kardashians were in there at the time?

Cart Indian food!  Yay for scary new experiences!  Observe the terror on Jess's face hehe.

Adorable mini cupcakes from a tiny tiny booth on the side of the street.  The most delicious, expensive cupcakes I've ever eaten.  Definitely going to stop there again on a return trip.

All in all a lovely trip.  A great time with wonderful exhibits and carefree exploring.

Towson Metals Club: Raising Demo

Here are some images from the Metals Club's March 3rd Raising Demo by Demo-Master Rachel Timmins.

Great turn out!  Most of the current members attended and we recruited two new members.

Working at the block.

Rachel teaching us proper technique to save your joints.

Look at that lovely edge!  Great, inspiring demo.

Hydraulic Press Casualties

Prototyping a hydraulic press piece results in sheets and sheets of wasted metal.

Graveyard of forgotten copper sheets from Tai's container project last semester.

Look at all of that sad, useless metal!  Goin' in the scrap bin to be melted down!

Glassblowing Fun

Recent glassblowing work: balls and cups.

My first cup!  The set up was great but it all went down hill in the last 5 minutes.  Spread the opening too wide and cracked the bottom when I was knocking it off the punty.

My tomato shaped ball from the week previous.

Celebrating Jess's 21st in the bar next door after our cup making adventure.  Seabreeze and an Oreo Cookie.

ACC show 2011

This weekend I worked the ACC show at the Baltimore Convention Center with a NYC jeweler named Rina Young.  She works in sterling silver wire and hand shapes organic forms as necklaces, earrings, and bracelets.  Here's an example of one of her pieces.

I had some time to walk around and meet the artists on Friday evening.  Here's some of the people I got to chat with:
Mathew Kargol: Blast Art
He makes this awesome steel furniture that looks like it is made of paper.  Here is his website.  Really nice guy too.
Jennifer Chin: Lush Metals
I met her when I went to this same show two years ago and she was lovely to chat with.  Some of the artists feel uneasy around students because they feel we might rip off their designs but Jennifer was not like that at all.  Her work has excellent, delicate soldering.  She has a new book coming out in July that I fully intend to buy.  Here's a link to that amazon listing.   Here is her website.
Emily Watson: Emily Watson Jewelry
She 's a really cool artist who's carved plastic rings are what caught my eye.  She draws inspiration from the body and has great, unique stuff.  Here is her website.
Sophie Hughes: Sophie Hughes Jewelry
Really lovely to talk to and makes wonderful organic forms in metal.  Here is her website.
David D'Imperio: David D'Imperio Lighting
This guy was super cool to talk to.  He makes eco-friendly lighting using laser cut elements.  His stuff is so slick and artistic.  We chatted about laser cutters and 3D printing and he might be into coming to Towson to give a lecture.  His work is very relevant to what is going on in the department here and his is a great guy.  Here is his site.  I will be contacting him later.

Glassblowing Open House

McFadden Art Glass had an open house last Friday and I took my parents.  It was a great time and my dad got to make an ornament!

 Here he is shaping his glass while I wait to blow in the pipe.

 Here he and Tim add the loop on the top.

My friend came as well and got to make a pendant!  The open house is such a great opportunity for anyone to come in and get a taste of glassblowing.

Here's Dad's finished ornament!  What a pro!

Dying Printed Forms

I had some RIT dye lying around from a previous project and thought I'd see how the Shapeways WSF material took the color.

 This is one of my spindle necklaces that I dyed using the teal dye.  I stuck the pendant in when the dye was hot and fresh and let it get to a nice deep shade.  I put the cording in shortly after to see if it would take color as well.  Magically, it did!  This is a wonderful way to match your printed piece to its cording!

This is a nice, classy color.

 This one is my favorite.  It's dyed using the tangerine color.  I put it in fresh and let it sit for a while to get a nice saturated orange.  It's a really fun piece.

I like how the cording doesn't dye as easily so it is always slightly lighter than the printed piece.  It makes a very nice, balanced piece.

 This one was dyed using the same teal dye but I let the dye cool slightly and only stuck it in for a short amount of time.  It made a really nice robin's egg blue.

The WSF material is so porous and durable that it makes dying an ease.  It looks lovely without any dye but is so versatile if you want color.  Coupled with the clear soft glass cording, these necklaces are a dream to dye.  Expect more experiments to come!  I need to order some more prints!

Spindle Necklaces

My Shapeways order came today!  It feels like Christmas every time I see that cute little white box at my door.  I made a series of spindle necklaces over the break and got a few printed as a beginning of the semester gift to myself.  Here is the first in the series (and my favorite).  Available for order at my Shapeways Shop here.

 I thought the textures and aesthetics of the SWF printing material and soft glass tubing went well together so I tried to design a necklace that combined the two into something cohesive.

 This is a close up of the pendant.  I designed two hollow balls, suspended in the center of the caged piece, with holes cut such that the tubing runs through them and holds them up against the top of their cages.

The 2.5mm soft glass tubing is available through Polymer Clay Express in a variety of colors and sizes.  I am in love with the stuff.  It is so durable and comfortable and you can purchase simple connectors that make lovely friction clasps.  I designed my own to go along with this piece as the only ones available are metal and don't reflect the aesthetics of the pendant.  They also are only for one strand and I wanted to use three.

This is the second necklace in the series, which is just a simplified version of the first spindle.  It only uses one strand of soft glass but I designed the connectors for this in the printed material as well.  I only printed these two pieces in the series to test out their success with the tubing.

This is a piece I designed a while ago.  It obviously inspired the caging for the spindle pieces and I edited the design and got it printed again because my original batch had an issue with one of the balls fusing to a cage bar.  Despite that, they sold out fairly quickly at the Metals Club winter sale so I'm pretty confident in the consumer appeal of the design.  The caging reduces the material cost so I can sell them fairly cheaply.

Getting these pieces printed made me see the beauty in the connectors designed to fit the tubing.  My next project is to investigate combining different connectors with the tubing to make a series of bracelets.  Fun fun!

Adventures in Glassblowing!!

Today was the fist day of glassblowing studio!  We learned the basics of how to hold the pole and standard safety and then practiced making simple solid marbles.  It was a fantastic terrifying time.  It was rough at the beginning but we all eventually got the hang of it.

 This is the studio pup, Erin!  She's a complete sweetheart.  Look at those gorgeous doe-eyes.

 This is Jess shaping her first marble with the aid of Savannah.  Exciting times.

 Here's Jess heating her third try in the "glory hole."  I picked up none of the terminology other than this one term.

This is me shaping one of my marbles (I use that word loosely.  They were more like glass mushrooms).

 Here's Savannah loading up our poles with molten glass (notice I didn't remember a bit of the terminology for this part).

Here is my first marble attempt!  Let this be known as my first piece of glass ever manipulated!  In case I become a famous glassblower one day (not likely).

Attempt #2!  Miles above the first one.  This one didn't have a ripple in it and somewhat resembled a sphere.

The bar next door!  What a wonderful idea!  We finished up our marbles and headed over to the bar for a beer and some crab fries.  Excellent end to the evening.

Crab fries!  So bad but so good.

There was a birthday party going on at the same time and a couple drunk guys stumbled over and plopped cake onto our table.  It was actually delicious.  So my night consisted of molten glass, a lovely dog, great beer, crab fries, and cake.  I'd call that a successful Tuesday.