18.10.07 – The Actual and the Virtual

On arriving at College I went straight upstairs to the Darwin workshops to see how Neil had got on with the CNC milling of my torus 03 form. I felt like Christmas had arrived! It was finished and looked superb.
The difference between visualising the virtual form on Rhino 3D and having the real thing in front of me is profound and also shows up the difference between what I have carefully designed and the thrown test forms. 3D modelling software has many advantages, which include the ability to visualise a design, to create an extremely realistic render of it and to save that information to fabricate the design by various methods such as CNC milling and rapid manufacture.
On close inspection of the model various slight imperfections could be seen, there was ‘stepping’ on the curve at the centre of the form, and a slight ridge where the two halves met. Neil was as interested as any craftsman in how the tool had performed under skilled guidance regardless of the fact that he controlled the tool through the computer keyboard. The making of the form was not an automatic process; there were choices to be made in planning it as there are with traditional methods.

From there it was back down to unpack some tests from the kiln. The metallic black glaze from a recipe that Liz had given me, which I had ball milled, had come out quite differently; this time it looks very much like steel. Not the same high ‘chrome’ gloss of my first glaze recipe, but still an interesting surface.
The matt black underglaze fests looked at first less successful, unpleasant to the touch and marked easily. After speaking to Martin on Wednesday I tried using wet and dry on the surface, but revealed some of the white clay body.

On Wednesday I spent the morning in a tutorial with Martin discussing the writing of the thesis. We allocated each section a number of words and started to work out an order for the writing of it. In looking at my practical work Martin suggested that I research using sanitary ware slip as it is designed for large items and would be preferable to press moulding the piece. I emailed Martin Hunt for advice, who suggested I speak to Robin Levien. On Friday I gave him a call and arranged a meeting for next Friday. I mentioned the mentoring scheme, which he told me he had helped to set up.
I had another glaze firing this week, having painted another coat of underglaze on the two test pieces. They came out just before leaving College on Friday and were a definite improvement. They were sanded with 1000 grade wet & dry, giving the jet black one a silky very matt black basalt-like surface. It may be exactly what I’m looking for to contrast the mirror like black glaze.

I have designed a series of pieces to explore that contrast, each a pair, one with the matt inside, its partner matt outside.

The value of our research cluster was again made evident this week at the first of our Seminar room meetings and from a couple of conversations with Steve. The first was a comment that my glazed test torus looked like an event horizon. Looking up its meaning I thought how poetic a reading it was. It is a term used to describe the boundary of a black hole beyond which nothing is ever seen again or ever comes out of. It is also used to describe the edge of the visible universe, as the universe isn’t old enough for light to travel to us from beyond that point. Steve also raised the point that the white of my biscuit fired pieces isn’t much different to the black of the underglaze tests. My wish is to create a light-absorbing surface and white doesn’t have that quality. But it’s an observation worth thinking about.

12.10.07 – The Craft of Rapid Manufacture; Drawing and Making

The week started with a return to teaching on the Foundation Ceramics degree course in Carlisle. The CIA [Cumbria Institute of Art} has become part of the new University of Cumbria, which I don’t think will affect me very much. I’m teaching throwing to the first years and overseeing the second years. Both groups are small so that seems manageable and interesting.

Back in College on Tuesday I headed straight upstairs to RapidformRCA to check on my SLA torus piece. The second attempt had again failed at the same place on the rim, so the technician Greg, had a more detailed look and suggested that he strengthen the support matrix at that point.
Like the new hand building techniques I have been using, there is a craft element to Rapid Manufacture. The practitioner needs to know the characteristics and properties of the material and understand the methods by which it can be processed. The main difference between my two recent experiences is that the hand is absent in the making part of an RP piece. That doesn’t alter the need to develop a tacit knowledge as in other skills.

From there it was back to the Ceramics workshops and the familiar, traditional skills of glazing, drying and firing. More time was spent in the workshops watching plaster-sledging demonstrations by the highly skilled technician Stephan, and tutor Tavs Jorgensen. There are some interesting techniques that may have possible applications in my project. The other workshop demonstration I attended was press moulding by Martin Smith. He chose to use one of the moulds for his forthcoming Barrett Marsden exhibition, so it was interesting to see what his current work is dealing with. His demonstration clearly emphasised that to realise an idea, appropriate techniques need to be used; as he said he doesn’t have a favourite technique or one he feels most comfortable with. The process is a complex problem solving exercise where a high quality end result is the goal.

In between the workshops I was also preparing for the torus 03 form to be CNC milled. The material was measured and cut to size, leaving me with enough excess to produce another form.

Back up in RapidformRCA the third attempt had successfully been produced.
Once the material had been cured I took one of the failed ones and the successful down to my workspace to remove the supporting matrix. It was fairly easily removed, but care had to taken not to snap the brittle form. As can be seen in the photographs, the material does not possess the tensile strength to completely support the form. Would another RM material have the properties required or will I have to redesign the form? It won’t be the finished object I have imagined as it’s only 25 cm diameter and the surface isn’t smooth.
I wish to produce an actual three-dimensional version of a form that I can visualise in the virtual world of Rhino 3D software. On the computer screen it can be turned, scaled and I can even pass through the form. With the precision that the software allows me I can explore and develop my particular ideas far more accurately than with paper and pencil. The forms are based on simple geometric models, which with my level of skill can be drawn up on the screen fairly easily. This particular software may not be suitable for more complex intuitive forms. However, haptic modelling software is being introduced into the department, so it will be interesting to see how other students make use of it. I have found that my sketching has become far more simplified, mostly being a rough outline of simple forms. I use them to quickly run through a series of ideas, from which I can select a number to develop in Rhino.

By Friday I was feeling pretty exhausted, having had an intense return to College. However, I have achieved what I had planned. Just before I left I saw that start of the CNC milling process, watching the machine roughing out the beginning of the torus.
I spent the afternoon at the Frieze Art Fair in Regent’s Park before walking over to Euston for the train home.
It was my first visit to Frieze and an enlightening experience to see so much current contemporary art from many parts of the world under one canvas roof. It was possible to detect some trends, for instance the use of graphic design to convey messages and statements. Oppression, sex and the city are reoccurring themes, though one gallery countered them with a makeshift cinema showing Woody Allen’s film ‘Bananas’!
I missed visiting Origin at Somerset House, but felt that Frieze was more important for me to see.

The train home was extremely busy, but a useful time for reflection, planning and sketching, preferring, on this occasion the less intense experience of sketchbook and drawing pen.

05.10.07- Realising the virtual

I was determined to ‘hit the ground running’ this week and am pleased to say that I managed to achieve virtually all that I set out to do.
I have spent time thinking about what I can realistically complete in the time available knowing that practical work takes longer than it would in the studio at home, partly because I am exploring new ways of working & I often need advice, sometimes from outside the ceramics & glass department.
I decided to concentrate on the cone and the torus, both of which are one-sided surfaces and are essentially the same form, the cone an angular version of the torus.
So the week started with a throwing session, attempting to create a larger torus than previously. By the end of the week 4 toruses were thrown and turned and two glaze tests had come out, one of which- the metallic black glaze that I’ve used at home, was particularly successful.
One of my aims for this week was to arrange for a torus spiral piece to be rapid prototyped and for a torus model to be CNC milled.

Unfortunately, the RP piece partly failed at the top edge, however it was still very exciting to see the piece with its supports still attached in the SLA machine.
I had hoped to CNC a 560mm diameter model from which to take a mould, but the material it will be made from is incredibly expensive- a 500X100X2000mm. sheet costs £250! I managed to get hold of an offcut that brought the cost down. It’s a dense material that should produce a fine surface without much extra sanding. Due to the sheet size I have had to scale down the model to 480mm. 560mm may have been too ambitious as the mould may have been unmanageable for slipcasting.

Martin Watmough from RapidformRCA gave me details of a French company who are producing a ceramic coating for models produced on the Z-Corp machine and a fast way of producing glass moulds for blowing or casting pieces. I contacted the Managing director who invited me to visit their laboratory in Paris. Martin Watmough is really keen for me to go with ‘Big Al’, one of the RapidformRCA technicians and will part fund a trip. I have to find additional funding so spoke to Tom in the Research office who was encouraging. I’m waiting for confirmation, but hope to go in November.

During the week I had an informal meeting with Martin Smith to discuss what I had done over the summer and my plans for the forthcoming term. He appeared positive and made some practical suggestions. We have arranged a time for a formal tutorial at which all my practical work and writing will be discussed.

28.09.07- Craft and the Computer

Last week was a busy one, on Monday I went down to London for the Craft Council’s ‘Craft, Creativity and the Computer Controlled Age’ event.
It was one of the many London Design Festival attractions held between 15 – 25 September. Chaired by Sir Christopher Frayling, it brought together makers involve or interested in the application of digital technology in their practices. The presentations were followed by a debate that ranged from the negative through scepticism to the enthusiastically positive.
This event linked in nicely with ‘Manufacturing Reinvented- additive manufacture and the second industrial revolution’ held at the RCA on the 25th September.
The speakers came from a spectrum of backgrounds- engineering, design, biomimetics, cultural and ‘outside the box’ in the case of Max Comfort.
As the conference chair, designer Geoff Hollington put it when talking about Rapid manufacture- ‘if this is the next industrial revolution then we are at about the year 1800 in its development’.
In many respects the technology is sophisticated, though it is still at an early stage in its evolution and has a long way to go. Technical problems will be ironed out, 3D CAD software will improve and I foresee a place for digital craft where knowledge of materials and processes can be part of the creative digital process.
There are many C21st Luddites out there who fear the death of skill, but they are wrong. CAD/CAM, rapid manufacture and the other new technologies are additions to the creative industry’s toolbox. Letterpress isn’t extinct even though it’s a far more laborious process than typography on the computer. My eldest daughter Rowan, brought letterpress and digital typography together in work for her degree and the results were stunning.
For me, the creative process is about the communication of an idea and I will choose whichever tool in the toolbox is the most appropriate for its realisation.

Last Wednesday evening we drove to London to deliver my youngest daughter Grace to Middlesex University for the start of her first term as a fashion student. Once she was unloaded and settling in I caught the tube from Oakwood to South Kensington to drop some stuff off at College then checked back in with Ray & Jeannette in Chiswick.
On Friday it was off to 100% Design at Earls Court, a busy show, the most interesting parts for me being the Lighting and Futures sections. I came across Earlsmann, producers of Light-Tape electroluminescent film, which I think looks to be the perfect light source for my cone pieces. There was also a sample of film from Elumin8 whom I must also speak to. Earlsmann produce a wide range of colours and the wiring and fitting looks really simple.

I found the most stimulating shows over in East London; Designersblock in the beautifully decrepit Nicholls & Clarke building was a treasure house of boundary-crossing creativity. I took my daughter Grace there and she also loved it Tent was a younger, livelier show than 100% Design, with a good number of last years RCA Ceramics & Glass graduates showing.

Back in College I’ve been sorting out my new space, following up some of the leads I made at the various shows and generally preparing myself for a busy term.

14.09.07 -The Torus & the Möbius Strip

Some weeks ago I gave my friend Ivan Payne one of my thrown torus forms to experiment with. He’s an interesting person to discuss my project with as he completed his MA at the RCA last year. One of the brightest lateral thinkers that I’ve ever come across, something new always arises when we toss the ball back and forth. The end result of his unusually quiet investigation was a cut that spiralled up the inside of the torus and back down the outside connecting seamlessly to its starting point. In theory the torus had been bisected, but was very much still one complete form. Both the Torus and the Möbius strip are one-sided surfaces; if a Möbius strip is bisected lengthways it just doubles it’s circumference, which makes me think that the same thing was happening here. [What would have happened to the torus if it was made of flexible rubber?]
I went on to widen the cut & remove a 1cm wide strip of clay from the torus, producing an unsupported gap between the two ‘halves’. At that stage I found it impossible to work out whether the strip of clay was a Möbius strip.
From the workshop it was back to Rhino 3D on the computer in the hope that I could analyse and develop this phenomenon. At this stage I had the feeling that the link between the exploration of the torus was taking me back to the Möbius strip that played an important part in the genesis of this project. After some additional instruction from the very helpful technicians at Simply Rhino I described the spiral line onto the surface of the torus. In the ceramic test piece I was trying to visualise what the strip of clay would look like if it could be removed in one piece from the torus. In Rhino it is possible to take and develop the line into a ‘solid’ ribbon form. A single spiral strip doesn’t have a strong visual link to the torus it evolved from, so I went on to produce a double spiral,then a quadruple spiral, the latter appearing like a skeleton of the torus.
In exploring and developing the torus form, the use of 3D modelling software has been invaluable. It has enabled me to visualize the evolution of the form, literally adding another dimension to the creative process. My attempts to throw the toruses has demonstrated that a great deal of skill is required to realise the different stages of development, There is absolutely nothing wrong in that, it is the age old process helping to produce high quality craft and art work. However, I have chosen to produce forms that conform to a particular set of proportions and so far my throwing skills don’t allow for a very precise reproduction. It’s partly due to the torus being an enclosed form, preventing me from gauging the thickness of the clay wall.