16.11.07

On arrival at Euston this week I went straight to Waterloo, met Alastair from RapidformRCA and caught the Eurostar to Paris.
We had arranged to visit a French company specialising in postproduction techniques for rapid prototyped products.
Alastair had arranged to spend just one day in Paris, learning as much as possible about their services and finding out about licensed use of their products. I had arranged to stay for the rest of the week in order to do some practical work. The company is based in a technical college and we spent Wednesday in the classroom learning about the treatment of Z Corp pieces that allows them to be used as durable finished products. This includes ceramic and glass coatings, infiltration and curing that allow their use as moulds for glass blowing and casting, low temperature metal casting, thermoforming and rotation moulding. The ceramic coating also comes in another version that can be cast. It is incredibly versatile, can be coloured, is food safe, acid and alkali resistant, provides a gas barrier etc.
There seems that to be a vast number of potential applications, and the company are still only at an early stage in its development.

Thursday was spent in their lab, casting and spraying ceramic materials. It’s a straightforward procedure. I would like to have had some of my own designs to work with, but it was not possible this time. I used children’s plastic moulds of cherubs and numbers instead! Even so, I learnt the basic technique, which I can pass on to students at College.

During our trip the French train drivers were on strike, with the Metro drivers joining them on Wednesday. It made for a difficult taxi journey to Gard du Nord for Alastair in the evening, arriving just 10 minutes before his train left. Monsieur Sarcozy is in for a fight but I think there is no way a country can afford to pay workers to retire at 50. Though I hope he isn’t a French Mrs. Thatcher.

Friday morning was spent checking my notes and wrapping up my samples, followed by a slow drive with Gilles to the railway station. The Eurostar was smooth and quick, arriving back at the newly refurbished St.Pancras station in two and a quarter hours.

09.11.07

This week has passed in a flash, partly organising things for next week’s Paris trip to visit Axiatec, partly making some more test pieces and finishing off things from a fortnight ago.

To prepare for next week I spoke to Anthony, one of the College glass technicians about the principles of casting. Axiatec offer a service where glass moulds for casting and blowing into can be rapid prototyped. Anthony is intrigued about the material and whether cork or graphite surfaces are applied as in the conventional moulds. I hope to not only find out but also hope to be able to produce a mould to use at College.
Alastair from RapidformRCA talked me through the Z Corp machine, it’s relatively simple technology, certainly compared to the laser sintering machines. He is coming along on the trip to talk to Axiatec about licensing their technology for us at College. I’m sure he’ll be able to help with adapting designs for use with the Z Corp technology.

A light wire evaluation kit was waiting for me at College on Tuesday. I had ordered 6 different samples of light wire, different colours and grades to test in my pieces. As the name suggests it is a wire that glows along its full length, emitting a neon type glow. Until I see it in place I’m not sure if it will look a little gimmicky, so I designed a piece where the wire will be hidden at the edge of the internal base, hopefully emitting a coloured glow across the black metallic glaze.

I also made a couple of pieces that I could insert Perspex secret sign into to form an illuminated base. It’s a satin black material that turns clear when light is shone through. White light looks white, coloured light coloured. Again, I must justify its use in terms of the project but think it could have a place and later have a commercial application.

The Ceramics and Glass department had an outing to see the First Emperor exhibition at the British Museum. First there was a lecture describing his life and the way he unified China. We also heard details of how the exhibition had been arranged and designed to make use of the Reading Room in the Great Court without affecting its listed interior. My youngest daughter, Grace took advantage of a spare ticket, arriving just in time to see the exhibition. I think she enjoyed it but was slightly distracted by the thought of a trip to Claridges to see Elle McPherson launch her new lingerie collection! Quite a contrast, but that’s Grace.

Our research cluster seminar room meetings haven’t been very successful so far. This year the new students aren’t in as regularly as we were last year, Heike is in the US and Emmanuel has gone part time. Maybe we need a guest from outside the cluster to talk about their research. Or maybe we have to wait until one of the group has something specific to discuss.

02.11.07

When Tuesday morning arrived this week, I decided that my chesty cough was best dealt with at home. I wouldn’t be coughing and spluttering over the population of London and I could get on with some quiet making and writing.
My attempt to write the section on perception finally got underway, one of the interesting things being that each time I searched for relevant information, Richard Gregory’s name came up. He has written a book with E H Gombrich, which I must now revisit, and I believe Gombrich has written one on Art and perception.

In the workshop I made 4 pairs of the disc pieces during the course of the week, managing to apply the black underglaze and leaving them to dry slowly over the next week or so. I hope to be able to biscuit fire them next weekend, but as the heating will be off in the workshop that may not be possible for all of them. I hope to get them through in time for the College interim show at the end of November, but they will crack if I rush them.

On Thursday I made a very interesting visit to the Ideal Standard factory in Middlewich in Cheshire. Steve Hill-Cousins, one of the technical managers who was very generous with his time, showed me around the factory. The mixture of automation and craftsmanship was interesting. The sleek designs are produced from very complex moulds made by highly skilled workers. Ideas, like the use of magnets to hold the internal sections together may be new, but they are employing the same traditional techniques that have been used since the Industrial Revolution.
They use two kinds of slip- vitreous china and fine fireclay. Both are once fired to the same temperature, 1210°C. For me the fireclay has advantages over the china, it only has 5% shrinkage so glaze compatibility may be a problem, so it will need testing. I brought a small bucketful back with me and cast up one of my tealight holders in the afternoon. It was biscuit fired on Saturday and glazed with the metallic black glaze. The result looks successful, but as the glaze cooled it was ‘pinging’ a little, suggesting that it was crazing. Nothing is visible to the naked eye, but I’ll talk it through with Keith, the chief technician at College and maybe ask to discuss it with Nigel Woods, the glaze expert.

So considering I started the week feeling pretty grotty, it turned out to be highly productive. I missed the camaraderie of the other students, but it made me think that staying home is an option if I want a concentrated period without disturbance. It is probably more useful for making than writing, as I would need to ensure that I had all the reference material to hand for writing, but the library at Lancaster University may be accessible to me.

26.10.07- writing about perception [and making moulds]

Monday was spent reading about perception and starting to put down some words towards that section of the thesis.
I remember coming across the writings of Richard L Gregory FRS, the Emeritus Professor in the Department of Neuropsychology at Bristol University last year and was interested in his work on illusion, which he uses to further his investigations into how sensations are interpreted as perceptions. In looking for online definitions of perception I came across his website. It’s a valuable resource that allows readers to download all his research papers. What is particularly useful about Richard Gregory is that he is at the forefront of current research.
Philosophers since the Ancient Greeks have studied perception. Since that time the dominant theory has been ‘passive perception’ – whereby perception came predominantly from the interpretation of sensations, in a linear way. However, the theory of ‘active perception’, is gaining momentum. Richard Gregory states that perceptions are 90% or more stored knowledge governed by rules generated through experience as we grow up.
In other words, when I look at a container, my brain doesn’t have to rely on very much visual information, as it knows what to expect from the countless times it has previously encountered a container. It will contain something or have the ability to. As a potter who has made many thousands of ceramic containers my brain is taken up with the aesthetics and function of the object, rather than identifying it. But I suppose that is what most of us do to a greater or lesser extent.

On Friday some tests came through that are part of my attempt to disrupt this process. I have thrown a series of cylinders; one without a base, one with a cone instead of a flat base etc. each was decorated with one matt black surface and one black metallic shiny glazed surface. I am interested to see if the glazed surface appears to float or loose definition due to the reflections.

The other big project this week was the making of the mould of the torus 03 CNC milled model. When I arrived on Tuesday Stephan was already at work, so I helped him by mixing plaster. Later on he left me to make the top half, which seemed to go smoothly. The following day we separated the two halves but it wasn’t until the evening that I finally removed the model. The mould is a success, but now we have to work out how to slip cast from it. Before catching the train home on Friday I went to speak to Robin Levien who is involved with Ideal Standard, makers of sanitary ware. He was very welcoming, showing me around the workshop below the studio where the team makes highly skilled models from blue Styrofoam. Robin will contact the manager of the Middlewich factory to arrange for me to visit and discuss the casting of the piece. Ideally I need to make the visit before my French trip.

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.