I am still on the planet, upright and taking nourishment. I have been very distracted and not made a habit of posting blogs - this is not a good thing - I need to be more electronically communicative.

The Exhibition project proceeded slowly, mostly because I had not thought all the processes through before I began and I agonized over the surface that I wanted to present as the vessels for the fiber optic materials. I finally decided that although the copper forms were active along their edges they need to have longitudinal texture to provide a background echo for the fibers. Hammer and file texture provide this and also allow for  copper highlights to be seen if they are patina'd. The pin backs were not difficult to fabricate. The bigger challenge now will be to assemble the elements using rivets - given the   folded complexity of the metal elements I will have to rivet from the back - another new challenge - BUT I should make the deadline next week.

The second project I elected to make a bracelet in which the cast skins of dragonfly nymphs are cast in resin - a take of insects in amber and the irony of casts of casts - couldn't resist it. i performed several experiments with defective casts to determine the appropriate way to suspend the casts in resin without them either sinking or floating. I think my layering technique will fly but I think I also will pre-coat the casts in Krylon acrylic to seal in any moisture that may generate resin polymerization defects.

Rachel - even with her finals looming took time out to go thru vacuum casting with me and we cast a VERY large dragonfly nymph skin. It was remarkably successful given the extreme fragility of the cast skin. the legs are hair thin but cast beautifully . The abdomen did not cast -too flimsy but I have a piece that it absolutely full of possibilities for combining natural organism in a fabricated setting. Tune in next semester.

The bottom line here is that I have too many irons in the fire at once. Prioritize, prioritize.  

 I have not included much description of process in my blog but I will try to remedy that before the end of the semester. I am including photos that "Cherry" took.They prove that I DO go into the studio!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They are of the processes involved in my experiments to embed nymphs in resin  - my thanks to my colleague for these illustrations. 

Ta ta

What ho citizens.

I am about 10 blogs behind so this is where I try to catch up.

My first idea for the exhibition project stemmed from the potential fun and drama of fiber optics and the possibilities of combining fiber optics with another manmade material - resin. I was quite excited about this but my thoughts revolved around  more than one idea: I could then refine the one that I felt would be the most successful in terms of design and would be the most engaging for me.

 Most of my resources come from my background as a scientist and naturalist and  for this project I focussed on the following:

a} turkey tail fungus  grows in series of fan-shaped tiers around failing tree trunks - this gave me the concept for a bracelet of stacked planes of anodized titanium spiraling around the forearm.

b} submerged leafy plants that have bladders along their "stems" for flotation gave me the  idea of a boa comprised of a series of linked spiculi{?} from which fiber optic strands could spring out down the torso

c} a diagram showing the links between various medical conditions such as HIV, bi-polar disease, Alzheimer's and about a dozen others represented by circles interconnected with arching lines gave me the idea of a waist pin from which fiber optic strands cascaded to terminate in resin plaques, together with an interconnected brooch with smaller scale fiber optic strands and resin plaques.  

Option c had the strongest design  - three dimensional, pronounced linear elements and high visual impact and I began to make resin plaques. What a scenario!!! This stuff is seriously nasty to inhale - especially the stuff from Michael's and it is impossible to keep it contained in any vessel - it has a life of its own and wants to spend it spreading rapidly over my bench. I did pour a silicon mold of dragon skin using wooden forms. Another performance of unfettered narcosis and messy bench. My first attempt with Michael's resin was a failure - never set hard. I think I did not use the correct amount of catalyst for the depth of resin being poured. I then used resin that we purchased after the Phil Carizzi workshop and this was messy but reliably generated clear, hard resin forms. I had many of them in beautiful pastel blues and greens with iridescent powder inclusions!!!!!!!!!

Now for the fiber-optics.

I Googled for kits and of course there were many BUT most of them related to industrial uses. Those for the recreational user were very limited. There were a few kits for educational uses that mostly involved constructing starry skies. One company had what I needed - an "inventors" kit!!!! At least it would give me an idea of what the technology physically was like.

The shipping cost more than the kit. However - there were samples of endglow and sideglow fiber and two light output devices to consider. All glowed well. BUT the diameter of the sideglow fibers was too great to be flexible enough to curve around my resin plaques - this made transition between the linear and ovoid elements abrupt and clumsy. The endglow fibers were more flexible and a greater variety of diameters was available.  - Choice made!!

The light devices were another matter - one was contained in a bulky box that I disassembled  but still involved a 9V battery and light unit that had to be housed in a waist pin. However, the kit had a hat decoration of a short spray of rigid endglow fibers that was powered by a small unit with watch batteries. So I took it apart and filed down the housing. This was fine but I needed more than one unit to have a cascading fountain of fibers from the waist to the knee at least. So - I went on line - ordered various diameters of endglow cable and three more hat decorations for their power units.

NOW I have to re-think the waist pin which initially had been an abstracted distorted sunburst. This does not mesh with 4 units each of which is a combination of cube and projecting light tube

I think that I will return to my linked spiculum idea and  have a series of three hanging from the waist  and linked by chains - each will house a light unit from which will sprout random length fiber optic strands .

THERE IS A MORAL TO THIS BLOG.

DESIGNS GOVERNED BY MATERIALS ARE DANGEROUS.

Next blog I will try to load up drawings and photos 

 

Friday September 11 2009

An important day of the month for this country and of lesser import to society, my first blogging experience.

My first post?

I have been chewing over ideas for the Exhibition project for this semester's jewelry design in my head. I have a structural/architectural bent with a tendency to combine hard metal with soft filamentous components. I am thinking of following this trait in fabricating a pair of earrings specifically for Rachel. Or, perhaps for myself,  a necklace of magnificent length incorporating filaments and fiber optic elements. The trick will be to avoid a Christmas tree analogy.

There, my first blog.