Final Presentations

Here are some pics from the final presentations. There was some really good work this go around. Once again, some of the photos are poorly lit so look close. Mid-way through the crits the sky opened up and snow started coming down. The school closed and we had to finish up the afternoon crits in double time.

Semester Finished

Well, the semester is officially over. My work is done. Everything came together really well except for one thing - the porcelain boxes. I was only able to fire the boxes once and they did not shrink enough to fit into the slots. The good news is that once I am able to put them through the second firing they will fit quite nicely. I was actually a little nervous they would shrink too much. Just shows you can never really anticipate the outcome.


I am planning on finishing the boxes up when school starts back in January. If I was to spend a little more design time on the project I would work on the base. I would like it to be more elegant and integrated into the boxes. It looks a bit too much like a store display right now. Here are some photos of my presentation. The lighting in the building was difficult for photography so the pictures are not of the highest quality.

Boxes Boxes Boxes

A week or so ago I picked up my steel from Bud and got started welding and bending. I had twenty-seven boxes to bend and a larger case to weld. Each box needed to be exactly the same so they would stack correctly so I had to make various stops on the brake (a tool used for bending sheet metal). The stops also turned out to be a real time saver since I didn't have to measure for each bend. Before I bent the boxes I also put little dints in the surface so the boxes would grab onto each other (I also had to make a jig for this...).


Unfortunately, the brake would only allow me to make three and a half bends and I needed four. So I had to hammer the fourth bend into position and had serious hand pains as a result. All in all, though, they turned out well and I finished in good time.


The case was an easy welding job and came together quickly, which turned out to be a good thing since I measured incorrectly the first time and I had to make another again this afternoon! Everything has been sent to the powder coater and I will pick the stuff up later this evening. All I have left to do is to line each box with felt so the porcelain is not resting right against the steel.

Lines in Space

My welding class consists mostly of undergraduates in a variety of majors, from photography to graphic design to biology (Brown students can take classes at RISD and vice-versa...). I was quite impressed with some of the work - both well executed and well designed. On the whole, I think it may have been more impressive than some of the graduate furniture reviews, which is a little embarrassing!

One Class Down

I had my final review this evening for my welded steel chair. Overall, it went really well. During the final week or so of working on the chair I made several compromises in the name of finishing. Some of the compromises produced added benefits but it would have been nice to have time to work everything out as it should have been. I feel like the legs are a little small in proportion to the seat and the color is not quite as bright as I was imagining.


Ideally, I would have been able to coat the inside in a different color but the cross-hatching pattern still shows up. While I was waiting outside for my transport ride I took some pics of the light coming through the pattern onto the sidewalk below - it is quite atmospheric.




People really seem to like the chair, although only those on the smaller side find it comfortable for long periods of time. Visually, it is quite appealing though. Check out the upcoming posts for images of some of the other projects - it was really a good body of work.

Success!!!

Yes, I was finally able to cast some porcelain boxes yesterday. In fact, I was able to cast 10 porcelain boxes.



Now I have to wait for them to dry and I will do any necessary touch-up with a damp sponge before it goes into the kiln. I was hoping to make 20 and I still might find the time somewhere but I was pleased with the initial push.

Good and Bad

Here is an old rendering of my studio project. There have been a few changes but overall it is the same effect.
I have mostly finished the base and will start on the top pieces later in the week.


Porcelain is still not going well. I have to figure out a solution today or I will have to give up the idea of porcelain.

Powder Coating

My part of the steel chair is done and it has been sent off to be powder coated. Powder coating is a type of dry coating, which is applied as a free-flowing, dry powder. The coating is applied electrostatically and is then cured under heat to allow it to flow and form a "skin." Typically this process has a minimum fee of $200, no matter the size, color, etc. BUT, a girl in my class had a special connection and we found a guy who is doing my whole chair for $25. That "hallelujah" sound you hear in the background is Graham rejoicing at my bargain! In the end the chair will be a pearly-white which should nicely show off the shapes and shadows. I had two moments of weakness. First for a metallic hot pink which I was quickly told would look nauseating. Second, for a metallic gold which I decided would detract from the pattern. However, I still want a piece of bling furniture so I am going to take a little stool I had made as a test for another project and get it painted gold! If the guy does a good job I am planning on taking my pieces for my final studio project which I need painted black. Honestly, even if he does a bad job I will probably take them because he is just so cheap. Here is a photo of the finished chair before finish.

Process

So, I did find a student in the ceramics department to help me out. Shannon is an exchange student from an art school in Canada and has been my "ceramics coach" the past week or so. We have finished the mold into which the porcelain will be poured - this way each box is exactly alike. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday or set aside for box making and I am hoping to make between 20 and 30 boxes - I may be lucky to get five but I am staying optimistic. Bud, the local laser cutting specialist, has decided to go on vacation during crunch time so I won't get my steel parts until Thursday at the earliest which means heavy weekend work but it should be fine. The design is finished so at least all the thinking is done, now it is just production.

Countdown: Two Weeks

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the second to last week of school - which means all of my elective classes (welding and my graduate seminar) finish up this week and I get an entire week to concentrate on my final studio project. I have made out a detailed schedule of each days activities and, I have to say, it is going to be tight, not a lot of room for error. I am charging the camera batteries now so I should have a fresh supply of pictures by next weekend. Stay tuned for updates on specific projects!

Design Integration

I know I am overdue in posting our next assignment but as the semester draws to a close everything is just getting more and more intense. I think 75% of the work I will do this semester is falling into these last few weeks! But it is worth the wait, the assignment is one of my favorites so far.

Called Design Integration, the challenge is to design a piece of furniture that can be mass-produced and mass-marketed for a segment of the population different than our own. By December 13 we have to make a finished prototype - meaning it doesn't have to be the "exact" product that would be manufactured, but it needs to be as close as possible with the resources at our disposal.

After compiling a long list of various population segments, ranging from hermits to musicians, I settled on people with tattoos. I have always found tattoos (and the reasons people get them) intriguing and thought I might be able to derive some interesting forms and ideas with body art enthusiasts as my subject. In the end it turned out to be really difficult. I spent a good two weeks trying to find some unifying theme that would unite people as diverse as tribal cultures and suburban moms. I think I came close but didn't want to design a piece that represented what tattoos meant as a cultural practice. I then thought about just making something that would deal with the physical aspects of the skin - maybe something that played with the ideas of public and private, being "seen". But that plan seemed a little too obvious and I didn't want to make a chair (which seemed the logical formal choice). After many conversations with Graham, walking through the details of all of this, he gave me a copy of a case he had studied in business school about product development and meeting user needs. The article asked the question, "What job are you hiring this product to do?" I discovered there were a number of jobs that tattoos were hired to do so I decided I would build something that would be a substitution for the tattoo, something people would "hire" instead. I settled on the job of "I want to memorialize or remember this person/place/moment/thing forever."

The plan as it now stands is to build a set of small drawers that will act as memorials for whatever people feel a desire to remember or keep close to them. The drawers will be made of unglazed porcelain and will sit inside a metal skin lined in felt. The drawers can be ordered individually so people can buy any number they wish from 1 to 1,000,000. The stackable drawers will all be contained within a larger enclosed table that will hold approximately 50 of the boxes. You may be wondering, "Has Micaelan ever worked with porcelain before?" The answer is no and that may well prove to be the downfall of the project. It is an easily mass-produceable material but it will be difficult for me to create a prototype. I am hoping to pay a student in the ceramics department to complete the project for me but they are all quite busy as well.

The Welded Chair

I haven't really talked very much here about my welding class and that is mostly because it has been a blessedly low-key class. We haven't had anything due in quite a while but it has been expected that we are busy working on our final project - a steel chair. Unfortunately, it would be bad form to use the steel chair I just finished for studio so I have designed another steel sitting place. I can't say there is anything too special about the chair. I designed it with one goal in mind, easy. I wanted to make something that would use all of the things I have learned but not something that would take forever to execute well. I decided to have a pattern laser-cut into the steel which would create interest and allow me to make the form fairly simple.


This was nice because I was able to learn the laser-cutting procedure in a fairly low-pressure scenario. But I had an incredibly difficult time with the pattern. I really wish I had known some textile designers at the school by then because I really didn't know where to start. In the end, I think it works but it could have been more interesting. The chair is due this Thursday but we have until December 6th to put a finish on it. The teacher is really relaxed and is very aware that her class is low on the time-priority list for many of us.

Body Language Presentations

Here are some photos of some of the other first-year presentations.






Here are some photos of the second-year presentations. They have no set assignments but are working on projects that will come together to form a thesis body of work that they will exhibit in the spring.