Golf Hole: 6 (Art 343/381: Critical Play)

I'm almost done with my rim. I need to clean up some places on the outer rim, then need to complete the inner edge.

Here's a photo:



Timeline to finish the project:

Wednesday - finish rim

Friday - print and cut hands out

Saturday - finish hands, make bottom and hole

Sunday - add numbers

Wednesday - finishing touches

Makerbot: 6 (Art 350: Advanced Digital Media)

I printed this piano body last week, but it didn't turn out so hot. It didn't print the legs to full length and it somehow reversed the top (the curve should be on the right). This is pretty unfortunate since it took more than three hours.

Here's the photo:



I will be fixing this problem by re-printing the legs separately and hoping that a re-position on the Makerbot stage will fix the mirroring. Crossing my fingers that this works.

I'm not sure if I will be showing an all black model as well yet. We'll see how today's printing goes.

Timeline to finish the project:

Today - print legs, stand, bench, lid and body in white

Wednesday - fix problems from today's print, including possible reprints; print pedals; clean up edges; painting lesson

Friday - print in black; fix edges

Saturday - assemble and paint

Sunday - finishing touches

Golf Hole: 5 (Art 343/381: Critical Play)

I've been working on building my Pepakura model. It's pretty straightforward, minus the fact that I've tried a few adhesives with little luck in finding one that I'm happy with.

Here's pictures of my progress:

Makerbot: 5 (Art 350: Advanced Digital Media)

I printed a few more pieces today. It took quite a while because the Makerbot platform kept slipping, so I had to continuously start over, unfortunately. I am going to finish making the pieces and print more on Friday.

I also decided to print all the pieces, both in white and black material. I plan to then paint the white set.

Here's one of the lids that didn't work out so well:

Here's a good version of the lid:

Here's a photo of the bench. I have to cut the material out from between the legs because of the way it printed. I think the scale might be a bit off, and I'll probably need to shorten the legs a bit as well. Once I'm done with the trimming, I will need to sand it down a little better.

Lecture Critique: 2 (Art 350: Advanced Digital Media)

Maria Elena Buszek gave a thrilling lecture last week on feminism in modern art. The topic especially interested me, as I've taken many women's studies courses.

As a lecturer, Buszek excelled — using plenty of photographs of work she talked about and multimedia examples of music videos pertaining to digital art. She incorporated these examples to show how feminism is displayed in both pop culture and in the art world. Although there are few artists that use feminist messages in their work, as Buszek pointed out, she capitalized on the artists that do.

For example, Buszek touched on artists or pop culture icons such as Sarah Haskins from Current TV, Peaches and Le Tigre to show how feminism is being incorporated into modern art.



I particularly enjoyed Buszek's mention of Tracy and the Plastics and the group's relevance to the digital media scene. Buszek's question was this: "How does digital media affect feminist art?"



In this example, Buszek explains that the digital medium allows lines to be blurred between the audience, projection and performer.

While I enjoyed the variety of examples Buszek, I would have liked to hear more about her own work. It is not very often that students have the opportunity to listen to a visiting artist's lecture — and I think getting to know the artist that is speaking adds to that experience.

Buszek only briefly touched on her work. Since she is most certainly an expert on her own work, I think adding this into her lecture could have added a relevant and personal piece to her topic.

Questions for the artist:
1. How does your own work factor into feminism in art? Do you ever explore digital media to portray your message? How and why or why not?
2. Why do you think feminism is still widely missing in pop culture and modern art?

Makerbot: 4 (Art 350: Advanced Digital Media)

This week I've been continuing to build my piano model. It's been quite the task to get all the pieces matching up perfectly. I am trying to be meticulous in imitating the pieces of my actual piano, rather than just making a piano shape. I am making different versions of the model, in order to have back ups in the case of printing issues.

I also had to edit some of the pieces I made, after finding out the Makerbot's limitations last week.

Here are some more pieces I have so far:

Golf Hole: 4 (Art 343/381: Critical Play)

After deciding to print the pieces of my model on colored paper, I had to go back into Pepakura and adjust everything to fit the paper I bought. This meant lots of rotating pieces and disjoining edges to get everything to work in the confined space, so as not to waste anything. So far, I've printed the rim on six sheets of deep yellow.

It's hard to get a good idea of the true color on my camera phone photo in poor lighting, but nonetheless, take a look:



And here are the images of Pepakura lines:

Golf Hole: 3 (Art 343/381: Critical Play)

This week, I prepped everything to start building my model in Pepakura. I took apart the pieces of my golf hole in Sketch Up, first. Then I scaled everything to quarter-size, converted to millimeters and brought each piece of my model into Pepakura Designer. There, I worked on editing the flaps, and getting each piece ready to print.

Here is the rim of my clock:


Here are the hands:

Makerbot: 3 (Art 350: Advanced Digital Media)

I did a test print with the Makerbot this week. The test showed me a lot of the limitations of the Makerbot, so I can tweak my designs to my piano. The Makerbot had a hard time making such thin walls of my hollow piano body, so I went back into my design and filled it in.

Here's a photo of the first test run, which did not work out so well:


Once I was able to fix my model to make it more compatible with the Makerbot's capabilities (which took several hours and many trials), it took about an hour to print this piece:


This week, I will be finishing up my model. I plan on designing it both in several pieces and with some pieces attached. Basically, I'm going to have both versions, so when I go to do final prints next week, I will have everything ready in case the Makerbot can't handle certain designs.

Golf Hole: 2 (Art 343/381: Critical Play)

I built my Salvador Dali golf hole in Google Sketch Up. Here's a few pictures!

Makerbot: 2 (Art 350: Advanced Digital Media)

I spent much of my week working through Blender tutorials, so I can eventually bring my work into the program and put the finishing touch ups on it. I'm having quite a difficult time learning the program though. I decided to continue making my piano is Google Sketch Up for now while learning Blender.

I made a few parts of the piano so far.

Here's the bench:



Here's the lid:



Here's the body's main piece:


To-do list for next week:
1. Complete at least a part in Blender
2. Create another part in Sketch Up, if not more Blender

Lecture Critique: 1 (Art 350: Advanced Digital Media)

Artist: Kim Musser

Kim Musser, a Master’s candidate in fine arts, presented her work as part of her thesis show this week.

Although not the greatest lecturer or public speaker, Musser is a talented artist. Musser’s work stands out because of her great detail in her drawings and precise and meticulous technique in her paintings.

Each line in Musser’s drawings is steady and seems perfect in terms of interaction with other shapes, thickness and size. The shapes and lines are small and work together to create a larger, intricate piece — in details that are quite amazing.

In her paintings, “the presence of hand” is absent — in the sense that the works show no surface texture or brush strokes. It’s as if the paintings are practically digitally printed, rather than handmade.


In response to Musser’s color and shape choices, I think they definitely reflect the pop culture of the seventies as she pointed out in her lecture. Although her paintings look abstract on the surface, understanding the artist’s influences definitely add another layer allows the paintings to be more representative.

Musser pointed this out in her lecture by showing alternating slides of her favorite childhood movies next to her work. The fact that Musser showed her work next to her influences allowed viewers to better understand the artwork in a way that may not have been grasped without those comparisons.

Although this explanation was valuable, Musser focused too much on what movies and television shows she liked as a child rather than on her artwork in her presentation. She hardly talked about her work, and only really discussed her technique when asked during the Q & A portion of the lecture. She was obviously painfully nervous, which made her talk come off as unprofessional.

Luckily, her charming personality and admission that she admired her favorite artist because they shared a dislike for discussing their works, saved the lecture part of her show.

Questions for the artist:
1. Why did you decide to focus on seventies’ pop culture rather than political messages, realism or other representations in your work?
2. Your work is traditional in the sense that your mediums are paper and canvas. How do you think your work is able to stand out despite this – in an era of hundreds of new mediums, especially in the realm of new digital technology?

*Photo credit: unr.edu