• new york magazine
• this ain’t no disco
• print magazine “New Visual Artists 2009″
  

Richard wanted the end product to have a pink, high gloss finish reminiscent of the high chromium stainless steel sculptures of  Jeff Koons without the cost. To achieve this finish meant the surface quality needed to be smooth. Much of our design process occurs during the machining, converting toolpath strategies into decorative elements leaving the residue of production on the piece. The result was tool chatter and embellished machine marks which aren’t necessarily smooth. We experimented with a series of thermoplastics to act as a protective skin molded over the surface. This skin could then be electroplated, turning it into chrome. This idea was problematic due to the deep draw of the surface, [over 4” in some sections]. Exploring other options, we found southern California artist, Gary Watson owner of Creations’n’Chrome, who developed a custom, sprayable chrome process that could replicate a chrome finish. We started over using a 6” thick block of high density polyurethane foam. This allowed for the entire door to be carved in one piece. After the machining, Gary began the chroming process. In order to chrome the doors, they couldn’t touch anything. This was another problem as doors were over 200 lbs. a piece. We solved this by engineering a rotisserie style jig that would not only suspend them but allow for rotation and ease of movement. After the doors were chromed, Gary finished the doors with a high gloss urethane topcoat, [used in the car industry] tinted with a candy magenta to achieve the final effect.

 

This project started as collaborative dialogue with Richard Christiansen from Chandelier Creative. The initial concept was loosely based on “the gates of hell”, a sculptural work of Rodin, mixed with Richards key words of “dildos and doll parts“.  We wanted the doors to reflect Chandelier Creatives’ unconventional style as taste makers by creating an electronic baroque, fusing franchise capitalism with moviefantasies and exploring the relations between media and topological surface.
The front of the doors was created through a collision of media and technique. We gleaned our hard drives, harvesting bits and pieces of past projects sculpting the surface through digital collage. This allowed for an unusual balancing act where recycling  digital ready-mades lead to a reclaimed authorship and to the composing of new narratives developed out of over-saturated media.  The back of the doors we created by unfolding, [a sort of reverse digital origami] a 3-dimensional digital model of the head of  Star Wars hero Yoda, into a 2-dimensional pattern. We used the flat pattern to generate a decorative skin and thus discovered a  way of developing pattern and texture as the byproduct. The trim around the edges was based on blending the explicit sexuality  found in ancient Kama Sutra carvings filtered through the stylings’ of Victorian crown moldings.

 

Walnut and Corian Mirror

 

Marguerite is carved from black solid surface with an antique gold vein mirror inlay.

 

Three pieces of  aluminum, powdercoated in three shades of white with a milled Corian fixture.

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This is a picture frame that was developed from using a stock three dimensional avatar from an animation software package as a ready made. The surface was generated through rigging, posing, copying and placing the avatars in a defined boundary with no real modeling involved.  The piece was machined in White corian.

Fruit bowl from a tweaked out sufrace, sliced and re-laminated.  Featured in the LA Times article “The Shape of Thigs to Come“.

Materials: laser cut acrylic

 

This atypical flower vase was built from raw processing power and  randomized snowmobile parts.
Comes with a silver lining.

Materials: Ceramic base with investment cast silver vase