Hey all! We are working hard to get the shop ready to open safely for fall. Check out this video tour to see some of the exciting updates we've made!
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I have been asked several times about how to smooth 3D prints. If you printed using PLA, then this video is perfect for you, if you are using ABS this won't work as well if even at all. Here are some tips for smoothing ABS 3D prints: A well-known technique is to place the ABS print in a sealed container filled with acetone mist, or just some acetone nail polish remover. The acetone interacts with ABS and melts the plastic in a slow and controlled way to create a super smooth model. One of the bravest question I ever received in the shop was "How do I use a handsaw?" It was the best question ever because this student wasn't protecting their ego by pretending to know how to use a tool that they were unfamiliar with. They were taking a risk by being vulnerable and saying "I don't know how to do this" in an environment that has a stereotype of requiring young men and all who enter to have previous knowledge. But in our shop we are working towards making it accessible to all no matter their knowledge level. Because isn't that why you go to college, to learn new things? No point in spending all of that money if you aren't going to learn something. We are trying to make space in our shop for these types of brave questions and receive them with kindness. And to squash our own egos as well as educators because we need to be able to say "I don't know how to do this either. Let's learn how together." Because we are all still learning. So to aid in these goals, here is a video on how to use a handsaw in honor of that student who was brave enough to ask how. I ask you all to be brave and ask questions. Bed Box Part 3: Notching out with circular saw and jig saw, speed square as a guide, tracing!5/18/2020 The thumbnail on this video is decidedly misleading--this is not the video about assembly. We're still cutting. I tried to add Kate Bush's "Waking the Witch" as background music and decided it was just too cool for this video. Maybe it's cursed now that I removed it?
Jess' Bed Box Part 2: Saw horses, measuring/marking, circular saw, speed square, clamps, guides5/18/2020 We, your faithful shop techs, have missed seeing you all in the shop working. We have also missed having our unofficial shop craft nights. Those of you unfamiliar with this, on spontaneous evenings in the shop we bring our little bits and bobs and sit around gossiping, listening to 80s pop and making jewelry, knitting or sewing. So to feed that need we are missing. Here are a series of videos on basic jewelry making techniques. These techniques can be used to make something pretty for yourself or someone you love. Which we need pretty things that bring us joy right now. You can also scale them up to larger sculpture or furniture making projects. Here are the links referenced in the videos: Public Domain 3D Scans for Cultural Heritage (the rat netsuke and piggy bank) sketchfab.com/blogs/community/sketchfab-launches-public-domain-dedication-for-3d-cultural-heritage/ Ammonite 3D laser scan www.thingiverse.com/thing:88025 Knitting and Crochet Stitch Markers www.thingiverse.com/thing:3928137 If you checked out the earlier post about UMN students' Screen building projects, this will be familiar. I wanted to get a little deeper into this particular project and show you some research and process shots. Rachel was interested in how light impacts visability or "screenness". She consider various lighting strategies, colors, materials, fragmentation, and reflection to build something that changes, shifts as the light (world) shifts. The piece had me thinking a lot about dialectics--seemingly contradictory elements that are in fact, parts of a whole (yin and yang). It has a "yes and..." quality to it--both a bit melancholy and cheerful, low materials (saran wrap and canola oil) with "high" materials (glass). I think about the layering that happens in reflections in glass, how "to conceal" and "to display" have more in common than we might think.
Whew, tangent. I could go on. But! What I really wanted to look at here was just these great process shots---find the saran wrap and parchment and old party decorations and take them outside and look at them, then take them to the basement and look again. What the f*&ck is the canola oil for?! Look at things. Mash things together. Pull them apart. put them back together. Take notes. Experiment. Try to think with your hands and not with your head for a bit. I'm giving myself a task to try out my own advice this coming week. We'll see what happens. As it is, these process shots for Mansun's poetic, complex, dense, and tidy sculpture, are providing me with some good inspiration for at home making. You too, perhaps. -Jess There are a lot of different experiences of "stay at home" orders. Some folks are trapped at home with jerks, some folks are uncertain of where to be at all, some are cheerfully enjoying the strangeness of being one of 4 people in an entire dormitory building, some are sleeping on a friend's couch mourning privacy, some are at home desperately longing for contact. I recently got to talk with University of Minnesota students about their recent "Screen" projects for a Design course. Many of the students spoke about how much this project changed for them, not just logistically, but thematically, with the stay at home orders. While building their privacy screens, these students were craving contact. It's a very different thing critiquing in one's living space. As professor, Tom Oliphant, pointed out, we are seeing the work in frame with the artist. Rarely does an artist stand in front of their work in critique; it gives a different context to see, not only the object, but the maker, their living space, and the space in which the object was conceived and created. This sort of universe mash-up changes how we do analysis. I'll consider that more deeply later. For now, I'd like to share these really beautiful, often mournful, "Privacy Screens" that these students built in their homes. These works dealt with emotional barriers, formal barriers, pleasure in practice, material explorations, distance, social critiques, and practical creative problem solving. How is your experience of privacy changing during this time? What is different about isolation now? What are you surprised, hurt, and/or inspired by in these changes? Endless thanks to Tom Oliphant, for inviting me to join these reviews; to fellow reviewer and artist, Anna Van Voorhis; To Charlie Kuok, Mikayla Feil, Charlie Rauls, Rachel Mansun, and Emma Haukom for sharing these images for Marked Makers; and to all the students present in the review for your incredible work and generous critical insights.
Ok, It might not be the most useful how-to video you've ever seen. But it can't be the worst. And it's only the beginning!!! And surely it's useful to affirm that you can indeed use picture frames as a square, right?
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