This summer, I was able to finally develop a hanging mobile sculpture based upon the philodendron plant. I remembered these beautiful vines from when I lived on the island of Kauai. They would gracefully climb up a tree and cover it's trunk with their large leaves. This plant represented many memories of hikes through the Hawaiian rain forest.
TI The initial drawings I made were on 'luan' veneer door skin plywood. I cut these out to form templates by which I could 'drag' my plasma cutter around the form and create each leaf. It was a long and difficult process to cut each leaf. Initially, I made 4 individual leaf shapes. Each was hand pounded on my anvil to give them their 3 dimensional form. The leaves were combined on stems of 3/8" concrete reinforcing steel into a hanging sculpture. This sculpture was put on display at the Laguna Beach Festival of Arts where it gained peer approval. That was a good sign.
The design was very popular. When displayed out in the public forum at a show, you can get the understanding of how people receive your pieces. I have always valued the opinion of the public. It guides the direction that I take with my work. Public approval indicates that there may be a chance for financial success somewhere along the line.
The second Philodendron sculpture was created a little differently. I traced the leaves and had them digitally scanned at the local copy center. I then imported the image files into software and ultimately, after a lot of digital clean-up, was able to get these files so they could be cut with a numerically controlled plasma cutter. The leaves are now CAD/CAM enabled. The benefits of using technology to manufacture are obvious. The product turns out much better and faster to manufacture. The quality is repeatable. Now I can spend more time doing the 'art' instead of manual labor in manufacture. There is still a substantial amount of hand labor involved with creating a Philodendron Mobile sculpture.
This is a clear example of digital technology enabling the artist to extend his creative capabilities. Without the freedom to use contemporary tools the artist is ceases to become competitive in today's world. This is clearly digital technology applied to the manufacture of an artistic sculptural product.
To view the application of digital processing technology to my Laguna Beach Festival of Arts display please see the FOA2004 link.
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