Well, friends, winter came and went. We got extremely busy here in the studio with two new interns, Tom Lee Branstetter and Michelle Fang Wu, and former interns Erica Lee and Wanna Huang.

In December, Timea’s new pieces went to several PNW shows, including the Linda Hodges Gallery, Seattle, a Contemporary Clay exhibition curated by Patti Warashina and Carol Gouthro at Columbia City Art Center, and to ClayFest Northwest at Pottery Northwest. The making of these pieces was generously supported by an Artist Projects grant from 4Culture.

We have greatly expanded our CAD toolbox, using Maya, Blender, and Meshlab for designing forms, in addition to Rhino. Often times, a particular design idea got tested in many different CAD programs and the printed results were compared, just so we could refine a particular look or style. There are lots of interesting differences between working with NURBS and meshes, from the perspective of the results, like the sharpness of angles.

This winter, we started a number of design collaborations, including research and development of several consumer objects. We can post more about these when the projects conclude.

With the help of Tom, we completed a working prototype of the Arduino-driven color dispenser, which adds pigment to the extrusion. There is still much to refine about this but it works, we figured out the hardware and the programing, and it is very empowering!

Finally, we are welcoming a new math collaboration. Timea is working with Professor Frank Farris on Grasshopper-made knit and chainmail patterns. This research generously supported by a Kreielsheimer art-science grant from the UW.