Simulation Goblets
I started to use stereolithography resin as a means of exploring my interest in the transparent. Stereolithography, a process used in the automobile industry to prototype parts quickly and efficiently, has many of the same properties as glass. I start by building a three-dimensional wire frame in the computer. The completed wire mesh is a digital blueprint for the final form, which is then fabricated millimeter by millimeter with a laser and an ultra violet setting resin. Like glass, these objects can be incredibly thin, delicate, and luminous.
I want the pieces created in the computer to feel as though they are reflections of objects that already exist. Like the traditional glass forms that these simulations duplicate, the objects are delicate, fragile, luminous, and functional, but they are also unreal renderings of an idealized object, history and time. The use of digital processes and plastics denies the traditions and techniques that surrounded the production of the originals. They are made completely untouched by human hands, but are convincing and persuasive as elegant objects. They simultaneously critique and celebrate the history of glass.
