OCAD's 95th Annual Grad Show

The thesis students at OCAD have been very busy this past week. Displays are being installed and finishing touches are being applied for Enter OCAD - the school's 95th Annual Grad Show. I was helping my friend Jon with building his display today and I'm excited to see it all set up in the end. His work is dynamic, introspective, intricate and definitely worth looking at. 

I hope you all come out to it. There are six floors of work from 12 different programs, and over 500 emerging artists. I'll have some jewellery for sale in room 201 of 100 McCaul, and I'll have my new ring in a collection of rapid prototyped objects outside of room 500 on the 5th floor.

my ring is finally finished :)

to see the process look here and here.

small object design

my rhino class is over now, but that doesn't mean the work is done.

end of term is really crazy at OCAD, especially in the rapid prototyping centre. one of the MJM printers chose last week to implode (or something like that) and successfully messed up the lead times for everyone's assignments.

since my piece is so small and delicate it should have taken about two hours to 3D print in wax. i had to wait a week.

so i finally got my rapid prototyped ring back, and i was very pleased. the detail that can come out of those printers is amazing. andree wejsmann was one of our guest critics and she asked me if i would rather do this piece again in metal or through rhino and i wholeheartedly said in metal. (by that point, i felt like my eyes were going to fall out of my head from working on the computer so much) but when i got the piece back i realized that i could never do that in metal, the detail was so fine, that not even jewellers saws could cut lines that thin.

tomorrow my piece is being sent to the casting house, and i'm excited to see it in sterling silver :)

 

these are crappy photos, but it was so hard to photograph because the detail is too tiny, and the material is transparent-ish.

jesse jackson was our instructor (no, not the singer). he's an architect and liked to see our work documented in a similar manner to his critiques from grad school. so, i also had to do line drawings and renderings using illustrator and flamingo - programs i had very little or no experience in. (it is very hard to learn flamingo in a day by the way). so i basically learned 3 programs in 12 weeks, crazy.

here are my efforts.

(my computer skills are getting better...though i'm sure i'll never be a pro).

i haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately...

it's because of this:

3D modeling is hard.

it's done!

so this is what has been plaguing my life for about 6 weeks now. every spare second was spent drawing and manipulating and joining (way harder than you can even imagine) these tedious lines to make this hammer 3D printable compatible for my small object design class. will i 3D print this hammer? no.

but now i have some skills to design crazy complicated jewellery that can be machine printed in wax, and then cast into silver.

learning rhino is arguably one of the hardest things i have done in my artistic career...and i have done some hard things (like making this 6 different times until it was just right, or my chair/storage compartment made up of over 300 pieces of wood).

at first making a line go where i wanted it to in 3D space was so frustrating i wanted to drop the course. but i'm glad i stuck it out, now i have a new skill :)

well i said that i love enamelling, but here's something i do not love: rhino.
i see how useful it can be, but it's sooooo tedious. i know i can make whatever i'm trying to make by hand faster than using this program.

i've been stuck at home, replicating a tool in 3D for days now...
if that's not fun, i don't know what is.

classes and openings

well i said that i would talk about my enamelling class. i was waiting until i could scan in my sample but i'm so swamped i can't even do that. but what else is new?

anyways, i love enamelling. it's so bright and colourful - aspects that i need to incorporate into my work somehow since my pieces tend to be dark.

my Rhino class is pretty tedious at the moment, but i am learning a lot. i think i'm gonna spend a good chunk of tomorrow doing some tutorials.

and i went to the opening of It's a Big Deal and Labourious at Harbourfront the other day. it was so great! but that's not surprising. i tend to follow some of the artists who were exhibiting there, they have so much artistic freedom with the help of Harbourfront's Artist-in-Residence program, so their work is continuously fantastic.

seeing their work in person makes me realize that i need to make new work...pronto.

back to the craziness

school has started once again. i thought maybe this semester would be a little less hectic, but i think i was just trying to make myself feel better.

on a good note i'm taking an enameling course at Jewel Envy as well as a small object design course using 3D modelling software at OCAD. as usual, i'm trying to expand my range of skills. this need of mine costs me a small fortune and a lot of storage space. i think i need to rent out another apartment just to hold the supplies i've gathered from all the different kinds of media i work in.

i also really really want to participate in the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition this year, so I have in mind to create a few more pieces to accompany my thesis work.

it should be an exciting and crazy year so keep checking back for news!