Make Space: Installation meet up at La Reunion TX

Old road almost swallowed up by privet

A good portion of the artists for this years Make Space: Installation met up at La Reunion Tx to scout out locations and inspirations for their installation projects. It was thick with slippery mud but other wise a very nice day.

Sarah Jane introduced me to Shreyas Krishnan, who describes himself as an ecologist with an interest in how invasive plants effect the natural evolution of amphibians and retiles. Of course I was very happy to hear about the invasive plant interest. I am hoping to include some of his knowledge in the documentation on the Privet Sculpture Project.

Two of the other artists, Anne Albagli and Nicle Cullum Horn are using privet in some form in their installations, so I'll be posting about some of their experiences here, too.

SculptCAD Rapid Artists role call

Here are the links to the artists that are involved in the SculpCAD Rapid Artist Program being sponsored by SculpCAD. Nancy selected a group of artists that work in a wide range of styles, mediums and disciplines to see what artists would do with a 3-D computer sculpting tool that is normally used by draftsmen to design medical implants and consumer good like tennis shoes.

• Brad Ford Smith
  
• Dave VanNess
  
• Jay Sullivan
  
• Erica Larkin
  
• Heather Ezell
  
• Ginger Fox
  
• Heather Gorham
  
• Katherine Batiste
  
• Mark Grote
  
• Shawn Smith
  
• Tom Lauerman
  
• Bert Scherbarth
  
• Nancy Hairston
  
• Shane Pennington

More Local Privet Problems

Seems like as soon as I submitted my Privet Sculpture proposal to La Reunion privet started coming out of my ears.

Lots of people like Shreyas Krishnan and organizations like the Texas Master Naturalists are very passionate about privet. Shreyas sent in this link to an article in the Dallas Morning News about the problems of removing privet from the Great Trinity Forest, (video by Scott Miller) Texas Invasives.org is actually creating a map that tracks the spread of privet across Texas.

A Duck made in the world of SculptCad

We had our first SculptCad Rapid Artists meeting today. We all introduced ourselves and commented on how our first tutorial projects were going, Note the duck pictured above. I'll post the links to all the participating artists in the next post.

On site with Make Space: Installation

Drove out to meet up with Sarah Jane Semrad and some of the other artists that are part of the La Reunion TX Make Space: Installation. The La Re Volunteers have been working had this past year to clear out new trails and spaces. I wish I had known, I could have collected a lot of privet.

Anyway here is the list of artist in this years show:

Anne Albagli, Oliver Bradley/David Blood, Sandra Groomer, Nicole Cullum Horn, Scott Horn, Kevin Obergon, Brad Ford Smith.

Privet Gone Wild at La Reunion TX

I am one of the artists in the 2010 La Reunion TX Make Space: Installation. My project is to make an architectural sculpture using privet. Privet is a plant from Asia. As you can see in the photo, it is a very aggressive and is quickly overtaking the Dallas Metroplex. Just about any creek or flood zone you look into you will see privet growing, acres and acres of privet. In this project I will be testing the viability of using the privet as a green and renewable building material.

Frist Day as a ScultpCAD Rapid Artist

Had My first chance to play with the Free Form 3 D computer sculpting program today. Mostly just poking holes and making cheese doodles. I can see that this program has a lot of similarities to the tools found in Adobe Photoshop. But it seems a bit more user friendly. Then add the Phantom desktop carving tool which is a pencil like mouse that simulates the feel of carving into real material.

Next week I'll start using the tutorial to help me learn the program. I can see