George Koller on tue 18 may 99
Hi All,
They say all our tools started with a stick..... and just kept evolving.
I am a 24 year veteran of the "run to keep up" microcomputer software
industry. Four years ago, approaching 50, with several of those
proverbial arrow heads festering in my pioneer keester, and tired to the
bone of "it all" I had my crisis and decided to make changes. We
moved to a wonderfully beautiful tourist area (with no "real jobs", of
course), took some time for sailing, hooked up with a local
potter/businessman, and I started inventing my new career with clay. I
knew the world would stop spinning for me when I could hold something in
my hand that I could feel Real pride in.
We set up a nice studio. I bought something like an engraving machine,
and I attempted to use 'sign" software to work with clay and glazes with
hand-made tiles. The first results were horrible....
-Glazes being glazes - they kept doing what we know they do to the
"dabbling" amateur.
-Clay being clay - discouraged me with warping, cracking, and
assorted tricks - so I retreated to using factory tiles.
-Talented young people being talented young people - generally came
and went.
But some positive things started accumulating also.... one was that I
managed to re-discover Sgraffito which began to give our work some soul,
and being a reasonably competent technician I eventually did get over
the glaze problems - if only in a sort of generic commercial way. And
finally - Wisconsin winters being what they are - I had the opportunity
to write my own version of the sign software for our particular purposes
as I was beginning to understand things. By the time of our 2nd tourist
season rolled around I had expanded our artwork base about 20 fold over
the previous season, and joined the ranks of aspiring artists waiting
for checks from their local galleries. Some of our 2nd season body of
work may be viewed at our web site at:
http://www.worldcircle.net/grtw
Now I have just had a third looong Wisconsin winter to assimilate and
advance things along, and I'm excited about the results. The
limitations of the 2nd season software where blown away. Readily
quantifiable advancements include: about 100X faster artwork processing
(but with new hardware also), and capable of 150X more detail, and so
on. More importantly the new software automatically recognizes "bleed
zones", and has other special adoptions for working with clay. We
also, my saint wife and I, reached down deeper into our retirement
savings and ordered a machine that is about 2X faster, effectively 20X
larger, significantly smoother, but most importantly - more specialized
for clay and glaze with 6 tools where we only had one before. It is due
sometime in early June, and the software should be ready by then also.
I want to elaborate briefly on how the tool actually works, but if
there is positive interest in it I will put together a more complete
technical description. There are actually three separate tools involved
here to take an image of almost arbitrary complexity and reduce it to
the point where work can be performed on clay and glazes. This first
tool is a graphical vectorizing ("interpretation") package such as
Streamline (by Adobe). An artist must work with this software to adjust
and modify the way the image is "interpreted" into a vector based file
format called Postscript. My program, in turn, reads one of these
files, takes information from the operator about how many tiles high,
how many wide, size of tiles, sizes of tools, and other things.. After
all the wheels turn, and all the lights blink, it produces a file (in
g_Code) which the clay working machine can read to finally do the work.
It can take only minutes or hours depending on the complexity, I have
tested it up to 20,000 "objects" with success and it should be able to
process more. This will do "proper justice" to many photographs of a
"selected nature" - I have come to love doing bridges, stone walls, old
barns, and such as these. My software gives three views to the artist
- the first view is the "expanded" or projected view on each tile with
original colors. The 2nd view allows the artist to experiment with
color changes (seems powerful). The 3rd view shows the tool paths as
they are "sensed" - after the movements are done you see what the end
result of tool choices and everything together will look like.
The 2nd view is still very limited but seems to be very useful and where
I would like to concentrate some of next winters work - it helps you to
visualize what different actual glazes will look like in place of the
"averaged" color that is produced in the posterizing process. Do you
think Interior decorators would go nuts for this - on the web?? - this
could be real fun. I will need a library of actual glaze colors and
texture images - another dynamic area.
So what kind of work can the clay working machine do? To this time,
except for experiments, we have used the single tool capability of our
first machine only to remove glaze. The entire body of work at the web
site above was done using this single trick. We have experimented using
a laser, and some other tools with mixed, but promising results.
I'm thinking working with bone dry will be most productive. Many tools
would seem to be feasible with time. My personal favorite idea is for a
reciprocating "shoe" that I think will be effective to texturize leather
hard clay. It is even somewhat possible that this reciprocating device
might be effective as a sort of "virtual" mold - to tap down clay
precisely - I want to experiment simulating the "ancient" encaustic tile
making process. It's going to take time and lots of real expertise to
begin to sort out what can be done, that is the one thing I know for
sure.
There are several, I believe, significant advantages of this process
over any other "assisted" clay decorating process that I am familiar
with. Let me list them in no particular order:
1. There is good old fashioned physical contact between the tool
and material. The glaze may be thick or thin, the clay may vary such
as is its nature, still the tool will remove what is intended to removed
- if not on the first pass then on the 3rd or 4th. Irregular shapes
like platters can be handled.
2. Ceramic signs are not only possible, but compared to much of the
work already being done last season - have been and should actually be
"easy". This might mean that ceramic materials can actually regain what
I think is a "rightful" place versus plastic and wood.
3. There are no particular set-up costs(!). No chemicals, no
decals - nothing like that. This, I think, has many and wide ranging
implications for CUSTOM work.
4. Seems the larger scale the better for this process. (The new
table will allow 128 (4.25x4.25) tiles to be mounted at one time.)
5. Great for reproductions. Particularly powerful for classic
lineart and 2 color techniques. Clay murals could be produced as an
alternative to other media in complete cooperation with the original
artist - the end cost need not be prohibitive for clay.
6. Using two layers allows the beautiful sgraffito effect with
smoothly melted edges of contrasting glazes. Any art done with only two
colors becomes particularly straight forward, and elegant. Artwork
based on line art, stone carvings, wood prints, and such are
particularly effective with this process.
My goal is to make contact with people that want to learn more and have
the interest, the expertise, and the wherewithal to help advance this
tool. Maybe they will look in on me up - here in Door County. Maybe
an independently wealthy artisan would like to spend time working
with me here. Maybe there is some reason I should attend your
workshop. Maybe a studio has somebody they can send to work with me
(share costs?). Maybe an art school can see the exciting link computer
graphics and traditional materials implied here. Maybe a successful
muralist will see an opportunity to not only teach mural design, but
have a chance to allow non-expert workshop attendees to return home with
a full size mural. I'd even be somewhat open to having the new machine
shipped to the right studio, and to live on-site for a couple of
months. Whatever it takes! Or maybe you'll just have an idea and want
to tell me about it....
As things stand I will be in a good position to turn out the
traditional "trivets for tourists" and assorted tile doodads at
affordable prices. But this is not really what I am looking to do - I
want to utilize and stretch the new capabilities of the hardware and
software to begin really knocking some socks off. I don't what all
this tool can do yet - but I am certain in my own mind that it can do
"more" than replace silk-screened trivets in this crowded market place.
I think of the 10's of thousands of details that this tool will be able
to perform precisely all day long - for nothing but electricity and air.
If you are interested to learn more please write (off-list, I would
think). I'm finishing up the new version of the software and hope to be
moving the studio ( to an old train station!?!) so I may not get back
right away. By the middle to the end of June the new equipment should
be working with the new software - then I can put some pictures together
and E-mail them around to catch people up on how things are going.
Most sincerely,
George Koller
Up here in Door County, WI where our sailboat is about to get a fresh
coat of bottom paint.
mf-scott@life.uiuc.edu on thu 20 may 99
Fascinating! Tho it isn't clear to me exactly how the clay machine
works. Does it use an engraving bit that scrapes away the glaze either
before or after firing? (Seems either would create unwanted dust.) How
is the glaze applied? A different process for one- versus multi-color?
What fun you'll have experimenting . . . please share more with the
list.
Molly in Champaign-Urbana, just a day away from Door County!
George Koller on sat 22 may 99
Molly,
The glaze is applied using a HVLP sprayer - onto either a bisqued tile or
on the first layer of fired glaze (sgraffito).
Dust is removed via a vacumm system directly over the tool(s). Multiple
colors are accomplished by removing then replacing by hand with another
color.
Would you possibly be an experienced glaze person? One thing ClayArt has
done for me is teach me how much I have to learn in this area.....
Best,
George
PS I'll put you on my "update someday again" list if potentially interested
folks. You'll eventually get something
describing the whole process in more detail.
mf-scott@life.uiuc.edu wrote:
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> Fascinating! Tho it isn't clear to me exactly how the clay machine
> works. Does it use an engraving bit that scrapes away the glaze either
> before or after firing? (Seems either would create unwanted dust.) How
> is the glaze applied? A different process for one- versus multi-color?
>
> What fun you'll have experimenting . . . please share more with the
> list.
>
> Molly in Champaign-Urbana, just a day away from Door County!
George Koller on sat 5 jun 99
mf-scott@life.uiuc.edu wrote:
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> Fascinating! Tho it isn't clear to me exactly how the clay machine
> works. Does it use an engraving bit that scrapes away the glaze either
> before or after firing? (Seems either would create unwanted dust.) How
> is the glaze applied? A different process for one- versus multi-color?
>
> What fun you'll have experimenting . . . please share more with the
> list.
>
> Molly in Champaign-Urbana, just a day away from Door County!
Molly,
Greetings from Door - cold and wet and fairly easy to keep my mind off the
Sailboat
sitting in driveway for awhile yet. But neighbors think I "know
something"....
Yes there is dust - but we use a vacuum to pull it off the spinning diamond
burrs
so it does not get into studio general air. The glazes we have used so far
have been formulated
with a pretty good amount of CMC to make it "tool-able". Floating head
allows for
irregularities, warp, etc. but requires that the material cut through to is
hard - at least
leather hard.
We apply the basic full layers with HVLP sprayers in a special booth we
designed for
this (down draft). Goes easy/fast and we have pretty good control.
My thing is, now that the software is soon to be ready, to figure out
who/how to work
with glazes. Just ordered a new "reciprocating" tool that might work for
"texturizing"
the material in leather hard state. There is so much to learn(!!) on this
that it is all pretty
intimidating. Also I'm trying to understand "The Market" for custom murals
from
photographs and things like this.
Seems like somehow I should find a way to work with somebody that can
explore doing
a wide range of experiments "by hand" for glazing color/textures only then
work toward
taking the labor back out using this device we will have. But who to work
with and how?
There will be updates coming. If you should get up here or want to drop up
give me a
ring....
George Koller
1-920-746-8705
| |
|
