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modify it in order to fit that shape or execute a specific design. And in that process you may realize that you’ve made a modification to your machine that gives you an opportunity to make another shape. I use little kernels of info like that. Maybe I’m making a large sphere for a specific piece and I realize I have an opportunity to make a couple tweaks to make a different shape based on that specific detail and I’ll set that aside and design a new piece around that. I do use a 2D CAD program. I tend to just render everything isimmetrically. I don’t like programs that do things for you so I don’t play with 3D programs. I don’t use CAD CAM software to generate my codes. I hand-write all the codes for my equipment because a lot of my pieces have been spawned by taking a part program for one sculpture and I write the code in such a way that I can manipulate a few values and generate a different shape just by changing some numbers. There is a lot of room to find different shapes either in an alpha numeric computer program where you’re looking at relationships and numbers, or in the physical world where you are building a machine or changing a physical set up or just when you’re looking at all the parts of a sculpture disassembled. This may inspire you, visually, to start a new piece. I try to use every aspect of the process as an opportunity to come up with ideas. I tend to look everywhere. I try not to have automatic processes that do things for me. Even though my machines are automated, I try to be involved in all the things that the machine is doing.
J: So you not only had to learn how to be a machinist, but in order to accomplish the things you needed, you also had to learn how to be a computer programmer? C: Yeah, the software that operates machines is available online. A small group of people wrote those themselves, but it’s a very customizable program, so you can modify that to control various different machines. I’m actually designing a new machine to build in the fall and I can take that program and change the interface to change the equipment I’m building, and then it will run a program that is specifically a G-code, which is the command that tells the machine how to cut and what to cut. I had to learn all of that programming myself. Again, I learned manual machining first. It’s important to understand how to manually cut everything before you tell a machine to do it for you. So it’s all very interlinked. I try to use every step in my education as a step to improving my work and my visual aesthetic as well. I’m such a process guy that it’s all intertwined with aesthetic. It’s all kind of mixed up at this point.
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