User:Lisanne 't Hart
Lisanne ’t Hart
0912081@hr.nl
Major: Graphic Design
Practice: Autonomous - Digital Craft
What is craft?
In the class we discussed what craft is. We came to the conclusion that craft is about every humans ability to make. It comes from a passion were humans explore how to make stuff. Craft is about the proces. Art can be the outcome.
Me and my group has to work with fusing. I looked up what we should do with fusing: “In fusing you will deepen your knowledge different additive fabrication and 3D printing technologies, their different materials and bonding processes, and search for the craft in an industry that marks itself as fast and cheap. So for the first four weeks I will deepen my knowledge and exploring possibilities within fusing.
I will show you 5 samples:
1. Historical example 2. Shared example 3. Comparative example 4. New try-out skill 5. Pushing the material to the limit.
The history of Fusing
To found out what the history of fusing is we first wanted to find out what it is. You can talk about fusing as adding things to things. I discussed with my group what the beginning of fusing was. It become very con-fusing, because we found out that fusing is the beginning of life. To make it not so con-fusing we sticked to the craft part: What is fusing in craft? To make it not so con-fusing I will explain it with an example. Felting is a good example to discuss about what fusing is. Felt from wool is considered to be the oldest know textile. We can speak about 3000 years before christ. Felt is produced by matting, condensing and pressing fibers together. With wet felting you need hot water and soap. And with a movement you make sure that the fibers from the wool stick together. This proces makes it belong to fusing.
Conclusie on what fusing is: Adding things to things.
Text: The invention of craft - by Glenn Ademson"
The term 'craft' is a modern invention in the industrial revolution. (1750-1850) The practice existed already.
1. Historical example
The first material that popped into my head when I heard fusing was “String beads” (Dutch: Strijkkralen). As a child I was always making something nice out of it. I decide it to buy it at a shop and try to make something out of it, now I am not a child anymore I could be interesting. I was experimenting to do it without using the pad and just fuse the string beans together with the iron. This was the result:
out came: My opinion is that when I made pattern designed by me that the material got more value. I found out that I like to have control on the colours and also were I wanted to put it. But the most interesting things happen when you work out of control. That is why I just decided to work without the pad. It's a different way to use the material. I want to but this material to the limit.
2. Shared example
We worked in a group of 6 people. Out of the discussion about the history of fusing we came to the conclusion that fusing is adding things to things. And we all agree on that. For the shared example I thought it was a good idea to share our historical examples with each other and found out if there is something interesting in the examples which we all like. We all wanted to experiment with different materials and fuse them together and make tiles out of them. To begin this example we just had to started and created something so we can find out what will happen. Another day we collected a lot of materials like, nail polish, string beads, plastic, wooden blocks, paint, pencils and a material that look like a sponge. We wanted to melt them together but every material had his own melting temperature. So that seems impossible for now. Lucky we also had concrete. So we mixed the concrete with the materials in a molt that we made out of a plastic tubes. After this drying proces we wanted to polish them and see what the end result would be.
Out came: I saw this example as an experiment to explore which material I like to work with. I like the outcome of the string beans with the purple concrete and the nail polish mixed with glitters. There was also happening something interesting with the big contrast from de soft sponge with the hard concrete. Different texture but we could fuse it together.
3. Comparative Example
The day for the shared example I also brought old candles with me. We didn't used it to melt the things together because every material has his own temperature to melt. I still wanted to melt this candle with an other material. For this example I used: a cupcake form as a molt, pieced of the candle, coloured beads and the oven to melt them together. I put the oven on 200 degrees and let it there in for 10 minutes. To make sure that the candle doesn't stick to the cupcake form I put some oil on the edge of the molt. With the shared example we had struggles to put the concrete out of the plastic molt. Maybe it would have worked better if we also used oil.
Out came: When the candle with the beans came out of the oven the candle pieced were liquid. So it had to dry for a couple minutes. This was the end result of this example:
4. New try out skill
5. Pushing your material to the limit.
I wanted to put the String beans to the limit. Therefor I did not used an iron to fuse the coloured string beans together but I used an oven for this example. I used the cupcake form and put some oil to it so that it would not stick to it. In four cups I did a thin layer of string beans. One of them I decided which colours I wanted to fuse together. With the historical example I found out that I like to have control on the colours and also were I wanted to put it. I let this last thing go.
(afbeelding)
out came: The string beans in full cup had to melt longer. Only the outside was melted together not the inside. So I put that example back in the oven and also raised the temperature to 200 degrees.
Materialising statement on making.
Final + communicative product.
Why I make: The make more value to things.
