Overall it was a vast improvement over the first attempt. The hydrocal setting so fast was just me taking too long. It is already broken in two spots, but it was a pretty clean break that seems fixable. I’m a little nervous sanding it because I don’t want to break it. The leaking isn’t a big deal as the small ridges that form can be sanded down. There was leakage through the cut, the hydrocal started setting before I was done pouring, and I broke the sculpture at the very last moment of removing the tube. I also wrapped a piece of metal flashing around the ends and clamped it on to make connecting the ends of the tubes a little more solid that just trying to duct tape it. I plugged one end with tape, and poured in hydrocal before tying the knot so I could fill the tube easily. This time I cut it open first and taped it back together for easier removal. Here are the pictures of the completed objects I displayed today: Complete trefoil knot made from hydrocal Trefoil rope wrapped in black cloth Three completed objects on display behind a fence I’ll probably work with some of the standard silicone mold making style I’ve done before, as well. The big things (or at least time consuming) are 3D printing and … some mold making technique that Virginia has learned. I’ll get to work on that, too, but the idea is pretty simple and so shouldn’t take much work. I sort of got off my schedule where I had meant to have some stick sculptures already. Next week, I’ll continue to think about some tube stuff since it was so nice. I feel quite accomplished so far, and I think I’ll be ready to submit to some conferences soon. I took those two objects and one of the broken pieces of knot from last week and put them on display for a few hours today. I also decided to wrap a rope in a “sock” that was custom made by Laura Zahn. I finally got a tube sculpture to come out without breaking. I’ll leave it up to the viewer to decide how “solid” it is. So this was the first day I wanted to have some solid work to present, and I have something at least. Forgive me if I use any words a little incorrectly… I’m still just learning! To wrap up this post I will show before and after photos of a ~25m rope representing a basic unknot structure which was later moved into a more complicated ambient isotopy of the unknot. I may consider it again, however, if I ever make a series of playground equipment. It was interesting, but I did not include it in the final show. It was supposed to be an abstract representation of solar ejections coming out of the sun in a braid-like pattern. I then colored everything sorts of orange and yellow. The plaster helped them to hold a certain curvature. Sun sculpture in progressĪfter getting this initial hemisphere, I added tubes filled with plaster as I had made in an earlier project. It worked pretty well and was a lot of fun. I emulated an approach I had seen in a globe making video somewhere a couple of years ago. I hadn’t tried to make a spherical object from plaster yet, but I had thought about it before. I also planned on having an example of the application of knot theory which was inspired by this paper: Knots and braids on the Sun. I wanted some hands-on aspect to the show, as well as some sculptures in more of a museum artifact type of situation. My plan was to have “real world” knots and their mathematical counterparts, along with some larger more sculptural examples of a few of the knots. I’m typing this a bit after the fact, but here is an update! As the end of the semester approached, I worked to put together a gallery style exhibition of knot theory. I’ll be bringing the plaster trefoil to the JMM Art Exhibit in Seattle in a couple of weeks. Speaking of which, my intentions with the beginning of the new year will be to make more work based on knots and have one more gallery show. I may need to do a planned presentation at the next event. One of the shelves fell off the wall, and the manipulative objects were not as clearly labeled as I had hoped. I conveyed most of what I had intended with the work, and the interest level was higher than I had expected. Overall the show was fairly successful from my point of view. I think it’s size coupled with the surprising news that it was really just a circle helped to bring attention to it. This piece seemed to be most interesting to the audience. The large unknot took up one end of the space and cast some very nice shadows. Below each one was a cotton rope of the same knot with the ends taped together which the viewer was encouraged to pick up and play. The usual knots were mounted on the wall. Five sets of manilla and cotton rope were used to do a translation of real world knots into mathematical versions. All the others had broken or went wrong, but I mounted fragments of the failures on the wall. I included the original plaster trefoil sculpture which turned out to be the only one I’ve produced.
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