The first element. Also the smallest, and ‘the purple one’, as it has a purple exterior face.
This was the simplest element to make, as no cuts were involved for interior colour effects.
This element would also set a precedent for the general process required for the production the two additional elements.
What may be regarded as the biggest issue was the fact that the required chamfer angle could not be acquired by simply cutting the panels on a band saw; the bed didn’t tilt enough. The solution was to sand the edges back to the desired angle. This demonstrates one of my reasons for working with MDF; easy to manipulate in this respect.
The result was fairly successful. There were some small gaps along the edges, but I’d anticipated that and simply filled them in with car body filler and sanded them down. To be fair, I did that quite a few times before I was happy enough to start applying paint.
Painting this element was a straightforward task with lots of white emulsion, some masking off and some spray painting.
The edges of the purple painted area could be sharper. That is, however, a salvageable state of affairs.
So far things seemed to be progressing well.
Time to make a decision about different materials for a larger scale version.
At this point the ideal, powder coated mild steel/aluminium, solution is financially unobtainable. Consequently I chose an easily available and workable material; MDF.
I was also willing to forgo some of the stricter rules governing the dimensions of objects I usually apply in my work, in an attempt to concentrate on obtaining the form I wanted from my chosen materials.
MDF presented a different set of challenges from cardboard. No longer is the issue mapping a 2D net which will form a 3D object. It has now become the manipulation of 3D materials (10mm MDF), and how those elements accrete to form something else. Esentially it was woodwork…and I’m no carpenter.
Nevertheless, this was not complicated woodwork. All that was required was a chamfering of the edges of the triangular elements that would make up the final forms.
The Platonic tetrahedrons were fairly simple; all the chamfers would have to be the same. The elongated tetrahedron, though, would require a different angle on the ‘base’ (equilateral triangle) from that joining the sides to each other (isosceles triangles). At this point, it all seemed quite simple, theoretically.
It was time to begin in earnest.
I began making new, small, pieces from cardboard, having decided to simplify the forms and continue working with multiples. It also seemed to me that cardboard objects would be relatively easy to scale up and recreate in, perhaps, mild steel or aluminium (if finances were ever to allow that) at a later date.
Simultaneously, I was directed to the research of Nassim Haramein, in whose theoretical model of hyper dimensional physics the tetrahedron plays a pivotal role. At this point I decided to begin work on a project using tetrahedrons as the base form; it being a more interesting form than, say, the cube, which I have experimented with slightly.
I constructed several classical Platonic tetrahedrons, of various sizes, and some which I elongated on one axis and I began experimenting with with composition.
Eventually I found a combination which seemed to be visually interesting and worked quite well. I think it’s something to do with the asymmetry of it.
As an indication of what I mean about scaling up, I’ve included a picture with a borrowed architectural miniature to give the impression.
I initially started working with cardboard (220-300gsm), about 12 months ago, in an effort to create a twisted column. I was unable to decide, at the time, what material to use. White cardboard sprang to mind as ideal for, at least, the experimental and maquette stages.
I felt this was the case because cardboard is fairly easy to manipulate with simple scoring and folding. The folded edges can be crisp and the plain white finish is ideal for my, somewhat minimal, purposes.
After a substantial amount of experimentation I found a form I was happy with and intended to scale it up as a finished piece (from MDF, in my mind). However, as this was for my degree show I realised that the amount of working out and ‘engineering’ that a large scale construct would require was not within my capabiity at that time. Nor was it possible within the time scale allowed. Consequently I decided to make multiple cardboard columns and increase the visual impact with numbers rather than scale.
After the completion of the columns I had realised that cardboard was a useful material for me to use at the planning and maquette stages of my projects on a continuing basis. This is mainly due to the strongly geometric nature of my work.
