9 Ben Anrep
Art forms: Ceramics
Ben Anrep & Chess Denman have been collaborating over several years to develop machinery & software to 3D print pots. Their program applies a mathematical formula (a wave) to the pot & so changes its shape. The process is repeated, making a more complicated structure. Some are symmetrical, others take on an organic shape such as shell-like. The pots are made from stoneware or porcelain clay. Oxidation or reduction firings are used to glaze and finish the work, whilst oxides & stains provide colour. The mechanical device that extrudes the clay has to handle high forces of about one tonne using a hydraulic ram & extrude the clay through a print head which is guided by their software in repeatable layers with a precision of less than a millimetre. Clays need to be the consistency of clotted cream. They both have a lifelong interest in making ceramics, but neither are professional potters. Chess is a retired psychiatrist & Ben a retired software engineer.
http://www.mechanicalpots.uk
Telephone: 07970 132762
Email (Website): mechanicalpots@gmail.com
10 Chess Denman
Art forms: Ceramics
I started out making hand built and thrown ceramics. However printed clay has become my new passion. Printing with clay is a mechanical and computational challenge but one can in pots that could be made no other way.
Ben has handled the electronics (a dark art if ever there was one) and I computing which involves understanding the geometry of folded shapes (long helical spirals) and working out how to deform them with regular repeating patterns.
I see mechanical and digital elements used to make art as being similar to paint brushes or potter's wheels. There are constraints but the constraints form a bounded space within which one can be creative and develop a body of work.
The limits that are imposed by the nature of clay and of the three-dimensional printing process are also not always limits one imagines will be dominant. I have seen Ben decide to do things with the computer program that I never knew it could do.
www.mechanicalpots.uk.
Telephone: 07970 132762
Email (Website): mechanicalpots@gmail.com
