In preparation of an impending move back to New York in July of 2012, I made the difficult decision to clean my studio.  Part of what wound up as trash included floppy disks (8, 5.25 and 3.5 inch!),  one-off prototype circuits, models, and materials from my teaching days at New York City’s School of Visual Arts (SVA).  These included boxes containing experimental efforts and research into 3D scanning, laser cutting, CNC machining, stereolithography,  water-jet cutting, and wax-jet printing as new tools for artists.   As someone whose instinct is to save nearly everything of a technological nature (all my work and parts I use to make work!), I thought I was being extraordinarily adult with what was a very difficult purge of the past.

Ironically, a few days later and the night before that week’s trash pickup, I received an email from an author’s representative in the UK asking for information on my now historic work in 3D printing.  After some seriously panicked dumpster diving, I was able to salvage one wax-jet fabricated piece whose photo made it into Stephen Hoskins’s  new book.

My interests have shifted over the years and I did not know of Stephen or his work. The video below is a terrific introduction to his unique specialization and center:

I am honored to have work included in this book and I want to thank two very good friends who helped to shape this period of my life: Timothy Binkley and Bruce Wands.

Tim Binkley’s invitation to teach in SVA’s MFA program made many things possible.  Intimidated by then giant CRTs and the unnerving silence of Photoshop temple devotees  I was very happy when  I was allocated a terrific little space to use as a classroom.   It was a corner room, no heat, windows with wire in the glass, on a floor above the “serious fine artists” where I developed and taught “Electronic Engineering for Artists,” one of the first – if not the first – of its kind in an art or engineering school.

Bruce Wands was the department chair at SVA’s BFA Computer Art Department and the visionary who gave the “Digital Sculpture” class a chance.  Bruce was able to appropriate the funds not only run the class (first semester, three students) but to also purchase a CNC machine, and secure three site licenses of AutoCAD.   The machine – and my classroom – inhabited a closet at the end of a hall.

Life has changed a lot since then.