HAPPY ACCIDENTS #1 -
FROM EARRING TO BALL (part 2) |
by Erik Es - Amsterdam, July 2, 2018 |
While printing the "double Spiral Earrings" (see PART 1) I ended up with several trays holding a pile of these prints, waiting to be made into earrings. When I started on the job of attaching the hooks, I noticed that, after being piled up, these earrings had a nasty tendency to lock together. Here's three of them holding on to each other: |
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After cursing this unwanted property a couple of times, I suddenly realized that this was actually a pretty neat way of connecting two prints together. Happy accident ! I had also noticed that the spiral shapes can easily be bent over the top of my finger to form part of a sphere. So, still with spirals in mind, I came up with the idea to make a 5-armed spiral with a small spiral at the end of each arm, so that 12 of these pieces could be connected to form a dodecahedron. Note that at each "corner" THREE small spirals will connect together, that's why they are that wide. |
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This led to one of those occasions where the end result is very different than anticipated. I was expecting to end up with some kind of round ball, like a football with 12 slightly curved segments. But I ended up with this instead: |
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Nice, interesting, but not the ball I wanted... So then I decided to make another shape for the piece, while still using the connecting spirals. I also put the connectors on the sides of the pentagons instead of the corners (so they only connect 2 parts instead of 3). |
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This finally led to the birth of the beautiful SPRING BALL which is now one of the marvelous objects for sale at Printed In Space. |
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This object would not have existed if those spiral earrings had not been so willing to stick together. Happy accidents - I love them. Looking back, I actually like that "failed" ball a lot. It has a kind of Escher-like & "esoteric" quality, like some strange artificial planet constructed by alien angels. I think I'll try some similar-but-different designs to see what happens. Knowing that the end result can be quite different than expected makes this is a fun technique to experiment with. By the way: it happens quite regularly that "first attempts" and "in-between" designs which are abandoned (because they do not fit the requirements at the time) can be used for something else later on. Good subject for another blog... |
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