Math + Machining + Art: Bathsheba Grossman’s Drawer Handles

mathpull.jpg
Bathsheba Grossman is an artist who explores the juncture of form and function with his sculptures, and the results are stunning — but I always love it when artists take their ideas into the practical realms, making thing like these incredible drawer pulls. The result, to me, is a combination of hot design whimsy and science (math + hardcore machining). On her site, Grossman explains exactly how she works, and tells us:

(…) I use a lot of technology. 3D printing in metal is the main way that I work, and I also do a lot with subsurface laser damage in glass. This isn’t because I love gadgets; it’s much more trouble and expense to use new media instead of the more mature techniques that most sculptors enjoy. I do it because the shapes I have in mind aren’t moldable, and I want to make a lot of them. Those two constraints, taken together, turn out to be remarkably constraining: ordinary sculpture technology just does not do the job

Drawer pulls on Bathsheba’s News page (via Neatorama)
Update: Duhhrr, this post has been updated to correct the gender of the maker — who, I’ve been told, is also in the Makers book, was at Maker’s Faire — and that she “is awesome!” Thanks, Phillip!

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