Perspectives:
The Interface: Computers, 3-D Modeling and Women Sculptors
by Mary Visser
(...continued)
Sharon
Engelstein graduated with an M.F.A. in sculpture from Claremont Graduate
School in California. Now located in Houston, Engelstein has been the
recipient of a Mid-America Arts Alliance award and a National Endowment
for the Arts Fellowship Award. In the past she has created works based
on her own body as well as nonspecific anthropomorphic forms. Her inspiration
often came from objects as diverse as medical instruments, sex toys, and
taxidermy forms. Engelstein uses 3-d modeling software as a way to prototype
her biomorphic abstractions into real world objects. " Two years ago,
I downloaded a free version of a 3-D modeling program from rhino3d.com
and found an ideal design process. I began to focus on what I love most--the
invention and interplay of bubbly, growing, wandering forms. I have long
been trying to achieve, in my work, a synthesis of organic and mechanical
form--a merging of nature and technology. I found this to be an intrinsic
quality of computer aided design. With this discovery and the mysterious
language of coded geometry I came to revisit my earliest artistic interests--pure
biomorphic abstraction. It was not long before I began searching for ways
to get these forms out of the computer and into real space. From the drawings
to the 3D prints, everything in my work comes out of this process of research
and discovery." Sharon Engelstein
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"My primary concern is to create a hybrid form that
merges the mechanical with organic forms and thus, I find it ironic that
the process of computer aided design (a mechanical process of drawing)
is coming into play to design so many organic forms." ... Sharon
Engelstein
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Born and raised in Belén, New Mexico, Paula
Castillo began sculpting with metal in 1990. She attended Yale University
focusing on literature, received a B.A. in science from the University
of New Mexico and her M..A. in sculpture from the College of Santa Fe.
She was awarded research fellowships by the National Endowment for the
Arts and the National Science Foundation to study various aspects of sculpture.
Her work is in many public and private collections across the U.S. Castillo
is currently completing a monumental sculpture commission in her hometown
of Belén for the New Mexico Art in Public Places program. Recently
she was one of 80 international sculptors selected out of a pool of 800
applicants to have her work shown as part of the International Sculpture
Award in an exhibit in Milan, Italy. Castillo draws large scale metal
forms in AutoCAD before construction. The use of this program has helped
her to develop a dialog with the architects and engineers when working
on public projects together. The concepts, scale, location and position
of the work can easily be seen by the building designers which makes the
process more cohesive. "I work with gravity, temperature and light," says
Castillo. "They are as abstract as they are pervasive. When I create art
everything is stripped to essentials
I continually look for things
that surprise me." Paula Castillo
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"As an artist, I use the computer daily. It is as
essential to me, as my arc welder and other such tools." ...
Paula Castillo
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