Introduction
In this project of space and materiality, we explored creating interior space using wood. Before this, we had made our chosen type of container using clay and wires. My container is pen cup. For the wooden pen container, I continued the idea I had for the wire one in terms of shapes and structures. In the wire one, I created an abstract figure of a snow mountain by creating the armature with thin wires and twinning black and white yarns round the wires.(Snow mountain is a reference to Chinese culture since mountain is a common motif in paintings and decorations.) After it was done, I was fascinated by the shapes (mostly triangles) outlined by the yarns on the walls of the pen cup. They are very geometric and abstract in a ways that fits into the whole structure of my design. Therefore, I wanted to creating the similar geometric and abstract feeling using a different material which would be wood.
Wire Pen Cup
Process & Difficulties
I started out by sketching the sides of the pen cup. For this one, I wanted the shapes to be more regular and more in order than the wire piece. The dimension is 4X4.5X4.5inches. Each sides are made of four identical triangles going each other at the corner. Every triangle is 1.5 inches by 4.5 inches.
Initial Sketches
Work in Process
The main difficulty in this project was that it is almost impossible to glue the edges of triangles together since there is no area for them to attach each other. Then I came up with an idea of adding chunks between triangles like the picture shown below.
When I put this idea into reality, It looked very chunky and clumsy that drove it further from my original idea which is to make it in a minimalistic and clean way. Then I found a better solution which is to use wood sticks to fix the pieces. Two sticks were used for each corner. One on the outside and one in the inside.
Final Product
Since I used wood glue to make the pen cup, there were a lot of yellowish stains left on the surfaces after the glue dries. The best way to prevent it is to avoid letting the glue go to the surfaces which I failed to do. Then I sprayed the whole cup silver to not only hide the stains but also change the texture of it.
