When a few art students at West Virginia University were faced with their first 3-D printer, they did what any of us would do.

They uploaded a pattern, pushed print and left the machine to its work.

Ryan Brislawn, a graduate student in ceramics, said that when the students returned to the printer, the resulting tangled plastic looked like a hairball.

This trial and error has been at the heart of their path to learn and apply this technology to their art. What started with conventional plastic 3-D printers now includes ceramic printers, and WVU’s program has grown to become one of the earliest operating ceramic 3-D printing university programs in the nation.

Last year, 23 students navigated the technology to create whatever they liked: a bust of themselves, tools for ceramics, additions to their pots and sculptures. They left the class having freely expressed themselves after learning a new graphics program and how to out-think the machine. The students even built their own 3-D printers using the online example of an English artist, some parts they ordered over the Internet from China, and, of course, a lot of trial and error.

Technology has long been within the purview of artists, especially since the beginning of ceramics nearly 30,000 years ago.

“Materials are developed for industry, and as soon as that happens the artists grab ahold of it and see what they can do with it,” Brislawn said. “So there’s always been this back and forth between technology and the arts. And it gives us more tools. It gives us more opportunity. It gives us more chances to play. Dump the building blocks at our feet, and see what we can do.”

That’s what happened when Shoji Satake was exposed to 3-D printing as head of the 3-D design foundation program at Indiana University Bloomington. After that he often visited Bowling Green State University, then at the forefront of 3-D ceramic printing in higher education. Since then Bowling Green State University has moved on to other things, but Satake, with the support of the College of Creative Arts started to build piece by piece this new part of the WVU ceramics program.

The ceramics program at WVU is already known for its production facility and program in China, where students can develop their craft where the art began. The University’s graduate ceramics program is ranked 18th nationally by U.S. News & World Report. New additions like the 3-D printing class continue to challenge students in new ways.

“It’s pretty significant that we’re one of the earlier universities to approach 3-D ceramic printing,” Satake said.

One of the strengths of the 3-D ceramic printing class is that it has given something different to each of the students who walk in, whether they’re sculptors, animators or ceramicists.

Early in the fall semester, Ashley DeMotto, a senior majoring in intermedia from Elkins, was making a shallow flower using the 3-D plastic printer. It wasn’t turning out like she’d hoped. But that was part of the experience.

Her reaction to finding out that such a class was offered at WVU?

“It sounds awesome, 3-D printing,” she said. “I didn’t even know it existed until [a classmate] told me about it a week or two ago.”

She’d been enrolled in other classes but quickly changed her schedule to accommodate this one.

“3-D printing’s like making magic,” DeMotto said. “I feel like there aren’t a lot of limitations. You can make anything and bring it to life in a different way than from painting or just drawing on a tablet … I feel like it’s more real this way.”

Brandon Witschi, a senior majoring in sculpture from Bridgeport, said it’s the feeling of being at the beginning of something important that makes this class so exciting.

“Most of the rest of any of the studio classes you’re going to take are building off of a traditional style, where this is a new technology all together so there’s no, ‘Well, during the Renaissance when they were printing 3-D…’” Witschi said.

“Everything that we’re doing is all new ground to step into, so there’s not anything to say what you have to do. It’s boundless.”

Satake expects 3-D printing to grow within higher education and across academic areas. He envisions a fabrication lab like those at other universities where students across art and science can go to make something for their projects, only at WVU it would include ceramics.

While he explores imagination with ceramics, he’s also aware of how useful 3-D ceramic printing is to his colleagues. Ceramic is one of the few materials the human body won’t reject, making it ideal for use as a bone replacement.

And the creativity involved in this kind of artistic process goes beyond the end product to the ingenuity required to get the machinery to do what you want it to do.

The ceramic printer at the off-campus ceramic production facility began its life as an industrial 3-D printer. But Satake hacked it to print using a bed of powdered clay and a bonding solution injected with the use of modified inkjet cartridges that pass over each new layer of powder to culminate in a ceramic object.

And then there’s the clay extrusion printer his students constructed that uses air compression to force wet clay into the desired pattern. Brislawn says beyond making sure the parts all work together, they had to figure out the ideal air pressure and how large an object the machine can make before the clay flops over under its own weight.

“It’s one of those really good challenges because when it works, it will be an excellent victory, right?” Brislawn said. “But figuring out how to just machine some of the pieces was a real trial.”

Satake said 3-D printing in ceramics is best for the kinds of things that aren’t easily made using traditional ceramic methods such as the potter’s wheel and hand building. For instance, he could make 40 or more mugs on the wheel in the time it would take to design a mug in the software and get the machine to print it.

“For me this is not an end all,” Satake said. “It’s another tool like the computer. It’s like our potter’s wheel. It’s another element that provides the students with a way to increase their creativity.”

Brislawn uses the printers to make tools that help him keep a handmade look on his pots and bottles while still imbuing them with a functional uniformity such as making sure the mouth of a bottle will match a cork.

Satake uses the printer to make small pieces of objects within objects or pieces that are hollow or undulated inside that would be impossible to make by hand or on a wheel because of their size and intricacy. He then adds these printed objects to his hand-built sculptures.

One day in class, DeMotto posed on a chair while another student waved what looked like a plastic handle over the air around her. This mobile scanner was taking thousands of photos and then stitching them together to make a virtual bust. At the end of the process, the printer produced a gleaming inches-tall bust of DeMotto in purple.

Without the advancement of technology, it would have been wildly expensive to offer this kind of tools for students to use in class. But with the rapid development and support to push boundaries, especially from College of Creative Arts Dean Paul Kreider and School of Art and Design Director Alison Helm, Satake has been able to develop these tools for his students’ development and his own creativity.

“Most of my sculptures require multiple complex parts,” Satake said. “This provides another potential means for me to make my work even more unique, more interesting. It’s a way for me to convey my intellectual ideas in ways that I’ve always imagined.”

Now he’s continuing to develop the program, getting a post-graduate fellow to help work with the students and the machinery. He hopes to see the program continue to grow and offer new opportunity to more students.

But the program as it stands now is still something new, fresh and different. Brislawn came to WVU for its “amazing” ceramics program because he saw young faculty building a strong and dynamic program.

“What they offer here you can’t get at your typical university,” Brislawn said. “Being one of the first schools to really have a strong 3-D printing program is just another one of those aspects that makes this a special place to be.”

By Diana Mazzella
University Relations/News

-WVU-

dm/04/09/15

CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, College of Creative Arts
304-293-4359, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu

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