Final Fall Update

Hey Everyone, 

I am happy to report that now that the thesis proposal has been submitted, the fun work can begin! I have thoroughly enjoyed doing the preliminary writing and peer editing this semester, but I am very excited to start interviewing and putting together designs and ideas for my exhibition! 

The next steps that I am preparing for are scheduling interviews with various museum education professionals, as well as choosing which RIT public art pieces I would like to focus on. The next couple of weeks will consist of writing my to-do list and organizing all of my thoughts and ideas.

Excited to have a break from classes, but also excited to see all our ideas come to life!

Here is a sneak peek of one of my favorite RIT public art pieces at the moment, entitled " Growth and Youth" by Josef Albers. 

See you guys later, 

Alice Cauchi

Alice's Week 12 Update!

Hello all!

I cannot believe it is already Week 12. This semester has been a whirlwind of assignments and exams, making me really glad it is almost Thanksgiving Break! 

Overall, I would say that in the last few weeks, I have become increasingly excited about my topic and its potential for execution. I have decided to shrink my scope to include only art museums and have chosen the Rochester Institute of Technology Public Art as my medium. I am excited to engage with professionals through interviews to gain their insight into how to create for children and read the new sources that I have about education through art.

With the final due date for our Thesis Proposal approaching, I am hoping to gain more peer review from people outside of our thesis class to gain the perspective of someone who is not in the museum's sphere. I think this will allow me to see what points of my paper are not technically explained well and make appropriate edits. 

In the end, I am very excited to continue my research and start working on the project! 

Here is a link to the RIT Public Art: RIT Public Art Site

See you next time 👋...

Alice

Last Minute Details and Finishing Everything Up

While approaching the end of my thesis, my check list of things I have to do is getting shorter and shorter. At this point, my second and final print is completed, the paper only needs minor revisions and the poster is complete.

The complete poster is shown above.

Things to do include, adding a few more paragraphs to my paper about how people are interacting with these objects and how this project could proceed in the future. For example, Richard Minsky suggested to print the facsimile as is but sand down, with a belt sander, the back of the object to remove the backing and reveal holes in its lowest points. Having an object with correctly placed holes makes it flexible enough to add a real silk backing just like the original. This is instead of painting it red where the silk should have gone in the crevasses between the raise papiermache areas.

I am really excited for the poster session becasue I would have both the image of the original, images of the scans and both physical copies present to show each part of the process and exhibit the level of detail and accuracy achieved. Having the facsimiles with me also helps illustrate how easy it is to pass around and hold away from an archive experience. This is an experience that you could not have had with the original which qualifies my research question.

After the paper is submitted, the poster is printed and everything is signed off, I will be giving the Cary both physical copies as well copies of the 3D scans.

Almost done!

Updates on the thesis "The Process of Creating Accurate Reproductions of Fragile Objects: The Fabrication of 3D Facsimiles with Limited Resources"

At first glance, I have changed my title from "The Advantages of..." to "The Process of Creating...." The majority of my other edits consisted of omitting anything that spoke about digitizing the book's pages and creating a complete facsimile. These decisions were made based on the time frame I have and the fragility of the book.

On Monday, January 30th, I met with Dr. Galbraith and Mike Buffalin at the Cary to pick scanner and get it approved. We were between two scanners and we made our decision based on the safety the scanner can allow the object and the accuracy of the scan. The first scanner, the Fuel 3D, was handheld, had a DSLR styled flash, auto stitched using targets, and is sold around $3,000. The second scanner was the Next Engine 3D scanner which sits on the table and scans horizontally, I am the most familiar with it because I have used it before, creates beautiful scans, requires the book to be on a stand, and costs about $2,800. We decided on the Next Engine and the use of a clear plastic stand. I will also use the Next Engine software on my own computer.

       

I will most likely digitize and scan the papiermache bound book with William Shakespeare on the cover. This is due to its size and the ability to concentrate on the portion of the profile when I start printing.

Also on Monday, we were able to scan and stitch two images of the book's front cover together.

All other updates consist of finishing and getting my proposal signed, writing the first 12 pages of my thesis and starting to plan when I will start the scanning process. Tomorrow, 2/10/2017, I will download the software and learn the set up of the scanning equipment. Hopefully I will start scanning next week.