Artist Bathsheba Grossman's Incredible 3D Printed Work

Artist Bathsheba Grossman has employed 3D printing to create her amazing math inspired forms for so long she can be considered a veteran 3D printing artist. She had the very first Shapeways shop, and her lamp design -- Quin -- was chosen as Time Magazine's "Top 100 Designs" in 2007. Her work runs a vast spectrum from small metal forms to jewelry and housewares, and she outsources her steel designs to ExOne, the inventors of steel printing. But she doesn't just work in steel; she's made a commissioned 3D printed 7-foot-tall concrete sculpture and has even realized one of her designs in snow! Her recent work is being shown in East Stroudsburg University's "5 in 3D" show and Southwestern University's "What Things May Come" digital sculpture exhibit; both shows are opening this week. Find out more about this artist, in her own words, as well as her background and designs, in the full article: http://3dprint.com/41495/bathsheba-grossman-3dp-art/


Below is a photo of Grossman's 7-foot-tall 3D printed concrete sculpture, "Rygo":
http://3dprint.com/wp-content/upload...o-1024x860.jpg

Yes, Bathsheba's one of our national treasures; she took to 3D printing right at the beginning, and ran with it. Unlike many artists, she doesn't feel that each individual object she makes is particularly precious, so she keeps her prices low and makes it up on volume. She's said she feels more akin to a best-selling author than a typical artist who trades on the artificial scarcity of individual artworks; Stephen King doesn't have to sell each book for a lot of money to be successful.

Andrew Werby
Juxtamorph.com

I think she's a fool. She had a decade head start on the huge fashion design jewelry market but instead branded her tiny pieces as "microsculptures" which she mainly showed off at obscure mathematics symposiums. Only much later did she finally add a necklace chain instead of a little sculpture stand. Typical awkward geek, totally out of touch with social reality. Took out little ads in the back of Popular Science instead of entered the jewelry market!

We don't seem to be finding much to agree on lately, Nik. You seem to think of the fashion jewelry market as a ripe piece of fruit, ready to be plucked by anyone with a good sense of design and a cool process. But it's a big industry that's mostly based in Asia nowadays, which has little interest in new designs and is intensely focused on cost of production. One can hardly blame Bathsheba for failing to take it over with her relatively expensive jewelry products that didn't resemble anything it is familiar with or cares about. Even now, all producers using 3D printing have only a microscopic share of this market, and that's when one no longer has to start from scratch when explaining what it is.

What she did produce are indeed wearable sculptures (I bought one about 7 years ago, and it did come with a chain). She's made a good living selling art, which is hard to do. Some of it was jewelry but it also comes in a range of larger sizes, She's stayed at the forefront of the 3D printing industry, trying out a wide range of processes from different manufacturers and making them work for her. She started a company that produced models of protein molecules, star clusters, and mathematical objects in solid pieces of glass. She's produced commercial items, like her popular Klein's bottle opener, and sold them via mail-order, using ads in Smithsonian Scientific American, The Atlantic, etc. She's also done lamps, puzzles, public art commissions, and designed her own software programs, originally to help her conceptualize new designs, and now as freestanding applications others can play with: http://bathsheba.com/bio/zoa/ .

It's hard to think of anyone lately who has combined artistic originality and brilliance with commercial acumen like she has. If she's a "fool", I want to be one too...

Here's a link to her site: http://bathsheba.com/

Andrew Werby
Juxtamorph.com

I've met Bathsheba a couple of times and she's actually rather brilliant and entertaining. Not sure what her motivation is in terms of making money, but she has a very cool, bi-coastal life going on for herself.

And I'm planning to check out her software tonight, awerby. Thanks for the link...