Back in May after an initial tour in April, I applied to Steamhouse to help me with the development of the biomaterials. Even though I’m still very much in an inception phase, I’m hoping to explore the possibilities of biomaterials and product innovation and I feel SH is the best place for these developments to happen. My application to join Steamhouse was successful and as soon as I’d got the induction completed I have been in the studios. My over arching aims is to explore the application of a charcoal material composite for marketable lifestyle products - so this is what I’m going to experimenting with over the coming weeks.
My first outcome is to make moulds for casing/packaging or product forms. Not moving too far away from my previous bio tests, I decided to use the ground mussel shells. In the previous tests the shell lost a lot of the iridescent qualities within the grind, so this was something I was conscious of showing off to a greater degree by using larger pieces of shell. I set about creating a terrazzo = tile/coaster using a mix of jesmonite and shells. I have tried a few different methods and recipes - the most successful looking tile had all of the ingredients mixed in, when it’s sanded back using a wet and dry paper reveals the shell detail. Next up, I laced the moulds with the shells top and bottom, and poured in the mixture. This creates pockets, air holes and uneven surfaces, which have a beautiful quality to it, revealing the curious overlapping structures. Following on from this I started experimenting with dyes and waste wood chips from the woodwork room. The dyes and coloured jesmonite chips worked really well, especially when mixed with the mussel shells, the wood chips not so much, but I do intend to find the right use for them at some point.
One observation to be noted, even though the mussel shells lost their slight hint of fishy smells, it seems to have returned with the mixing of materials, even when dry there is a slight overtone.
