Last week I went to the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton and had so much fun! I discovered one artist in particular I'm excited to have found and I'd like to share her with you.
Sculptor Nathalie Miebach complies the data of tides, temperature, winds, moon phases and other specifics of various environments and creates sculptures made of "reed, wood, data". She had two pieces in one of the current exhibits at Fuller, The New Materiality: Digital Dialogues at the Boundaries of Contemporary Craft.
The piece above, Boston Tides, was created from data collected in 2005 at Boston Harbor. It transforms the information of the rising and setting of the sun and moon, tides, moon phases, and the solar path in relation to the horizon, and creates a large sculpture of data, with each weave representing one hour.
Nathalie's second piece in the show is Warm Winter. This sculpture compares local, regional, and historical data of air, water, and soil temperature, as well as wind speed and direction, tides, and moon phases. The piece is specific to the weather of December 2006 and January 2007.
First I start out with what I want to make a mold of, in this case a 
Roll out a slab of clay that's bigger then the desired mold. You want to make sure you have room for a good edge.
Measure twice cut once... famous last words haha
When you place the slab into the cake pan you'll need to press the clay into all the corners. The more complicated the form the more important this step is. Make sure you get all the detail so it's replicated in the mold and will replicate in your pieces.
Finally cut the excess off using your needle tool held at a 45 degree angle so when you go to use the mold it'll give you a nice edge. Then wait for the clay to dry a bit and flip off your master piece and bisque to temperature.
