Teagan Crawford-Greene, ESJ, 2025
I’m so glad I’m finally learning the right ways to work with bio-fabricated materials!
Project Overview
After a very frustrating start to this project (with my first round of cellulose growing mold, and being extremely confused about what I was going to do with this material) I ended up very happy with the outcome. Aside from all the starting protocols, I used glycerol to give my material the properties I wanted and laser cut imagery on top. During the timeline of growing the pellicle for this project Hurricane Helen hit. I grew up in Asheville and spent a good amount of time at the river arts district. I had generated topography map lines as a graphic image and as a 3D print. Using the hydration levels of the cellulose to manipulate the visibility of the topography lines, the two images shows the before and after of Hurricane Helen. Intending to highlight now only the effects of climate change, but also how quickly data will become unreliable throughout the Anthropocene due to the fast pace changes we will face. (If you are looking at the project in the future, I highly, highly recommend taking picture of pellicles in the growing stage to have for documentation alongside your notes).
Process
The first pellicle I attempted and my first pellicle in the plexiglass container became moldy, and then I started another one while “claiming” one of the ones made for class as extras. After being fairly defeated by my material becoming moldy, I planned to use a standard circular shaped pellicle. When all was said and done with the washing processes I had swapped pellicles with another classmate. Me now having their pellicle grown in a plexiglass dish, and my circular one now being theirs.
Glycerol Process
Eleanor did the original research that we used as reference for the protocol. Here is the guides of the protocol: Soak pellicle in a mixture of 2% glycerol and 98% filtered water of the weight of the pellicle that will sit in the mixture. Soak the pellicle for 24 hours and then dry it in an incubator at 33 C for 48 hours.
Version 1: Soaked pellicle in glycerol mixture for 48 hours and dried in the incubator for 72 hours at 33 C. The pellicles from this round were quite thin and were not fully dry and quite sticky till a few days after. Did not laser cut.
Version 2: Soaked pellicle in 3% glycerol mixture for 72 hours. Dried in the incubator at 47 C till it was halfway dry (this was about 2 days) and then let it air dry for about a week. This was the version I ended up using to laser cut. 72 hours of soaking was definitely a bit too long as the pellicle was just starting to break down a bit at its edges. This drying method had the best outcome, creating the most malleable and smooth surface. (This is also because I utilized the hydration of the material to change the way the laser looked).
Version 3: Soaked the pellicles in 2-2.5% glycerol mixture for 24 hours. Dried in the incubator at 77 C for 24 hours. This the fastest version, but this ended up with a few very small bubbles at the surface with the rest of the pellicle being smooth. This version of the material is a bit stiffer than the others (especially the thicker ones) but still quite malleable.
Laser Cut Process
Important note about laser cutting. Due to the lightness of the fully dried pellicle, make sure to tape it down VERY WELL AND ON EVERY SIDE while laser cutting. Otherwise the fan from the laser cutter might suck up your material. This fact has nothing to do with the fact that I tried laser cutting on still damp material. On a completely dry pellicle – use paper laser settings (power 12-18%). The raster shows up white/lighter than the cellulose itself.
Version 1 Pellicle: About 80% dry pellicle (Turned out as the darker pellicle)
Settings – raster: Power 70%, Speed 84%, PPI 500, Air 25%
Ran the raster twice for a fairly visible image
Air dried the rest of the way on physical 3D print topography. I think that the dryness of the material at this point in process is what avoided it picking up the lines from the 3D print. Image became even more apparent as the material continued drying.
Version 2 Pellicle: About 75% dry but with the majority of the moisture in the middle of the pellicle. The areas laser cut over more moisture ended up less apparent.
Settings – raster: Power 65%, Speed 90% PPI 500, Air 25%
Still ran the the laser twice so that the image was very apparent along the dry edges. The middle of the pellicle still had quite a bit of moisture lending to the middle of the image (the river and the river bank) to be far less visible and defined.
Learn More
Instagram: @green.tea.ec
Website: https://tecrawfordgreene.wixsite.com/mysite