Liam, Interdisciplinary Sculpture, 2025
Liam Davis is a sculptor born in Flagstaff Arizona, he grew up in Eugene Oregon, and now lives in Baltimore Maryland. He is pursuing a BFA in Interdisciplinary Sculpture with a minor in Photography at Maryland Institute College of Art (expected 2025), and works making furniture for a design studio in Hampden.
For holding a rock
I’m fascinated in general with trays for holding and organizing things. This is a tray made from K. Hansenii bacterial cellulose pellicle, which was solidified with a water based resin. It has been molded to hold a stone.
Process
Detour
Something that I am researching outside of this course is making composite material from wood chips bound with a soy adhesive. More information can be found here, and please feel free to reach out with questions. In class we learned about the way that this bacterial cellulose can be pulped, but then potentially stitch itself back together as it dries. This video demonstrates the process, where they add eggshell powder and make paper. I was interested in seeing if the blended cellulose changed the properties of the wood composite I’m working on, or if it might be able to bind the chips together on its own.
I embarked on two tests, one with my regular process of soy adhesive and wood chips, but with the addition of the cellulose, and one that I intended to be just wood chips and cellulose. Midway through I did decide to abort the second test, because I could immediately tell that it wasn’t the right approach, at least with my usual soy process. The blended cellulose did not have an effect of binding the wet wood chips together in anyway that seemed viable. So before moving forward with that I decided to add soy flour to the mixture and instead do two tests of the regular process with cellulose addition.
The results were not entirely surprising. After drying in the incubator the material did not feel meaningfully different from my tests without the addition of the cellulose. It is possible that my ratio of cellulose to chips was simply too high, the cellulose is mostly water after all, or that a different molding process than the simple one I use for the soy composite is required. I wonder if smaller wood chips than the jointer/planer shaving that I use could be better. Or this might just not be a fruitful path.
Back on Track
I grew up K. Hansenii bacteria from the -80 stock, from a small tube to a 250ml conical, and then up to a 2800ml conical following standard procedures with H.S. Media. It was the size and shape of that conical flask that inspired me to try and make a tray with the pellicle, as it was similar in size to trays that I’ve been making in other materials.
When the pellicle was fully grown I followed the lab’s rinsing/bleaching protocol. This is where I performed those detour tests described previously, before deciding to pursue the resin approach. Next I began the first of two soaks in the HEMA+Bapo resin mixture.
The pellicle weighed in at 658g. I did my first soak in 780g of used resin, because it was readily available in the perfect sized container. It
I mixed up an 800g batch of new resin for the second soak and kept it in a foil covered bucket.
I let it soak in the old resin for 5 days, and then transferred it to the new resin for another 5 days. Which is longer than recommended or theoretically necessary.
One thing that I might do differently in the future is more than two soaks, to try and better saturate the pellicle, and potentially give it an ultrasonic bath in the resin to aid in the penetration as well. I might also try flipping the pellicle in the resin every few hours/days. During curing it seems that one side was more saturated with resin than the other, and I am not entirely sure why one side seemed to absorb more.
The mold that I made for the tray was a simple rounded circle, and a 3d printed section of a rock that I 3d scanned. For the molding/curing I put the mold on a pice of plywood, covered it in plastic wrap, and laid the pellicle on top of it. pressing it into place and forming it around the mold. I made a cardboard box with a hole in the top to fit the UV light and turned it on. I kept the light on for 4-5 hours, however after 2-3 it seemed like I was seeing diminishing returns. I checked on things every hour or so to make sure that the resin was not sticking too terribly to the plastic wrap. This wasn’t a huge issue though. After the back of the pellicle seemed to be solidifying nicely I also began to take the pellicle off the mold and flip it around to try and get a more even cure.
There was still a lot of water in the pellicle based on the opaque white mass that seemed to be floating in the center. After curing I used a knife to cut away some of the extraneous bits of resin on the edge of the pellicle, and also clean up the edge which was a little rough. I also cut off the protrusion on the bottom of the tray from the rock part of the mold so that the tray could sit flat.
Over time the white mass in the middle of the tray faded as it dried out, and the tray warped a little and hardened, taking on its final form. At this point I plan to do some final finishing of the trays edge, and maybe a surface coating.