Description

The Pod wall sconce began its life as part of a study into tessellating forms. It wasn't intended to be a wall sconce, but rather a ceiling suspended tessellating array. Unfortunately I only had time to make one piece and one piece doesn't make an array. So instead it became a wall sconce. The shape of the wood frame has considerable curvature and created a challenge as to how to efficiently fabricate the translucent solid surface lens. In order to account for the curvature the material for milling the lens would have needed to be over 2 inches thick if it was milled out of solid stock. Such a waste of material was impracticle. Instead this challenge proved an opportunity to explore therma-forming, a process in which the solid surface material is heated to make it highly flexible at which point it can be formed into shape using a mold.  This process allowed me to achieve the same curving form using only 1/4" thick material. After the material was therma-formed, it was milled down to 1/8" to add the remaining detail and achieve the desired translucency. The hope is to one day resume this study and make multiple pieces to form the originally intended array.