Tag Archives: Art

Bay View Gallery Night

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Bay View Gallery Night

Summer is just around the corner, and that means it’s time for the first Bay View Gallery Night of the year, and now that Milwaukee Makerspace is located in the heart of Bay View, we just had to get in on the action, so we’re inviting you to join us in what we sometimes refer to as “16,000 sq feet of Art”.

And hey, it’s not all art, as we do a zillion things at Milwaukee Makerspace, as long as it involves being creative and making things, we do it. We’ll have plenty to see and experience, including our group show titled: Awesome Things From the Makerspace.

If that’s not enough to convince you, we’ll also be hosting a show from our friends at the Bay View Arts Guild, so yeah, even more art!

It’s all happening Friday, May 31st, 2013 from 5pm to 10pm. And as always, we’ll have some sort of magical surprise to knock your socks off!

(Note: If you’re not wearing socks, we can’t be responsible for what might happen to your feet. You’ve been warned!)

Art Night

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Art Night

If you happen to be out and about on Friday, April 19th, 2013 you might want to swing by Milwaukee Makerspace at 2555 S. Lenox St. in Bay View.

While we aren’t officially part of any gallery night events this time around, we’ll be open to the public on Friday from 6pm to 9pm for anyone who wants to stop by and take a tour, or check out some of the art (and art making tools!) we have at our space.

And if you want to see us in full art swing, you’ll only have to wait until the end of May. ;)

The Art Jamboree is Here!

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Art Jamboree

When we say “The Art Jamboree is Coming” we really mean The Art Jamboree is Coming! That’s right, Art Milwaukee is bringing the next Art Jamboree to us. Mark your calendars for Friday, March 29th, 2013 when the Art Jamboree will take place at Milwaukee Makerspace.

This one is titled “The Maker” and besides the usual awesomeness that includes the best in Milwaukee art, there will also be raffles, food & drink, and free low-fives(?) We’ll also be adding our own maker-related art to the mix. Expect some some interactive pieces as well as art in mediums you may not be used to. (Sure we like paint, but we also like lasers and molten plastic and beer.)

This event is free and open to the public. (All ages are welcome, but keep an eye on the kids. We have a lot of rotating blades, but we’ll do our best to keep them powered-down during the event.)

Mark your calendars for March 29th, 2013 from 7pm to 11pm. We’ll see you at 2555 S. Lenox Street in beautiful Bay View.

Pssst! Want to see who else is going? Check out the event on Facebook.

Another Art Jamboree!

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Art Jamboree!

It’s that time again, folks… Time for another Art Jamboree! Join us on January 25, 2013 from 7pm to 11pm at the Loyalty Building (Hilton Garden Inn) 611 N. Broadway, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The event is free and open to the public (and all ages are welcome) and there will also be a cash bar, prizes, art raffles, free hi-fives and some of your favorite Milwaukee Makerspace members showing off things they’ve made, many of which could be considered “art”!

We’ll also have some interactive pieces for you to experience, but we can’t give away all the details yet, because we’re all about secrecy and the element of surprise, so you’ll just have to show up and see what we do. (Safety glasses and ear plugs are highly recommended!)

Oh, and our friends at Art Milwaukee (who are putting on this event) have all the info on the Art Jamboree you’ll need. We hope to see you there!

We help in all departments!

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Becky Tesch

We’re currently in the process of moving to our new space, but we had our last Tuesday night meeting of the year this week and we had a few guests stop by looking for help with some projects.

Becky’s a local artist who works in “duct tape & bike parts” making unique recycled jewelry and other things. (You can check out some of her work on Etsy.) She was interested in using the laser cutter for some of her pieces. While we didn’t get a chance to do any test cuts due to some laser downtime, we grabbed some inner-tube rubber and we’ll be giving it a test run for her.

The Artery

While talking to Becky, a guy named Jacob showed up and asked about cutting some stencils to sandblast things for rewards. Rewards? Yeah, he’s one of the guys involved in a recent Kickstarter campaign. Check out Matireal in this OnMilwaukee story. We gave Jacob some good advice and a member offered to cut the stencils he needs. Pretty cool! (And yeah, it did seem a little weird that we had one person who works with old inner-tubes and another who works with old car tires, but we love recycling too!)

So yeah, we like helping people who like making things, and even if the laser is down or we’re in the process of moving the entire Makerspace, we’re glad to help!

M1 and M2

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

M1

M2

If you saw Shane’s post Submission for the 100 Square Feet of Art Charity Event you probably wondered if anyone else managed to create a piece of art for the event, and if they too used the laser cutter. The answer to both questions is “Yes!” and here are the two pieces I created, M1 and M2.

There’s an in-depth (and potentially boring) post about these pieces over on my blog titled Two Square Feet of Art. Enjoy!

More Laser Cutter Artwork….

Posted on by Shane

A laser cut piece, one stacked on top of the other for depth. The top piece is a cut out featuring an angelic grave stone and the back piece is a picture of a graveyard with some well defined trees.

This is my newest piece, cut and etched on our 60 watt laser cutter.  Both images are from pictures that I took out at a couple of graveyards.  I inverted the image in the background so that the sky was nice and dark and the trees were bright.  Unfortunately, this washed out a lot of the tombstones in front, so I’m going to try re-etching this piece before I offer it up for sale.

The back piece took approximately 1 hour, 20 minutes to etch as a 11.5″ square.  Additionally, I found that the margins are a bit off on the cutter.  The left margin has shifted around 1/8″-1/4″  to the right, so the piece wasn’t perfectly centered.

Submission for the 100 Square Feet of Art Charity Event

Posted on by Shane
The picture consists of a laser-cut vine motif with an orchid laser-etched in the center, raised a half inch above a laser-etched picture of a creek with large rocks.

Art for charity’s sake

 

When Raster mentioned the event, “Red, White, & Black: 100 Square Feet of Art“, I thought I’d take part.  The general idea is for artists to pick up a 12×12″ piece of wood and “art” it somehow, transforming it into a mini-masterpiece for an auction to support pets in need.  The auction takes place on December 7th, so be sure to stop in.  They’re featuring live music and food along with a raffle and the auction.

Taking a cue from some Art Boxes I’d been working on, I decided to use a similar vine motif with an orchid etched in the center.  After studying it for a while, I thought it needed depth, so I laser etched a photograph that I took out at Boerner Botanical Gardens for the backdrop.

Still not content, I wanted the darker shadows of the vines to play along with the lighter picture behind, so I cut several half-inch blocks to raise the top piece above the back piece.

The back has been treated with teak oil while the front was stained with Bombay mahogany satin stain.  The blocks are put specifically in each corner in order to maximize the amount of light that hits the back piece.  I may add a few extra spacers for support in the coming days.

Printmaking Plates

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Making Plates

One of the things I’d like to try at the Makerspace is printmaking, and since Brent brought in a press, and I’ve got some ink and nice paper, the next thing I need is a plate.

You can use a variety of materials to make the plates, but I’m interested in using wood, and as you can see from the photo above, one option is to use a CNC Router to do the plate. (The one in the photo is at UWM and features one of Frankie’s pizza cutters.) I’m going to first try the laser cutter for making a plate. I’ve got some half-toned artwork which I’ll do a raster etch with, and see how that goes.

If this works (and I’m sure it will, right?) we should be able to make plates that are 12″x24″ on the laser cutter, or 24″x32.5″ on the CNC Router. For anything larger than the press we’ve got we’ll need to make the print by hand, which I’ve seen done, but haven’t tried yet myself.

If anyone has experience with any of this, or wants to work on it together, let me know!