From 2003, I built the 3D CAD models for Frank Stella's "Painting Into Architecture" project, testing configurations and enabling 3D printing of his designs. That work culminated in two exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2007: "Frank Stella: Painting into Architecture" and "Frank Stella on the Roof." See photos from that exhibition.
After that, I showed Frank a design I called a mistake. He liked it more than the original idea he'd given me. From then on, he asked me to show him everything, every mistake and every idea. That opened thirteen years of developing new work, and a new language for 3D objects in space.
One of the pieces from that period was part of the "Hat" series, and Frank and I both thought it would look incredible in glass. Light passing through it would do something amazing.
I started looking for a glassblower who could make it. I knew nothing about glass at the time. Every person I spoke to told me the same thing: this piece can't be made in glass.
That was enough for an engineer to hear "no" as a challenge, not an answer. So I decided to learn glassblowing myself and make it. Glass was happening in parallel through those same years, and I've chosen to apply the same rule to both: I know where I want to get, and I design every detail in SolidWorks first. But once you're working with 2,000-degree molten glass, you don't fight it, you can't. I control it as much as I can, but during the making process it's a living thing, moving between solid and liquid again and again, until the piece finally goes to cool for twenty-four hours.
Eighteen years later, that decision has taken me places I never imagined I had in me. And the piece that started it all? It still can't be made in glass. But somewhere along the way, I found a skill I never knew I had.
In 2003, I was working in the UK, designing yachts, flying over every few weeks to spend a week on-site. A few months in, the design firm's owner asked me to help someone with a 3D project: he had a handmade model and wanted it converted into CAD so he could make changes and eventually build it. I had no idea who he was, I wasn't into art at all. His name was Frank Stella, and the project was "Painting Into Architecture."
Every time I went to London, I'd meet Frank and we'd work on his project together. At some point he asked where I lived. I said Philadelphia. He stood up and said, "Why are we meeting in London? I live in New York, come to my studio." That's how a seventeen-year collaboration started.
From then on, every month or two, I'd travel to Frank's studio in New York, bringing everything I'd developed since our last meeting. We'd go through it together, sometimes he liked a piece exactly as it was, other times we'd discuss changes and work through revisions.
As a gift in appreciation of our collaboration, I gave Frank a piece from a series combining blown glass with wood. He simply called it "The Igal." Pieces made in this same style are part of the collection, see them in the shop.
The gift-giving went both ways. Over the years, Frank gave me signed prints, 3D models, and limited holiday cards, numbered and signed by him. I was invited to every one of his gallery openings.
Watch the day I gave Frank the piece in person.
Working with Frank opened my eyes to capabilities I never used as an engineer. Until then, when I looked at anything undefined I asked, "Why was it created?" Now 3D abstract shapes tell me a story I didn't know existed.
I'll always be grateful for those seventeen years. That collaboration remains one of the defining influences on every piece I make today.
A selection of the 3D models and pieces built out of that collaboration.