NextFab Studio Team: David Clayton

For the past year, David Clayton has been working with NextFab Studio founder Evan Malone behind the scenes to realize the vision of a specialist fabrication studio in Philadelphia. As part of this effort, Clayton helped co-found the Science Center program Breadboard, which will act as non-profit partner to NextFab Studio.

Clayton is something of a Renaissance man: he’s an artist, an amateur scientist, and curator of the Klein Gallery at the Science Center, an art space that focuses on intersection of art and technology. We caught up with him over e-mail to find out more about how he fits into the world of NextFab.

1. How did you get involved with NextFab Studio?

Initially, I contacted Evan Malone for a 3D Printing art exhibition called “The Fab Show” that we were developing for the gallery. We realized that we had similar goals of developing an accessible prototyping workshop and learning facility, and we began working together. After several permutations, we decided to create two organizations that would work as collaborative partners. Alongside NextFab Studio, which will develop and run the prototyping workshop, we created Breadboard as a non-profit partner to develop educational outreach programming and write grants with NextFab.

2. What can we expect from Breadboard in the future?In the future we plan to work closely with NextFab Studio to develop programming like lectures/talks, youth programs, an artist in residency program, and exhibitions at the Klein Gallery based on NFS tools and member projects. 3. What are your favorite artist projects that use 3D printing technology?
Two of my favorites are: Video Solid, by Gareth Long. The artist creates 3D prints from video stills. Light parts of the image show up as peaks, and darker areas of the image are valleys.

Growth Modeling Device, by David Bowen. From the artist’s website: “This system uses lasers to scan an onion plant from one of three angles. As the plant is scanned a fuse deposition modeler in real-time creates a plastic model based on the information collected. The device repeats this process every twenty-four hours scanning from a different angle. After a new model is produced the system advances a conveyor approximately 17 inches so the cycle can repeat. The result is a series of plastic models illustrating the growth of the plant from three different angles.”

Hopefully, I’ll have some new favorites soon, as things get underway at NextFab Studio!