birdsnest lace

the birdsnest stadium in Beijing by Herzog & de Meuron, is a beautiful piece of architectural lace. My own sculpture has often been about creating a sketch in space. This has a times led me to create support structures that would allow for the intricacy of the work, its undercuts and overlaps, and yet come free of the work with the ease of the magician snapping the tablecloth free of the table setting. One such experiment shown below was simply a string or thread, run through white glue and wrapped around a foam ball. After the glue has set, the ball is submerged in acetone and the foam is dissolved, leaving the sphere of thread. When I did see the birdsnest stadium I first drew it in my favorite medium, wire. The later, applied the string and foam technique.