I don’t often make a piece of art for the CriticalNW theme, but this year’s theme of Community Garden sparked some inspiration and this sparkle-flower is what came out. It pushed me to finally get Blender set up for 3D printing, provided my first real use case for heat-set threaded inserts, and is really the first piece of art I’ve made that relies on the 3D printer. It has field adjustable brightness and a light level sensor to turn it on and off throughout the day (also field adjustable).

It also provided me the opportunity to finally work with those stick-on disco mirror tiles. Applying them is a fairly tedious process, though I got pretty quick at it by the end. The first few were a bit rough until I worked out a system and then it was just a matter of getting through it. The result at the end was entirely worth it though! As with so much light art, they don’t photograph nearly as well as I’d like so the pictures don’t really do justice to how chrome the result feels.

The first 3D printed petal

disco petal!

Beginning assembly

First lighting test

We have light!

Assembled circuit. The blue dials control brightness and the dark level at which it turns on and off

First leg test. They ended up needing extensions (the printer bed is too small to print full legs)

Fully assembled for the first time!

The first real lighting test with a gently oscillating rainbow

This is more or less what I first imagined, so I was very happy to see it made real

It's really at its best in the woods. The reflected colors of the forest make it feel like it fits, somehow

It was pretty at night, but more subtle with less to reflect

With the emissive and reflective elements it turns out that the sparkle-flower was really the best at dusk. There was still enough light to see the reflection of the forest in the mirrors, but it was also dark enough for the lights to activate and be nicely visible. Somehow I didn’t manage to get a photo in that state, of course, so you’ll just have to trust me when I say it looked super cool!