Pointing Machine

Many of the sculptures adorning the Duomo and Campanile in Florence are replicas. The Bottega dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore is responsible for preserving these works. They replace the originals with hand-carved copies and the originals are placed in the museum across the street. Because of my background in foundry work, I was fortunate to be put in touch with the workshop, where the Capomaestro allowed me to assist in the roughing out of a restoration project.

The 18th-century sculpture of Samuel below was reproduced with the assistance of a pointing machine.

This process allows you to create what is essentially an analog point cloud.  This was my first foray into using data to describe and translate a surface. This ability to think and visualize in three dimensions later became invaluable when I transitioned into digital modeling methods.

After my time in Italy, I returned to the U.S. and wanted to put into practice what I had learned. What you see here is my old studio, featuring a modified version of the pointing machine, two different sized enlarging boxes, the original maquette and its enlarged clay, and the finished bronze sculpture.