Final: The Inheritance Diagram of Pomegranate Pattern

The intricate designs that the ruby red arils and white supporting structure of the pomegranate create, inspired a three-dimensional pattern. This pattern took on a life of its own, reproduced through the processes of vacuforming and molding. Nature and chance allowed for mistakes despite the use of industrial mass production processes, and as a result, none of its subsequent generational iterations were identical. The Inheritance Diagram of the Pomegranate Pattern was displayed at the Senior Design Show 2006 at the Creative Research Lab.

Process: The Inheritance Diagram of Pomegranate Pattern

From my desire to create a container, I began to explore two themes: plastic as an industrial material for containers and fruit/vegetable as a form for a self-contained object. By applying external forces such as drill, sandpaper, and heat on the plastic that was readily available at the stores, I observed its physical changes. When I came across liquid synthetic resin, I learned of Plaster of Paris and its expansive use in mold-making. Pomegranates and green peas were two organic forms that I worked with, creating molds of both and later attempting to vacuform them with a device that the Department of Theater at the University of Texas owned and previously used for creating play props.

Because vacuforming is a much simplified operation when compared with any three manufacturing processes of blow molding, I was able to readily acquaint myself with an incredible tool. The vacuforming machine is a massive construction with a list of exact procedures, the slight deviation from which was turning my forms into their own entities rather than exact replications. While investigating multiple forms and plastics, I devised a process that would lead to the final diagram. the first step is to construct a desired shape out of wood. Then using a polystyrene plastic, the shape is vacuformed. The acrylic plastics used varied, however I found that the polystyrene is less likely to shatter during the experiment. The plaster molds were created out of the existing plastic forms, and once again vacuformed.

On Site Observations: The Inheritance Diagram of Pomegranate Pattern

There was always an element of surprise. I never knew what to expect each time I pulled the vacuum trigger or extracted the mold from the form. Since there were no strict guidelines, any deviation from the original shape was welcomed.