Orbital Propot

Hello Everyone. It feels as though I have been in hiding for the last six months, but here I am with proof of life and to share the first of many projects I have been working on all this time.

To fill in those of you who have not yet heard. Last year I was invited to participate in a special session of the Haystack Mount School of Craft put on by a group from MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms. After this retreat, I was then invited by Professor Neil Gershenfeld to become a visiting artist researcher at MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms. Since January, I have been traveling to Cambridge for one week each month to create and experiment with machine tools and CAM workflows that have remained well beyond my reach within my own humble studio practice. 

While at CBA I have met other researchers, encountered questions and problems I had not considered before, and learned several new approaches to my craft that will no doubt find expression in my work for years to come. And I am happy to report my most latest development, which is that my status at MIT has now been upgraded to "Artist in Residence," with the award of a large grant from the Center for Arts, Science & Technology. This grant will see my research continue through the rest of the year. 

I am excited to share more of the results from my first six months at MIT, and will do so very soon. But for now, I have the smallest of projects to share that have spun out of my time mixing it up at CBA.



I started seriously thinking about this idea way back in June of 2025 (while having conversations at Haystack) and touched on this project briefly in my January post. 

In February, I did some preliminary machining experiments to prove the concept could work. And since then I have been refining the project into the final form you see here. A very humble, but charismatic pot!

I am calling this work the Orbital Pro-pot, named after my shorthand for the machining operation I am using to make it.

To go way back to the seed for this idea. This whole idea planted itself in my mind after seeing a short video (probably on Instagram) of someone cutting a pumpkin like form, using a very unique setup, on a unique piece of equipment. An antique rose engine lathe. 

If you don’t know what a rose engine lathe is, I would encourage you to check out the Plumier Foundation (you won't be sorry, they are fascinating machines). I have always been inspired by rose engine work, and Guilloché more broadly. And I have seen CNC machinists adapt some of the techniques from these older crafts into more modern decorative formats. 

But until very recently, I had never seen anything quite like this process being used, and certainly not in this way.

I asked around, and nobody could tell me what this process was called, and after tracking down the origin of that rose engine video, I pieced together that the tools used were likely all custom made (sadly, the poster of the video did not respond to any of my attempts to message them). 

So from there I was left with little information, and only my imagination to go on in developing my own take on this weird little process. Since no one could tell me if this process had a name, I began calling it “orbital profiling” because I believed it best describes what it is. A single point cutting operation where the tool "orbits" around the workpiece to be cut. 

While the uses for this process are fairly limited, it is perfectly suited for applying a variety of decorative surfaces to spherical shapes. That is provided you have a way to generate a part program that can stand in for the rosette plates that an antique rose engine might use. I had to methodically plot and write this piece of G-code by hand because there was no other immediately accessible way to create this program. 

The key take away for me from this whole project was that this is mostly a decorative process. Because of this, I took what I consider to be a decorative approach to the design of the object it would adorn. Pulling from my experiences making small mechanical vessels seemed the correct format for this project and so a small jar or pot was chosen as the composition.

Not content with making a straight forward pot, I decided to add one more "twist" to the project by concocting a way to (sort of) lock the pot lid. Or at least making it somewhat tricky to open.

Seeing as there was plenty of room in the bulk of the body of the pot, I mounted a bearing in between the inner container and outer body so that the two would spin freely from one another. This means that, try as you might, you cannot twist the lid from the pot as the inner vessel will just spin free of the outer casing.

Its not unlike an inverted child proof bottle.

 

In order to open the pot, you need to insert a pin (or three) into the bottom of the pot to lock the two rotating sections together. I have simply 3D printed up a sort of key that is also a stand for this purpose.

I think the whole thing is nicely over engineered. My take on what a rose engine turned "decorative" pot, might be.

Technical notes: I had a lot of fun building the set up for this work. Adapting a boring head and boring bar to the process was pretty straight forward, but it reminded me of my early days hacking together the simplest of tools to learn basic machine tool operations that I could ill afford to purchase the proper equipment for. In this case the proper equipment simply did not exist.

The surface finish this process leaves on the aluminum is incredible. One of the things that attracted me to the project is that even though I am using my milling machine to make these parts, the process feels more like a turning operation, just with the axes all swapped around. Using a single point tool to trace a circular profile around a rotating piece of material provides a similar finish to a turned part, as opposed to one cut using an end mill or other multi flute tool that uses more linear movements.

This twisted machine profile reveals another interesting technical wrinkle for me, which is that I cannot accurately render this pattern in any of my CAD software.

That is I have a rough idea of what the final pattern will be and all of the layout shapes I am using. However, I have yet to figure out a way to bring all of those pieces of information together into a truly faithful 3D prediction of the final part. I am not saying it cannot be done, but it is beyond my abilities.

This is unusual for me because I usually don't commit to a design until I have an accurate render of what the final outcome will be. Here, I had only a "close enough" idea of the outcome. I had to feel my way through a squishier gap between the plan and final outcome than I am generally comfortable. During test cutting, I made many small adjustments to the starting height and entry point for the cutter, accepting along the way that I was not entirely in control of what the outcome might be.

That uncertainty was probably good for me to be honest.

 

I have a number of small but meaningful improvements I would like to implement. Chief among them is a multi start thread so that the lid takes fewer rotations to remove. I have always wanted to make a multi start thread, so it will be fun to see if I can coax my machines to produce a good one. 

All of that is to say that I am keen to make a few more of these. So if you are a collector, see below.

Note for collectors: I am going to break with my usual routine of sending a sign up separately because I have a busy end of the month coming up (as will be revealed). So if you want to add one of these pieces to your collection, my books are officially open for this work as of right now.

Pre-orde Link is Here

All of the details for the project including pricing and timeline are at the link above. Since I am dropping this project with no notice, I will leave the sign up open a week longer than usual.

This portion of the blog will self-destruct on July 30th.

If you have any thoughts, questions or comments, I would love to hear from you. Expect another post very soon.

Sincerely
Chris Bathgate

Tac B

Hello again everyone, I am happy to be writing with a great little sculpture to share. This is the first piece fully conceived and realized in my new shop.

This work is a bit of a sketch really, it exists between many different things that I am working on, and is an attempt to connect and understand them each a little bit better.

For starters, the overall shape of this work is derived from at least three places. First is the humble spring collet. Collets come in many shapes and sizes, and I use them daily in my work. I guess I have been looking at them long enough that they have finally infiltrated my design ethos.

A second source of inspiration is from a design I am working on as part of my research collaboration at MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms. That project is moving along slowly, but one element within it  felt worth appropriating it into another, smaller composition.

Also, it kind of reminds me of this older work I made over 20 years ago. It is (according to my records) the 13th machined sculpture I ever made. This current one is number 174 by my counting, so it has been quite a journey.

Another thread I have been slowly tugging at is the concept of “Tactical Aesthetic”. That is (and this is my observation) there is within many machining circles and various product design genres, a tendency toward an overly menacing, faceted, and technical adornment that exists separately from any sort of real functionality. The idea of “Tactical” not as a description of function, but as an aesthetic. A decorative motif. 

This Tactical aesthetic flows out of the firearms and security industry, and the many products and gear that support it (knife making included). But this aesthetic has taken on a life of its own, and wormed its way into pen making, watches, flashlights, and countless other unconnected product design spheres. So much so that I see it (intentionally or not) popping up in stranger and stranger places. 

Have you ever noticed that a lot of lifestyle products aimed (primarily) at men are overly toothy in some way? Like, what is a tactical wallet anyway? I am not sure. It also permeates many video game and movie aesthetics as well.  

While the idea of tactical aesthetic possesses the potential to be politically loaded, I am much more interested in it as an example of an organic visual language. Whatever it is, it seems interconnected with the inherent aesthetic that machine work itself lends, so it is something I feel compelled to understand, if only in a more academic way.

 

One way I approach understanding something is to isolate it, or even place it in a new context, which is why a series of tactical sculptures (whatever that comes to mean) seems like a natural fit. To that end, I am calling this work the Tactical Collet Bead or Tac B for short.

I understand we live in polarizing times and not everyone will be on board with a neutral exploration of this nature, but I am committed to probing this notion on my own terms; in a completely agnostic and anthropological way. So this is a first little stab at something I am trying to get my head around.

 

Technical Notes: There are a few interesting technical aspects of this piece I'd like to note. For starters, the outer shell of this piece was devilishly complicated to machine, as it has long unsupported bits that want to flex and vibrate as it is being cut. It required some real 4D thinking to plan out the order of operations to yield a successful part.

Above you can see the various stages of production. The key was keeping the ends constrained until the last step. Then I was able to insert a plug into the inner diameter and clamp the Outer diameter to it, in order to hold everything in place. Then I could turn off the end stock and free the ends of what became sort of like tines.

I am going to change some cutting operations on the next run, but the basic process was proved out.

 

This work also has a unique assembly method that was inspired by a chance meeting. 

One of my newest friends (Zach Fredin) whom I met last summer at Haystack Mountain school of Crafts, pointed me at some of his work using flexures in mechanical assemblies. The work itself is fascinating, but the thing that grabbed me most was how he used taper pins to secure his devices in place.

It is simple and clever. The taper pins straddle the interface between two parts in a way that wedges them together and firmly locks them in place. I just love it for its simplicity and effectiveness. A younger me would have put screws everywhere to make this work.

While the taper pin method isn’t what I ended up using with my own work, it did inspired me to think about how to use pins in interesting ways.

 

For this work, I instead used overlapping pins that have interlocking radii.

This takes advantage of the fact that the tines of the outer body are somewhat flexible. This flexing allows just enough movement to push smaller pins past what would otherwise be an obstructed fit. The outer assembly bends out of the way to create clearance to press the smaller pins in place and provides tension that keeps everything nicely trapped in place afterwards.

The video above helps demonstrate the assembly mechanism a little better than my writing. It picks up around the 5 minute mark.

Overall dimensions are 2.55" long, and 1.25" Diameter. 

Note for Collectors: For those of you who collect, I am going to put together a pre-order for a small batch of these works for early next week. If you are interested in adding one of these to your collection. Look for details to land on Tuesday Feb 24th at 11 AM.

I will post the usual sign up links, and send an email with pricing and other information for the sale.

If there are questions or comments in the meantime, I am happy to hear them.

More soon.

BVH 522232323434

Hello Everyone. Today I want to show of a diptych of works I am calling BVH 522232323434.

I think in a lot of design intensive work, there is a natural trend towards ever more complex projects. The desire for growth can result in adding more and more to what came before without taking anything away. I often recognize it in my practice and so frequently cut and simplify designs when they get out of hand.

But I must admit I am also guilty of quite the opposite; eschewing things that are too simple even when they pique my interest. That is to say, I nearly decided against making these wonderful little pieces because I thought the idea just wasn't complex enough.

But of course there is nuance and beauty in concision.

I think I recognize in these pieces how, in my practice as a whole, taking the long view on a rather simple premise has led me down uncountable rabbit holes. All of which were pleasurable and enriching.

So, to the work itself. The kernel of the idea for this diptych was simply to make a sort of hinge. One that holds itself together without extraneous hardware or complex geometry. I came up with two variations, one with a ball as the pivot, and one with a cylinder. Thats it. Thats the whole premise. However it was plenty enough to pour myself into and make my own.

I leaned on magnets once again for this mechanic, and I think I mostly achieved what I was after in terms of a lack of hardware, with one caveat; which is that I mounted the smallest magnets with screws.

Over the many designs that have employed these cylindrical magnets, I have come to accept their look as a basic visual element. So while it does not personally bother me to have them so prominently visible, I think to some degree, there is a breaking of an illusion. 

For me, I think it just helps communicate how the piece functions, but I am also reminded that in some of my earliest welded steel works, I intentionally included visible hardware to thwart fictional interpretation. That is, the hardware was their to communicate that all sculptures are constructed objects, and not whatever it is they claim to represent. So I guess some part of this belief is old hat for me.

Another thing this work helped me wrestle with is that as I continue to make these small tactile artworks, I am confronted with the reality that a sizable majority of people who interact with them, tend to categorize them as toys. 

I understand this on many levels, and don’t even disagree with it. I see the relationship between art and play. But! As someone who thinks hard about making art with a process that exists in this space between manufacturing, marketing, commoditization, and the rest of it–I know that the language we use to describe our work matters, so I do not use such words to describe my art. 

Personally, I am struck by how the simple fact of being able to touch and manipulate a piece of art, can re-contextualize it into a “toy”something equal parts fascinating and troubling to me. 

I have experienced the word "toy" both as a positive and a negative thing. Calling something a toy can conjure the idea of joy, but it can also paint something as unserious. So much art in our history has been tactile, or even useful, so it is interesting to think about when we started trivializing (both intentionally and unintentionally) things we can manipulate as toys. Is “play” really a bad thing in art?

It strikes me that it matters to some degree on which side of the act of creation the play is taking place. Art making itself is often described as play. This is generally considered a good thing. In this context play leads to discovery, connection, and fulfillment. We celebrate this type of play. 

However on the other side of creation, we have art appreciation. I think it is here where play becomes more problematic (at least for some). This is where the un-seriousness, pretension, and bias against play can creep in. Because art appreciation is very serious business in some circles. 

Thankfully while I take my work very seriously, I do not take myself all that serious, so it is all just interesting to me. Art is anthropology after all, so I just like to recognize it now and again.

  

I promise I do not have a chip on my shoulder about this. However, maybe in my next post I will try a rant about when people call my sculpture “products” and my uncomfortable relationship with that particular word. We shall see.

Anyway, I hope some of you will appreciate these little gems for what they are. Above is a video where I take them each apart and work through some possibilities on improving them.

Note for collectors: I think it is obvious that a small edition of these is in the works. I will post a sign up of some kind next week. Lets just say Tuesday July 29th at 11 AM for those who like to get their names on my pre-orders first. I should have most of the details worked out by then.

As always, thank you for your time and attention. Comments and questions are welcome.

The Cves13 mechanical Vessel Sculpture

Hello Everyone. It feels like forever since I have posted something new. That is partly because I have been busy splitting my time working on the new studio (The Center for Fine Art Machining is nearly complete!), going on secret artist retreats (I spent a week at Haystack Mountain School of Craft), and planning several new works (there is more than this one coming soon). All while tending to the everyday of my sculpture practice. But with a lot of heavy lifting behind me, I am once again ready (finally!) to launch a new work out into the world.

I am calling this one the “Cves13”. This name may not mean much to a viewer, but it means several things to me (some of them you can probably guess at). But no, I do not intend to share because being cagey with my titles has always been more fun. And as you will see, this post in particular asks far more questions than it answers.

On first impression, this piece most easily fits into my vessel series of works, as it is designed to be a (not so functional, but fascinating nonetheless) sort of bottle. But that is just a starting point, because there are some alternative lineages within my body of work that I can point to that make this piece all the more intriguing as a mashup of some of my favorite concepts. I will highlight just a few. 

For starters, this piece also fits neatly within my last two releases. Those projects were sort of Ray shaped pieces with a more overt creature-like aesthetic. This zoomorphic thread is a very intentional departure for me. I am interested in how people relate to objects of this nature, but less so in creating specific fictions about my objects. So it is a facet of my work that I continue to undertake with great care. 

But yes, I would definitely put this work in a camp with the Rays as well. 

Lastly, this work is a piece which embodies my love for complex (if unnecessary) turning set ups. It uses dovetail joinery as an excuse to employ some really fun turning techniques on a lathe. Most practical machinist would prefer to use less risky tools or processes to avoid the kind of work I do to create this piece, but where is the adventure in that? 

I need to come up with a better name for this type of work, but for now lets call it the "extreme eccentric" turning family of processes.

I think the first reaction most will have with this sculpture is a desire to point out what it (does or does not) look like. So let's get the Rorschach test out of the way. All I am willing to say is that if anything, I was going for a sort of a crabby vibe with this work. But since I don’t like to lean too hard into literal interpretation, I am very non committal about that.  If it looks like something different to you, then I think you are also correct. 

Amusingly, there were plenty of people who felt my last project looked more like a Horseshoe crab than a Ray. So does this actually make this a second crab? Is this actually a crab series? If there is a similar faction of people that forms who feel this work resembles a different creature, I am for it. Please let me know what you feel I've created. 

 

Regardless, the point of this project isn’t to make a functional bottle, a crab, or anything else—but instead to find an interesting point in space between several concepts at once. I am beginning to imagine my works are like Venn diagrams of my many interests. This metaphor helps me better explain how utility and aesthetic considerations can orbit one another without colliding. Shaping each other without giving more weight to one or the other.

That is to say this piece is ever so slightly functional, but it need not be. This piece is aesthetic, but in a way that tries to speak the same language as its modest utility. If this makes sense, congratulations. If it doesn't, I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it. I am having a good time either way.

To circle back to its status as a vessel. The thing that makes this feel like a bottle (albeit a machined one) is mostly attributable to it having a narrow neck. For a bottle, it is incredibly stout—but technically, with a little tweaking and gasket work, this piece could be used to store a liquid of some kind. I am not sure that you would ever want to, but true functionality is never the point. 

Another thing that reinforces this as a bottle for me is that the lower vessel is suspended from the upper portion. When installed on the lid, it does not touch the table. Like a lab flask or beaker maybe? Are those technically bottles too? In my mind they are.

Which begs another question. If the lower section of this work is the bottle, then logic follows that the upper portion of the work is somehow the cap? or lid? If so, that makes it an incredibly over-wrought and oversized bottle cap. Does one get a cap-y vibe from the crab shape? If I squint real hard, I do. 

Either way, I can live with the cap designation because the goal in machining craft forms from other industrial traditions, is in seeing how the physical properties of my medium transform them in interesting ways. One can explore wildly different proportions when moving from glass to metal.

Also conceptually, the extreme inversion of scale between the relatively modest bottle portion of the work, and the huge lid is mildly subversive to me. It humorously challenges what one can get away with and still call a thing a vessel. At what point does something stop being a vessel, and start being just a sculpture with a vessel attached to it? Maybe one day soon, we will find out. 

On the mechanic for securing the bottle to the lid. I am not entirely sure if there is a proper name for this kind of keeper, but as you can see above, once the bottle rim slides into the split ring enclosure, the top portion rotates to entrap it, creating a close circle. 

Although it is a relatively simple mechanism with just one moving part, it was a devilishly difficult one to integrate in a way that didn't feel bulky and detract from the aesthetic. Figuring that out was incredibly rewarding. 

Another mechanically interesting feature is how the legs attach to the lid. It is a sort of dovetail system where the legs are forced into a wedge by a dowel and screw that pierce the length of the lid profile. It looks simple now that it is complete, but finding the form, while leaving room to thread a screw straight through the lid, took a lot of fiddling (the good kind of fiddling). Another rewarding problem solved. 

One production note: I really didn't anticipate how long it would take to machine the large stainless steel element for the lid. It was by far the biggest time sink of the project. It has geometry and features that do not live at complimentary angles to each other, and so required many individual setups to get a proper attack on each feature. I think I spent three weeks fixture-ing and puzzling out nearly a dozen machine operations to make this one part.

That probably sounds like complaining, but it is more interesting to think about in the context of aesthetic considerations causing havoc down the production line. I have some ideas on how to minimize this going forward, but I wanted to share my tribulations as it represents more fun problems yet to be solved. 

Producing the six legs of this vessel was an excuse to do what I described earlier as "extreme eccentric" turning.  Some may see this as an unnecessary stunt, but to me it feels like a way to ensure I am constantly pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved on each of my tools. 

Although I try to take this approach of finding unique capabilities with each of my machines, I take a special pride in cramming the weirdest setups I can think of onto one of my many lathes. If you look at the history of decorative wood turning, you will see this is a common practice among ornamental turners as well. So I count myself in good creative company there. 

Finally to wrap this up, I have one last (longish) tangent. I spent a lot of time 3D printing test models before attempting to machine this prototype. I don't often do this because I prefer to launch myself right into the fray. But in this case it felt necessary to make sure everything was fitting and playing nice.

Throughout this process, I was constantly reminded of when 3D printing first came onto the stage, people often asked me if I was worried that it would make my talents as a sculptor, or elements of my craft, obsolete? To be honest, I was never very worried and I would say as much at the time. But the longer I use 3D printers, the more secure I continue to feel in what I do. I think this image perfectly illustrates why. 

3D printing remains incredibly useful as a prototyping and fixture making tool, but the aesthetics and mechanical functionality of its output continue to leave much to be desired. I mean, which of these would you rather have? I know theres high end 3D printing equipment out there hitting some very interesting benchmarks—but process and material each leave a unique mark on a work of art, it's not just a simple matter of creating a sterile shape in digital space. My 3D printer is great for what it does, but I still have not found a way to make anything that feels like my art with it. 

On a similar note, lately people have been asking me how I feel AI will affect my work? I just have to continue to shrug, because it has yet to enter into my equation. I can see how it might one day, but I suspect it will be just like 3D printing with a niche use. It will be a useful approximation (facsimile?) that leaves something to be desired. There is no question it will be disruptive, it already has been for commercial illustrators and image creators who work in the world of "good enough". But even there, I have not seen it move entirely into creative storytelling spaces. Those who have something real inside them to say are still finding a way to say it.   

From where I stand, the things I create represent more than an a outcome driven means to an end. I am not trying to solve a specific problem, make a specific thing, or pander to a trend. I am simply inventing interesting problems to solve—problems that then lead to the discovery of still more interesting problems— all for my personal enrichment and enjoyment. The things I make are unique artifacts of a mind in motion experiencing the act of learning. They represent my unique way of seeing, thinking and feeling the world around me. Last time I checked, AI is still just really fancy pattern recognition, and re-combination—It doesn't feel, see, or understand anything. It requires an army of humans (curated and labeled data) to tell it what it is being shown. Philosophically speaking, even if AI could do my job or help me speed up my process in some way, why would I outsource the thing that brings me joy? Why give my hard earned dopamine away to a bot that would feel and appreciate none of it? 

The overall sense that I get from people who currently use AI is that it automates some things—sadly I am learning, much of the fun part (the discovery, the research, the idea iteration). What it leaves behind is much of the drudgery (the menial labor of polish and format). That simply has no appeal for me at this moment. If AI ever finds its way into my practice, it will be because it can do something that elevates my unique abilities without averaging them out—but as of this writing, it cannot do that. 

End of digression.

The size of this work is roughly 6" wide, by 4" deep, and a bit over 2" tall. As always, comments and questions are welcome. 

Note for collectors: For the collectors out there, there will be a somewhat limited opportunity to add one of these to your collections.

Unlike my other editions, this work is quite complex, expensive, and time consuming to build. So while I am planning to make a small batch of these, I am going to limit the number of pieces to only ten works.

There are a number of decorative opportunities here I want to explore. I think the bottle lends itself to experimentation with decorative hardwoods provided I can find (or make) some interesting specimens. Because of this, I am going to give myself a little more time than usual to make these. I will probably take the rest of the year to slowly and carefully execute each of these ten works.

If this is something you might be interested in collecting or collaborating on, I will be sending out a second email/post in two days (Thursday July 3rd 11AM EST) with a simple sign up to register your interest. Given the limited numbers, I suspect there to be a good chance interest may exceed supply, so let's just say that the first five spots on the list will be allocated on a first come first serve basis. The remaining spots will be sorted out with some sort of lottery.

I will include a lot more details at that time (including pricing). However, if you do have a burning question, you can drop me an email in the meantime. 

Thank you all for your time and attention.