Patricia's Green

From May through October of 2023 I presented at the Cathenge Cat Temple installation at Hayes Valley, San Francisco, a bi-weekly series of "Space Cat Sessions" that were multi-media story-telling presentations, PowerPoint Presentations using hundreds of images, recounting the Saga of the Lyran Space Cats, the "Space Cat Odyssey" of the "Cathenge Mythos".

Save the date! Upcoming event: Official Reception for Cathenge! Gala Reception!

CREDITS FOR CATHENGE AT PATRICIA'S GREEN:

Last Wednesday, October 19th, the San Francisco Department of Recreation and Parks issued a one year permit for Cathenge to be installed and exhibited at Patricia's Green Park (Octavia and Fell streets, Hayes Valley). This is the green light, the permission, Cathenge has been waiting for! By October 31st 2022 Cathenge will be all finished and ready to receive the public.

I'm setting up a print farm of 7 of these CR-10 S5 printers. This is the first one which I am testing modifications on. This printer has a 500500500 mm build space, however the stock print bed only heats a 300300 area, so I have upgraded this with a 500500 heat mat. I also added the crossbraces since I anticipate that as the print grows tall and the load heavy that the z-axis will need all the reinforcement it can get.

I've opted to print Cathenge myself. It's a big undertaking - typically people print something the size of an action figure, but it's possible to do much larger things, and so I'm printing all 6 Catoliths. Doing the printing myself gives me the latitude to experiment with the design and the technique and that is essentially what artistic control is about.

Today I printed out a small version of "Thanata" the Catolith of Death in sparkly blue-green irridescent PLA plastic. This is the first version of the Catolith that I've modeled with decorative surface embellishment. I modeled this in the subdivision surface modeler "Sculpt" of Cimema 4D 3D software. My intention is to use these surface details as the basis for painted decoration of the big Catoliths. This small print is a useful experiment in painting technique that can be applied on a much larger scale.

Cathenge is now completed and on display at Patricia's Green in Hayes Valley, San Francisco. The culmination of over a year's continuous work by artist David Normal, and intensive collaboration and coordination with a talented team of builders and technicians has brought Cathenge to life. Below are some photos of the newly erected installation.