One of the most exciting and engaging aspects of living and working in a city like Baltimore is having the opportunity to be involved in so many amazing and inspiring organizations. Over the past couple weeks, two organizations that I hold very close to my heart, both of whom inspire and enrich the communities that surround them through making, came together for a brief but awesome new collaboration.
Make Studio is a community-based art center and studio located in Hampden that provides programming, studio space, and exhibition opportunities to artists with disabilities. Artists involved in Make Studio make and use a wide range of materials and processes and exhibit their work throughout the Baltimore and Mid-Atlantic region. Make Studio is celebrating the aesthetics and concerns of artists commonly typed as “outsiders”, and bringing visibility to their observations and points-of-view, and essential asset to the vibrancy of our cultural sector.
DHF staff members Amber, Jonathan, and Darius joined me in a visit to Make Studio to introduce a Tinkercad and 3D printing as a new form of making that potentially could be a new and inspiring process for artists to experiment with. Several artists got their feet wet exploring 3D modeling and how it translates to the ideas and imagery they use in their studio practice.
















Gary Schmedes is a big fan of animation and is inspired by animation classics. In his work he primarily uses pen, ink, and watercolor and therefore was a little skeptical about any 3D modeling or computer based work. Despite this, he dove into Tinkercad, learning how to create different forms and ultimately produced this awesome print based on a character he has been working with. “Tinkercad was a good website, designing on it was neat. I designed a toad named Mr. Toad, although if I were to do this again I would have given him arms. It was really fun to create my own character in 3D, maybe for future projects I will use Tinkercad again.”


