![]() “There’s been a lot of misappropriation for a long time here and making sure that we’re not involved in that is very important.”ĭemmert says this project is very different from others he’s done in CAD that require precise measurements and a bit of math. “What is the appropriate way to use traditional art so that you’re not just taking someone’s idea and duplicating it and replicating it and mass producing it, which you can do very easily digitally, but making something unique and your own,” Vieira said. In fact, what’s to stop Demmert from making another one? And another one? And another… Vieira said that presents a teaching opportunity on our relationship to art. Demmert still has his design in CAD files. “I’m a little nervous but I’m excited to see how it turns out.”īut suppose the paddle really is destroyed by the router. “Right now, I’m just watching it, making sure it doesn’t go off-course and destroy everything,” Demmert said, laughing. Then, Asa lowers the router and hits a big, green button. “We just want to make sure that its operating doing what we want it to do.” “It’s always a nervous time when you press that button because you put in this effort and you have some value of material on the table ready to be cut,” Vieira said. The computer numerical control router in the Sitka High wood shop tears into a cedar plank to create Asa Demmert’s paddle design. Vieira run the router a few inches above the plank of wood, just to make sure the machine is doing what they want it to do before it tears into the plank. He finds the center of the plank and marks it in the computer as the ‘zero-point.’ Then Asa secures a plank of wood onto the table. The router is mounted to a shop table and receives data from Asa’s CAD design and carves out the paddle. Once Asa finishes designing his paddle, he and Vieira load the design into the shop’s computer controlled router. “If art stayed the same and it all stayed the same it wouldn’t be art. ![]() “Yes, it contradicts with everything but at the same art is evolving,” Skultka said. So, it’s really the perfect marriage of culture and technology.”īut is this marriage contradictory in it’s blend of tradition and new technology – or is it part of the continuing evolution of indigenous cultures? Skultka said it’s all of the above. “I can’t think of a better project that combines the technical skills that I want to teach more than this. “We’re always talking about the ‘holy grail’ of combining arts, culture and technology in our courses here,” Vieira said. He has co-developed the paddle carving project over the last two years alongside Charlie Skultka Jr., a traditional arts instructor with the Sitka Tribe of Alaska. (KCAW Photo / Enrique Pérez de la Rosa)Īsa’s teacher, Mike Vieira, is the Design and Fabrication instructor at Sitka High. Sitka High School junior Asa Demmert keeps a watchful eye over the computer numerical control router carving his paddle. And the way that they run together is very fluid because that’s how west-coast art works.” ![]() “All of my shapes are form line shapes with things like circles and ovoids. “I’m creating a northwest coast style paddle with form line art and I’ve decided to put an eagle on it because my mom is an eagle so I’m an eagle,” Demmert said. But Asa is not making a machine or an engine block. They’re also producing their designs using 3D printers and computer-controlled routers. HIGHDESIGN CAD HOW TO“I’ve learned how to extrude lines, how to change angles from 90 degree angles to curves and radiuses and change a two-dimensional objects into a three-dimensional object,” he said. HIGHDESIGN CAD SOFTWAREHe and his classmates are learning how to use CAD software by designing things like phone cases. ![]() He is a junior in Sitka High School’s Design and Fabrication class. Students at Sitka High School are using that software to create traditional northwest art. That software can create 3D animated models of their final products in seconds, saving time and materials. Instead of blueprints on drafting tables, modern architects and engineers use computer-aided design, or CAD, software to develop and create new products. But that’s not to say this art form is incompatible with new technology. Indigenous peoples in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska have carved wood paddles and other works of art using tools and methods developed over thousands of years. Sitka High School junior Asa Demmert created a paddle featuring an eagle using computer design software and an automated router. ![]()
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