Richard Elaver

Writing code to grow objects. 

My work is inspired by forms in nature and developed through digital fabrication. It brings together my past professional experiences in jewelry-making and product-design, combining elements of handcraft, design, and architecture to create sculptural forms. Those forms are sometimes purely aesthetic, sometimes wearable, and sometimes functional. 

The Wripple series, in particular, is an investigation into surface and structure, randomness supported by logic. The outward surface ripples like water, composed of a collection of unique shapes that resemble tissue cells, all supported by analytical armatures made from straight lines and acute angles. The materials and construction suggest architectural models, just as the cellular pattern and wavy surface hint at the natural world. It is really the pairing of those two worlds that keeps things interesting, vascilating between rational and irrational. 

Similarly, the vase series, ‘Dissolving Tiffany’, is also a mixing of two worlds: one historical and handmade, the other contemporary and digitally assisted. Beginning with the forms of handmade historical Tiffany vases, those forms are deconstructed into cellular patterns using generative software. The final objects are created with a combination of handcraft and digital fabrication techniques. The exterior form adheres to history, supported by a random angular composition of hollow cells. 

Biography. Richard Elaver is a designer and metalsmith working in the overlapping spheres of art, design, and technology. In his work, Elaver integrates the tools of industrial design with the craft of metalsmithing. He develops computer simulations of biological phenomena, and uses them to create design objects. 

Elaver received his Bachelors degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and his MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. In 2006, he completed a Fulbright Fellowship in the Netherlands where he worked with Droog Design. Following several years of professional experience both as a jeweler and industrial designer, he is now an Assistant Professor of Industrial Design at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.