Come To Their Window

The Grove coworking space on Chapel Street has new tenants living by its downstairs window. Close to 65 of them, and growing.

After moving in quietly at the beginning of this month — just a few at a time, until suddenly they packed the space, in plain view during the day and well into each night — they have begun to attract an audience, shimmering scale-like in the sunlight before growing a little despondent when the sky clouds over or dusk falls. 

That’s because those new residents to 760 Chapel St., though animated as some seasoned conversationalists, aren’t people.

Instead, they — and their fully human, 21st-century makers — are works of art comprising TRANSLUCENCE: Capturing the Sun, a collaborative new installation by Grove members Jack Heslin and Kris Tonski that marries art and math, graphic design and 3D printing. The display, visible from the street, will be on view through the end of August.

For several months, The Grove has been adding art to its shared work environment, a series of rotating exhibitions intended to complement the collaborative, sometimes happenstance conversations and generative ideas that take place across the space’s three floors. Those months have also seen the weekly arrival of a MakerBot 5th Generation 3D Printer, a new gadget that Heslin, owner of J3D Services, brings to the offices each Wednesday. That’s also the day that Tonski, the force behind Fusion Design and an instructor at Gateway Community College, works the reception desk at The Grove.

Cue the unexpected start to TRANSLUCENCE. Initially wary of Heslin and his wares, Tonski caught the 3D printing bug after watching the space transform around the MakerBot every Wednesday, when the third floor’s quiet was shattered by the shuddering, frenetic hum and haw of the machine. After warming to it as both an artistic and problem-solving tool, she approached Heslin for help redesigning The Grove’s mail-sorting system. She didn’t imagine it would lead to an installation, or the possibility of future shows.

“I said, let’s make something modular that we can move around if a new member comes in, and let’s print it,” she said at a Grove ​“WineDown” event Wednesday afternoon. That was that.

Or so she thought. But then the two started talking about Brian Walters’ window installation, a bright nest of criss-crossing cables that had graced The Grove earlier that spring.

“I said: Let’s make something modular for the window, or see if we can,” she recalled. The two got to work. 

From a beta-testing phase to its install date at the beginning of August, TRANSLUCENCE took several forms. A series of flat 3D-printed triangles turned into diamonds with a light-catching S curve, connected by 3D-printed supports made of PLA, the biggest ingredient of which is corn starch. While the duo had originally planned to install the work in early November, they jumped to fill an empty space when an artist dropped out at the end of July, throwing themselves into a printing frenzy and a few early morning, last-minute phone calls and aesthetic debriefs — yes, really — somewhere on I‑91. 

Seventy three-dimensionally-printed hours later, the display made its debut. The August rush to finish doubled into a sort of metacommentary on the space, where ideas build on each other: Tonski started the hanging with four green and red pieces, and has been building on it as time and materials allow. She and Heslin have been delighted with the final product, which they’re trying to make into a permanent installation at The Grove or Gateway. It’s ​“an experiment in the science of manufacturing” that has gotten the two excited, Tonski said. But, she added, she doesn’t feel ready to take on the matle of aesthete just yet.

“I’m not an artist,” she joked. ​“I’m just good at math.”

Grove curator Elinor Slomba had a different take.

“That’s one of the amazing things about art,” she said. Whatever form it takes, ​“You’re bringing your heart and soul to it, it becomes like everything.”