Final Update

With the winter quarter coming to an end, so has my capstone project, Temple!

For those who’ve been reading these blogs since the first progress update, you would know how unsure and hesitant I was when I proposed the idea. Not only did I not know how to 3D-print, but Temple was also a body of work that came from a different sense of vulnerability that I had never explored before. However, with 10 weeks completed, I’m proud of what I've accomplished and the body of work I've produced. In my final blog post, I’ll reflect on the process, what I learned, and my future plans.

Reflection

It’s crazy to think about how Temple originally sprouted from a mini dispute with my boyfriend, Brian, in 2024. One weekend, we were walking to his car after spending a few hours in the printmaking studio, where Brian had asked if it was possible to do relief printmaking with 3D-printed material. Maybe I was upset from the printing session or hangry, I simply said: “No, the material would be too thick and hard, which would probably ruin the barrel.” And I left it at that. It wouldn’t be until I took Rafael’s Cults of Type class in Spring 2025 that he would demonstrate the letterpress in his growing type studio and how he’s been experimenting with 3D-printing letterforms.

This led to two things. 1) An apology to Brian, and 2) Thinking about relief blocks as 3D prints and how they would be possible for them to work on the letterpress. I wouldn’t explore the second idea until Winter 2026, when I would be taking Capstone with Rafael. While some people might have read this and wondered why I was so hesitant about an idea that emerged late 2024 to early 2025, the hesitancy stemmed from several factors.

1) Where do I even begin to learn how to 3D-print? Is 10 weeks enough time to learn a new skill?

2) What would even be the end product look like?

3) Does this truly reflect what I’ve learned in my EDP major?

However, the more I continue to work on the project, do research, and talk to other creatives (Brian included), the more confident and passionate I become about what I am doing. There was never a point in the Temple process when I felt bored or disinterested. While printing on the press and papermaking had offered me familiarity, learning, and troubleshooting, the 3D-printing aspect was still enjoyable and fun, with its own learning curves and challenges.

What I Learned

It’s funny how you remember things mentors (current or past) have said to you years ago, and it slowly becomes ingrained with your work, your process, and overall, how you think. Two sayings that resurfaced in my memory when working on my capstone project were:

“You have to know the rules in order to break them,” and

“If your end product is constantly building off of one another, if you carelessly mess up, think about how far you have to restart.”

I’ve learned so much over these weeks, which were not only beneficial for the capstone course but also applicable to future products. For example, I didn’t double-check my measurements before 3D-printing my plates. Like inconsistent illustration dimensions or the mm base being taller than needed. While most of these errors were fixable in their own way, some would set me back in the design process, and I would have to reprint several plates, which took time away from other tasks. I’ve also explained this during critique; it’s frustrating to mess up and have to start over, especially when you have limited resources. In my case, the handmade paper. Depending on how many fruit/vegetable scraps I sourced, usually what I just bought and ate, I was only able to make ~6-8 handmade sheets. If I had messed up during the printing stage on the handmade paper, it would mean I would have to go back to the first stage, which is sourcing the fruits/vegetables used. Then restart the process of blending and making pulp, pulling sheets, drying sheets (~1 day), flattening sheets, and then back to the printing process. So, after my measurement mistakes and during the printing process, I triple-checked my measurements before printing and made sure my registration was approximately the same on every page.

Future Plans

Over Spring 2026, I hope to continue expanding Temple. I’ve been marinating ideas for how it could be expanded, the main consideration being to create and print more copies on handmade paper. After learning the process and still having the 3D plates, I believe I could create a more efficient system that could lead to a quicker, more productive production line. But the question(s) become 1) How much more will I make, and 2) How will it be distributed?

Another idea I’ve been thinking of is revising how I display the Temple series. I believe hanging it on the whiteboard didn’t carry much weight given its execution and scale. One of my favorite parts about Temple is how the fruits and vegetables depict different parts of my body (for example, thighs, arms, stretch marks, breasts, etc.), but there are two figurative figures that depict my actual body. The way the form is curled up in the original image (zoomed in and cut off in the final form) is interesting to me. Also, during the binding stages of Temple, I enjoyed the theraputicness of stitching the pages together. It would be cool to also run more handmade paper prints of Temple, but instead of binding books, I’m binding the pages to form the figurative shape of my body in the curled position that’s the scale of my height (5’3”). While I’m unsure if this would have a different impact, it is an idea worth exploring, potentially.