madison metals group: anodizing workshop pt1

Some graduate and undergraduate students from the University of Wisconsin Madison came to Milwaukee for an anodizing workshop that I conducted this past weekend. They had contacted me several weeks ago to inquire about me giving a workshop at Madison, but mentioned that they had a limited visiting artist budget. I suggested them coming to Milwaukee for the workshop, and that way I could accept a modest honorarium and wouldn't have to travel with all of my supplies. They accepted and we arranged a date. The group of students arrived Saturday morning, and I went over the basics of working with aluminum, we did some etching, texturing, and then I taught them the anodizing and dying of aluminum along with resist techniques. I also showed them the vinyl cutter (for making stencils for etching and dying) as well as the laser cutter for laser engraving aluminum after dying and sealing. My SURF student John McGeen assisted and was a huge help the days leading up to, and the morning of the workshop in preparing for the days activities. The students from Madison were great and very eager to learn! I happened to know one of the students, Alexandra Port, as she had taken Intro to Metals with me a few summers ago at UWM while she was back home after being at Madison for her first year. It seems she fell in love and decided to take a few Metals courses at Madison. Good for her! Anyway, I had a great time interacting with everyone and I was so impressed with their desire to learn. Such a great group; not to mention polite and kind. I ended the day with a short demo on powder coating, and then they continued to make anodizing and powder coating samples. They made a lot of samples so I'll post some here soon. 

Sidenote: I'll be giving an anodizing workshop at Milwaukee Makerspace on Nov. 16th.