This article originally published in Self-Service World magazine, Aug 2007.
Some may consider it a little uncouth to stroll through an art gallery loudly proclaiming, "That's art?!" and "I could do that." But, in fact, that's how David Ellsworth began sculpting.Touchmate Interactive Solutions, Ellsworth's Brendale, Australia-based kiosk company, began with touchscreens in museums and art galleries. What Ellsworth said he saw there back in the late 1980s and early 1990s was less than inspiring -- not the art, the kiosks.
"Someone would design a box with stainless steel and they'd jump up and down and call it innovative,' Ellsworth said.
His artistic flair scoffed at such feeble attempts. So, he summoned his graphic design background, his aesthetic sensibilities and his dream of someday becoming an artist, and he created his first kiosk -- the Freeform.
His medium is foam, which he hand carves and then layers with fiberglass to build a mold for what is eventually a plastic kiosk body.
The Freeform looks something like a backwards letter "c" (which, of course, is right side 'round Down Under).
Ellsworth said some people compare the widely popular model to something out of the future. Others say it has a retro look. Still others say it's "not their cup of tea." Certainly, Mary Cassatt's "Cup of Tea" it is not -- it's definitely more surreal than impressionistic.
Of course, beauty is in the eye of the kiosk operator, or the client for whom Ellsworth may be developing a custom look. His work ranges from smooth, George Jetson-meets-R2D2 models, to the most unique model to date: a miniature sommelier with a computer-screen head. Wine tasting and picking the right vintage for dinner have never been so interactive, or so devoid of snootiness.
From brainstorming ideas to the drawing board to model units and the final product, Ellsworth works closely with clients and with a vast array of tools.
"Scratching out designs by hand, computer-generated 3D models, carving foam, the grinder -- they're all just tools helping you to build the final product," he said.
Although for Ellsworth, a final product is never really final. That's because he never signs his work. He said that may be because it isn't really art -- in the strict Jackson Pollock or Andy Warhol sense. But it's also because he won't sign anything until he's completely happy with it, he said.
He has artwork at home -- paintings in acrylics, a couple of kids -- that also remain unsigned. "Everything is still a work in progress," he said.
That progress includes Ellsworth's creative technology. He's planning to add to his artistic, kiosk-creating arsenal a 3D printer that will build scale models of designs for clients to see and approve before he starts shaping full-size foam.
"I'm a visual person," Ellsworth said. "I can immediately conceptualize in my mind. But trying to communicate that with people is a difficult thing."
Offering clients something to actually pick up and hold will place beauty in the hand of the beholder -- the place where Ellsworth wants it to be anyway.
