| In Loving Memory
Furniture designer Fred Puksta and his six brothers and sisters wanted something really special as a memorial to their parents, Lorraine and Charles Puksta. While both parents were still alive, Fred started working with them to design something that reflected both of their wishes. A black granite bench with a mosaic tile inlay was envisioned, but the pattern of the mosaic required several revisions until they hit upon using a replica of an actual stained glass window donated by Lorraine’s parents to the church her Polish immigrant grandparents help found in Claremont, New Hampshire.
Fred used Cobalt to design the bench, then exported the model in various formats to coordinate with four different artisans around the world in the actual manufacturing. For the Chinese stone fabricator Puksta produced full sized interlocking templates by outputting the model on a plotter, then spray-mounting the paper to plywood and using a band saw. He did similar templates for the mosaic artist in Florida, the ceramic artist who was hand painting the Madonna in Massachusetts, and the stone worker in Vermont. Because each of these pieces had to fit perfectly together with the others, accuracy was paramount.
Puksta always models in Cobalt because, as he puts it:
"If you pick up a tool like a paintbrush you want it to be
an extension of your body, your mind and your heart. You don’t want to be slowed down because the tool does not function seamlessly. If I get stuck in the mechanics of the program verses the creation of the aesthetic, that is disheartening and shuts down the whole creative process."
The Chinese fabricator, the mosaic artist and the ceramic painter all worked concurrently on the project over a year and a half. Once the stone bench finally reached the United States, the stone worker in Vermont did the final assembly and lettering. Because of Cobalt’s precision modeling and export capabilities, and Puksta’s attention to detail, everything fitted together perfectly. Throughout the entire process Puksta was able to keep all of his siblings across the country up to date with electronic drawings and renderings from Cobalt.
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