Laser cut designs combine style and technology

From a distance it looks like a giant copy machine, but the laser cutter that sits in the MakeATX workshop in an East Austin warehouse has the power to engrave and cut with a laser beam. As it slices a design into construction paper on a recent afternoon, it looks oddly similar to a tattoo machine in action. With light flickering from the tip of the laser cutter’s head, it quickly but precisely perforates the paper in the silhouette of a woman’s face. These particular designs appear as stage props in the theater production of “Ragtime” at the Zach Theatre, but as those who work with the machine know, the possibilities are endless.

Among all the ingenious projects that have been born at the artist haven that is the Pump Project Satellite, perhaps none are as unique as those created at the member-based digital fabrication workshop MakeATX. It’s there where clever folks get to play with lasers—well, actually, the workshop’s laser cutter that’s lovingly been named Patty Princess of Power.

With the laser cutter machine’s multifunctions, MakeATX members are constantly discovering new ways to create everything from wall art and jewelry to teaching aids.

A strong do-it-yourself movement coupled with a growing popularity of digitally driven design tools means we’re in the midst of an exciting new era for the next generation of fabricators who from a desktop can control the making of their creations.

So it’s no wonder when MakeATX co-owners Kristen von Minden and Eve Trester-Wilson opened their member-based digital fabrication workshop a year ago that word quickly spread among Austin’s creative circles. By making the software, computers and laser cutter publicly available, MakeATX brought technology and art together and made manufacturing more accessible for Austin hobbyists and artists alike.

Nationally, digital manufacturing is growing with more fabrication workshops similar to MakeATX popping up. With the way innovation is heading in this area, it might not be long until fabrication machines are affordable to many of us.

But for now von Minden and Trester-Wilson know they are on the verge of something special. They see it every day in their workshop and in all the projects they and their group of about 20 members make. In addition to memberships, they also design their own products and offer custom laser cutting.

MakeATX originally grew out of a funny email exchange between the friends and former colleagues. After von Minden graduated from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, she asked Trester-Wilson about architectural-related job prospects in Austin.

“Yeah, job prospects aren’t so good,” Trester-Wilson wrote in June 2010. “What if we start our own firm? Maybe we should buy a laser cutter?” A startled but excited von Minden started dreaming of the possibilities.

As trained architects, both women were familiar with laser cutting technology, which operates a lot like a desktop printer, von Minden says, except that it “prints” with a laser beam. Using graphics software, digital images can be sent to the laser cutter. But at MakeATX, they convert hand-drawn images as well.