Spotlight
on
Educationbd
ehttp://www.ArtJewelryMag.com 61
front. After getting the initial giggles out of the way —
she first envisioned someone trying to ride a bike and
saw at the same time — Davis said yes, and applied for
a research grant.
Through the highly competitive SURF (Support for
Undergraduate Research Fellows) program at UWM, Davis
was awarded a grant to allow her to work with Bernard
on the ArtCycle for one semester (she reapplied for the
following two semesters, and was awarded the grant
each time). At the end of the grant period, Davis would
have to present the ArtCycle at a university-wide SURF
symposium. The symposium was historically dominated
by STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) pro-
jects, and the prospect of being a lone arts-related voice
was daunting. But there was time to think of that later.
Right now, it was time to get to work. Armed with two
mountain-bike frames, fully stocked metals and wood-
working studios, and the desire and tenacity to make this
happen, they set off to design and fabricate what would
become Milwaukee’s only mobile jeweler’s bench.The build
What’s the recipe for an ArtCycle? Two bike frames (a
gaudy black-and-purple Schwinn and a hunter-green
Mongoose), technical drawings and templates, a custom
steering tube, lots of steel and wood, some killer bear-
ings, more than enough welding practice, and loads of
grinding and finishing. Oh, and 18 months to work on it.
The first step was to splice the two bicycle frames into
one. They used strong magnets to determine the layout
of the bike frame, and then welded it together (magnets
would prove to be key in laying out and fabricating the
trike). Next, they designed the bench frame and seat [c].
Of course, when you’re designing anything from scratch,
miscalculations are bound to happen. After welding the
bench frame, they discovered it was too large to fit
through the studio door, so they chopped it apart and
re-welded it. Hey, it’s a teachable moment, right?
One of the most challenging parts, says Davis, was
learning the bicycle mechanics. While she knew basic
bicycle maintenance, Bernard was mostly in charge of
adapting traditional bike mechanisms to a from-scratch,
not-available-at-stores reverse tricycle. He taught her
about the inner workings of a bicycle as they worked.
The design and frame fabrication continued [d, e],
and (after some ballet-like arm motions to determine“We believe in
art and the way
it can activate
people in a com-
munity. ArtCycle
infuses this spirit
into the already
strong Milwaukee
bicycle culture.”
—Rachel Andrea
Davis and Michael
Dale Bernard