A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.
SAIC faculty member Luis Rodriguez Rosario.

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Luis Rodriguez Rosario

Lecturer

he/him

Contact

Bio

Luis Rodríguez Rosario is an artist and designer whose practice explores object making through a range of fabrication and craft processes, including woodworking, digital fabrication, mold making, and casting. His work focuses on designing objects that translate cultural references and personal experiences into sculptural forms. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Rodríguez Rosario draws from the island’s visual culture and everyday objects as sources for his work. He earned a BFA from the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño de Puerto Rico and an MFA in Studio Practices from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He currently serves as the Assistant Director of the 280 Woodshop at SAIC.

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

Digital fabrication is integral to how objects are designed and produced. This technical studio teaches students to prepare, program, set up, and safely operate a CNC mill, and to determine when machining, hand processes, or both best serve a project. Students develop the independence to use CNC milling in subsequent courses.

The course supports furniture, product design, sculpture, and other object-based work. Experience with 3D CAD modeling is required; familiarity with Rhino is recommended. No prior CNC experience is required.

Demonstrations, technical exercises, and open shop time introduce profiling, pocketing, three-axis machining, and flip milling. Instruction addresses toolpaths, workholding, tolerances, material behavior, and the fit of parts. Later projects apply these skills to prototyping and form development.

Students work with woods, plastics, foams, and waxes to cut finished parts and produce masters, patterns, and molds for casting and forming. Coursework examines the appearance of machined forms, industrial applications, and questions of authorship and ownership in file-based production.

The course concludes with a project related to each student¿s practice. Students learn to move from a CAD model to a milled part, tool, or finished object, and to assess how CNC milling can support their work alongside other approaches to making.

Class Number

2390

Credits

3