Ceramist Shawn Spangler is the newest professor in the art department at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He has a keen interest in the technology of his art form.

"In ceramics, we started out with our hands, and just building with our hands, then we went to the wheel, and then we had slipcasting (a pottery method that uses liquid clay poured into a mold) and now we’re using 3-D prototyping, rapid prototyping machines."

He’s had to do some catching up in learning the latest technology, which is new to UH as well. He and a mainland colleague, Bryan Czibesz of New York, are putting some of their latest work on display in an exhibit titled "RE / Charting," which will explore the various pottery techniques from handcrafted to computer-generated and -produced.

One of the machines Spangler used is a 3-D printer, a machine that was initially designed for plastic but was adjusted for clay by Czibesz. The machine works by guiding a cylinder of semi-liquefied clay over a preprogrammed pattern, gradually building up the object in layers. "It’s kind of like brick-laying, because it’s just continuously going over a path," Spangler said.

Another new technology used in ceramics and pottery works like a computerized router, sculpting shapes into foam.

Using these tools as well as their hands and other pottery techniques, Spangler and Czibesz have created new works for the exhibit, basing the shapes on three ancient pieces of Asian pottery: a Korean vessel dating to the 10th century A.D., a Chinese bronze dating to around 1000 B.C. and a Thai kendi jar from the 14th century. The elaborate twists and curves of the pieces, which included references to animals and plants, gave them plenty to work with.

"We’re constantly going back to the well, and then going out again," said Spangler, 36.

The project also took on a long-distance relationship aspect when Spangler and Czibesz, who’d been working together in Philadelphia, left to take jobs elsewhere, eventually winding up on the extreme ends of the country.

"We would do everything over the Internet and mail,"Spangler said. "It started out as this game of Chinese whispers. I’d give him some clues and he’d make something, and he’d give me some clues and I’d make something, and finally at the end we’d see what we started with and what we ended with. It was all based on the same starting point."

Using the different technologies allows for a variety of intriguing shapes and textures in ceramics. Thrown pottery — created on a potter’s wheel — has a smooth surface, while items created by the 3-D printer reveal layers of clay. "I kind of wanted to show exactly what the machine does, how it lays it down," Spangler said. Some of the objects in the exhibit combine the techniques.

The ceramists also used a technique known as photogrammetry — a process in which up to 70 photographs of an object are converted into computer file, which is then fed into a 3-D printer. Just for fun, the artists used the process to make a miniature of a tree stump near the UH art department.

Spangler is a Pennsylvania native who got interested in ceramics almost by accident. He originally went into glass blowing in community college, and while waiting for studio space, he would spend time in the nearby ceramics studio.

"I just started making more and more pots and becoming more and more engaged with the way you can actually touch the material," he said, "as opposed to glass, where you have to have an intermediary material between your hands and that hot glass."

Spangler will also have some of his hand-created work on display, which will reflect his experience spending a year in China studying Asian pottery. Early in his studies, he got to hold a piece of pottery from the Sung dynasty, which dates from 960 to 1279.

"That convinced me that I needed to move to China to really understand what these pieces are about," he said.