Meet Alex Wimbush, Digital Fabrications Studio Tech

The creative studio techs at Artscape Daniels Launchpad are artists, creators and makers in their own right. If you’ve been by the Digital Fabrication Studio—even on a tour—you’ve likely seen Alex Wimbush, working away on the various machines.

Alex has been working in the creative studios since they were just empty rooms with a vision, and his expertise and passion has been instrumental in making the Digital Fabrication Studio come alive. We stopped by the studio to learn a little more about Alex:

What was your educational and career background, before coming to Artscape Daniels Launchpad as a Digital Fabrication Studio Tech? 

I went to George Brown for mechanical engineering technology, where I learned CAD modeling and machining, and to art school prior to that, where I learned what “haptic” means.

I also worked for six years at bike stores fixing things. I make furniture, diorama-type objects and portable-scale sculptural tchotchkes so have had to learn a lot of very disparate fabrication techniques to make the kooky objects real that I wanted. I also derive an embarrassing amount of satisfaction from fixing things, and have watched a lot of “How It’s Made”. I came to digital fabrication through an interest in computer modeling and in the prototyping process.

Photo Credit: Mariana J Calero Photography

What excited you about the Digital Fabrication Studio, compared to other maker spaces?

We have the opportunity here to get to be very involved in the very early problem-solving stages with some pretty wild product development and art-sphere projects, maybe more so than other similar environments. Because we are adjacent to the jewellery and textile studios, it’s been interesting to see the overlap with those disciplines.

It has been an enormous relief to me that all the time I spent learning about screw threads, tolerances and material properties etc. was not wasted and that I can be helpful to people with that.

What is the community like at Artscape Daniels Launchpad?

We have a very ambitious and enthusiastic community of members here and it has been extremely cool to get to know them. In particular, HXOUSE is an insanely creative group of people and I’m stoked to see what they get up to in the future.

Next time you are around Artscape Daniels Launchpad, make sure to say hello to Alex. And if you have yet to visit, book a tour!