A certain innovative computer technique is an "art" all its own. And, one of "Your Neighbors" is among the few in the world doing it. Mary Visser will represent the USA with the intricate moves required to produce such art.
"They represent the stamina, the agility, the strategy that women need to perform at the height of excellence in the Olympics," Visser said about her sculpture.
Visser is a professor of art at Southwestern University in Georgetown.
She's part of a select group of artists to be included in an exhibition in Beijing in conjunction with the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.
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Your Neighbor
Mary Visser's art will be on exhibit in Beijing.
 
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"Most often we don't think of the Olympics in conjunction with the arts, but the Olympics are for the visual and performing arts, as well as for the athletes," Visser said.
And, perhaps even lesser known is the relatively new art medium known as rapid prototyping.
Visser uses a mouse -- not a chisel -- to sculpt her work.
"Rapid prototyping was developed by Charles Hull in 1986, and it's a process whereby you actually create the three-dimensional model that is actually designed or drawn -- the engineers design and draw in the computer," she said.
The actual sculpture was then built at ATI Accelerated Technologies in Austin.
"So you take a very finely ground polycarbonate powder and a glass powder, you roll it out in a one-sixteenth-of-an-inch, or .001 milliliter thick, and a laser beam comes down and due to the data in the computer, it fuses wherever there is solid material," Visser said.
The artist includes women who have contributed to history, including one of her pieces headed to China called, Heraea's Women In Movement.
"She was actually an early Greek woman who actually started the Olympics for women," she said.
Visser said she's always focused on women's contributions to society in her work.
She is one of a small group of sculptors who have pioneered the use of rapid prototyping; her work has been included in more than 120 international, national and regional juried exhibitions.
"So I'm allowed the freedom -- tremendous freedom -- and it is a freedom, to recreate at will and to go back, which is often impossible. Sometimes when, you know, you're working in stone, 'do I take that off? Because I can't go back,'" Visser said.
So as athletes of the world demonstrate their techniques in the quest for gold, Visser hopes her innovative technique will also get global attention.
Visser's sculptures will be seen not only in Beijing, but later in the cities of Shanghai, and Chongqing, which is in southern China.
