The following is taken from an interview with Frank Chester concerning the actual process of transformation that occurs from form to form. The interview was conducted by Seth Miller in 2000.

Frank says:

When I was at the Goetheanum, I saw the Saturn form in two dimensions. Then I saw the seven sided Saturn column. When I saw that I liked the sculptural quality. I thought, man that is cool! And I thought I would make that in three dimensions.

So let me show you the original forms. It is interesting because it shows you how primitively I started.

This is a picture of the Saturn capital at the Goetheanum. That was the beginning.

[Frank thought about the seven-sided nature of the capitals and wondered if there was a three dimensional form that would be seven sided that he could relate to the capitals.]

[His first attempt involved trying to place seven sticks into a ball of mud so that the angles between all the sticks was equal.]

That’s what I started out with. Can you believe it? Seven sticks in a piece of mud.

Then I tried to put seven circles together on a ball. I tried all kinds of things. I had a lot of stuff, which didn’t work. But the main thing that happened is that when I put seven spheres together, and put a piece of clay in the middle, I got this. And I was happy with that. I really was. But there are gaps. I didn’t like the gaps–see this big thick part right here? I didn’t want a big thick part, I wanted seven! But this wasn’t what I was after.

So what I did was I took a ball of clay, and I carved out seven pieces–and that is the Saturn form. I did other things, but this is basically what I came up with.

And that one I put hula-hoops on it and did it this way and increased it and used these holes to do different things.

Then I enlarged it, and I got this real ugly thing.

So then I found out that if I made the good sides–there was one that had a good side here–I made seven of those, and I came up with this. You can see that they are similar. This first one is very subjective. What I did is carved out seven equal volumes, and wherever they met, instead of having a gap, I made a straight line. And when I made a straight line, I came up with threes and fours. So three and four was seven–I should have known. But I didn’t.

Then I put that form through a rigor by making all the triangles the same size, and I got this beautiful shape. I just love this thing. I found it was so interesting because they didn’t look equal.

So what I did is I flattened these out–I made each pair of triangles flatten into one triangle. Then I poured plaster into it and got this. This is the seven-sided object. Objective, perfect surface areas, and all those lines are significant, that you see on there. Absolutely perfect.

So then I pushed all the points to planes, and I got this. This is a fourteen sided object. It hasn’t ever been seen before.

Then I turned the Saturn form inside out and I got that. And this you can take apart and you can see that there is a Saturn inside it and outside it. If you take the Saturn form and turn it inside out, you get this shape, whose inside negative space is exactly the Saturn form.

Then I took the Saturn apart into three pieces.

Then I did a study that I learned from a book by Paul Shautz, who was a Swiss, where he did an inversion of the cube. So I took the same idea that he had, and I did it to the Saturn form. I inverted it, and got this. That’s the inversion of the Saturn form. Paul Shautz was the guy who made the Oloid. He did an inversion of a geometrically symmetric shape. But the Saturn form is asymmetrical. So inversion of an asymmetrical shape, creates retrogrades, and the retrogrades are what you see here. [This is the Venus form.]

And the one thing that I forgot to tell you–when I took it into the water process, what was changing, I found that there was a seven sided bubble. I dipped a wire-frame model of the Saturn into soap, and this is the bubble that came in the middle of the form.

Then I took this back into the water process, and dipped this into soap, and got that shape, which is another Christian symbol, which is a fish, or a flame.

This is what happens when I put it into air–it becomes linear, and this is inside out. And what I discovered inside the form is that there is a beautiful bell shape, if I spin it. You see the bell? Now this is really cool, let me show you this. So inside out you see a bell right? And right side out, you see the same bell. Look! That’s the same bell. Inside. And I didn’t know any of this a year ago. None of it.

Then of course that is the new earth. That is eight Saturns in a cube–they all fit in a cube. So it is a compound of eight.

And this one I wanted to see how many Saturns it would take to make a loop, and I found that it would take sixteen Saturns to make a loop. I connected all the edges and got this beautiful architectural form. That could be a building.

Now this is my latest. This is the closest that I have ever come to a real human being, myself, making objective art that has never been seen before. This has never been seen. No one has ever made this. This is based on the cube and the Saturn form in it. This is eight Saturn forms. This one uses only the base of the Saturn form, not the quadrilaterals. What is amazing is that in this, is a perfect octahedron. The way I discovered that was to put an octahedron in it. It fits right there, see it? But it has all these forms from the triangles coming out in this beautiful relationship. And this is just what it looks like half done. So does that help?

They are beautiful aren’t they? And I try to make them nice. They are only studies, but I try to make them nice. I could try to make them even nicer but I try to have a balance and not be to finicky. And the thing is I have to study. I have to read. I have to see what is going on in other books and see what other people have done, so I can learn more, and relate to it in new ways. So I am reading constantly, all the time. Sacred geometry books and all kinds of stuff.