San Diego

While I was in San Diego for JMM, I went to Balboa Park to visit the Mingei Museum. The museum is currently presenting a beautiful exhibit of vintage kantha, embroidered textiles from Bengal.

I was taken by the interesting uses of symmetry in some of the work.

Baytan Kantha – late 19th or early 20th century – Bengal

This particular Baytan Kantha is from the late 19th or early 20th century. It features lotus flower and star patterns. All of these from possess order-8 rotational symmetry if you disregard coloring. The corner lotuses and the stars have order-4 rotational symmetry when color is taken into account. Although lotuses and stars are very traditional forms of patterning, to me this textile has a very modern abstract quality.

Susan Happersett

Happy New Year!

It is Januar and that means it is time for the Joint Mathematics Meeting. This year the conference was held at the San Diego convention center and had an attendance of over 5000 participants. The JMM Art Exhibition is always a great way for me to start of the year. There is always a very diverse selection of art on display, featuring many different themes, techniques, and materials. I was not disappointed this year. I will only be able to mention a sampling of the of the great work…but here are a few of my favorites.

James Stasiak – “into the sun” – 38 x 50 cm – Archival glicée print – 2017

Photographer James Stasiak’s print “into the sun” transforms an original photograph into a mandala type abstraction through the use mathematical manipulation. Photo editing software allows Stasiak to carry out his prescribed sequence of rotations and reflections to create symmetrical properties. The result is a dense web of color that draw the viewers eye into the center of the print.

Yvette Kaiser Smith – Excerpts from pi (187-210) (554-580) (685-711)
29 x 45 x 5 cm – Laser-cut acrylic sheet, nylon spacers, capped hardware. Three panels: clear with green edge, 31% light transmission white, and fluorescent green. – 2016

Yvette Kaiser Smith has created a language of shapes to represent digits and then laser-cuts these shapes into colored transparent acrylic sheets. The sequence of these shapes is based on the sequence of particular sets of digits found within the irrational numbers e and pi. Irrational numbers are numbers that cannot be written as a fraction and have never ending, non repeating decimal representation. The work in the exhibit “Excerpts from pi (187-210) (554-580) (685-711)” features three panels The top panel shows the 187th to the 210th digit in the number pi. By layering the panels of different colors with space between them Smith has created a complex arrangement of shape light and color. The irrational numbers and especially pi have a type of mysterious reputation and a history of human fascination. This sculpture examines the number at it’s most finite level and then through technique and material expresses the beauty within.

Susan Happersett