Colorful visit in Stony Brook

Sculpture by Halaman Ferguson on Stony Brool campus

Simons Center for Geometry and Physics

Simons Center Gallery is currently having an exhibit "Stitches" (curated by Flo Tarjan).  I missed the opening but I was invited to give a talk there on May 20th. Video of the talk by Elaine Krajenke Ellison "Mathematical Quilts" and my talk "Crocheting Adventures with the Hyperbolic Planes" can be seen here. The third artist in this exhibit is Gabi Mayer with her large crocheted sculptures.

In my talk I was demonstrating my mathematical models.

Earlier that day David and I had great treat - George Hart kindly invited us to visit his studio.

George has story about every sculpture he created, and we could spend the whole day eagerly listening.

But stories do not come free - George brought a bag with various puzzles and we had to show that we can solve at least some of them.

Thank you, George, and thank you Flo for this great opportunity to visit Stony Brook and have such a wonderful time there!

Math Awareness and Easter

Happy Spring! Finally all ice from Ithaca Falls is gone. Sasha Sagan wrote a beautiful essay about her father Lessons of Immoratsality and Mortality from my father, Carl Sagan. Very appropriate reading for today. In this essay she talks about The Sphinx Head House where they lived. You can see it in this picture right above the Ithaca Falls.
It is Easter Sunday - people celebrate spring and whatever religious meaning (including none) they have associated with this day.
Finding Easter date is math problem - Easter according to Christian Church calendar is on the first Sunday after first full moon after Spring Equinox.
The date of Easter is primarily used for liturgical purposes. Up to the 8th century AD there was no uniform method for determining the date of Easter but the method favoured by the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 gradually became the accepted method. The adoption of the Gregorian calendar necessitated some modifications to this scheme but it is still basically the same. More here.

Math is connected swith Easter Celebration in some other way too - it appears in Easter decorations. The most beautiful eggs are colored in Ukraine. Here is an example:

In 1974 Ukranian egg designs inspired Ron Resch to build World's largest Easter Egg - the first physical structure designed entirely with computer-aided geometric modelling software.

Saddly Ron Resch passed away in 2012 but here  is some more of his amazing geometry.

 Franc Grom has a different approach to "egg art":

There is even International Egg Art Guild.

I think that Egg Art goes very well together with April - Math Awareness Month. This year its theme is Mathematics, Magic, and Mystery. Lots of fun stuff opens up in this calendar each day of this month. Originally one of the days were for hyperbolic planes but in the course of preparation the board decided that they are not much fun.
That's OK, I am getting ready to fly to Riga where people are having fun with them and helping me to prepare a large project for the sho which will open in Riga this October.
Currently my works can be seen In Simons Center gallery in the exhibit Stitches together with mathematical quilts of Elaine Ellison and crocheted sculptures of Gabrielle Mayer.

Two empty pedestals are waiting for my two pieces which has to come from Berlin where they were exhibited.

Design Indaba 2014

 

One of the highlights from my recent trip to South Africa was Design Indaba exhibit. Cape Town this year is World's Capital of design, unfortunately most of the exciting events will be later this year but I was very happy to receive an invitation from one of exhibiting artists - Anna Richerby - to visit her booth and see the whole exhibit. I went there with another artist - Maria van Gass. This was the first time I met both artists. How? This is a wonder of hyperbolic crochet - it connects me with people all over the world. In 2012 Maria was the organizer of Woodstock Crochet Coral Reef project. When I was preparing to my trip to South Africa I contacted her via WARP Facebook page and we met in Cape Town. The grapewine led me to meet Anna - she had heard about my work years ago, and she herself makes geometric bead work, including hyperbolic jewelry, and her company is called Beloved Beadwork.

here we are both with Anna

Anna's work was exhibited together with two other artists and the booth was quite busy so unfortunately  I did not get a good shot of her work.


I was fascinated by fiber designs in the exhibit. These felted bowls, for example:

 There was a big interest around this working knitting machine that was producing wonderful knitted garments from South African mohair. I never heard about South African mohair, and was surprised that there is one. At +30C heat I was more thinking how to minimize layers I am wearing. But February in South Africa is late summer, and people are looking forward to autumn which can come with some cool wind (they were saying that weather turned cold when it was +20C after thunderstorm...Today in Ithaca it is white ground and -10C, that is cold, though not the coldest we had this winter...)

Today I could use some exercise to drive this Mohair Bicycle to get warm:

The fleece of Angora goat, mohair, dates back thousands of years to Tibetan Himalayas from were Angora originated. South African mohair has about two centuries long history. The founding of mohair industry in South Africa was a stroke of good luck. Turkish Sultan sent twelve infertile Angora rams and one ewe to South Africa in 1838. Unknown to Sultan ewe was pregnant and gave birth to ram kid thus establishing the breading stock. These days large flocks of Angora are farmed in Karoo region of South Africa. The next two pictures are examples of what The Mohair Bicycle can produce from the excellent South African Mohair.

It was nice to talk with some artists and see their design ideas whether they were geometry in jewelry, crochet designs,or unusual ceramics.

And finally - what would be a design exhi bit without fashion design? Some of it was quite unusual and provocative...;-)