Some rather significant changes have happened in 2015. I now have my own house, my work space is set, I am ready to enter shows, and am off to some exciting new ideas.
In my last post I talked a bit about my next project. I first titled it RadioActive because of it’s three sided curved design. I am sure you can imagine a similarity in result.
But in my exploration of results, drawing lines between points, it dawned on me that what would actually occur took my mind more to a plant I knew when living in New Mexico, called Castilleja, commonly known as Indian paintbrush or prairie-fire. I know it may seem obtuse, but that image decided my pallet, so I will try to explain.
At the base of the project, the root of the plant, it spreads out to give stability. Here are the first 3 layers.
The photo below shows the center area.
I am going to describe the structure in several different ways. Let us first talk about the three areas which seem to be three pairs of crossed threads. The bottom layer has the two closest sets of threads, and each layer up has its pair spaced a bit wider apart. I start in green as I imagine this as the root.
Continuing up in layers, the pairs of crossed threads widen as the greens pale. But now I want you to concentrate, not on the widening pairs, but on the center of the project which seems to form a smaller and smaller triangle with each angle pointing between the center of the crossed pairs. Watch what happens next.
I want you to understand that at each layer, the only change I make with the stringing of the thread is that I skip a different number of screws, the dots in that first photo. It is the placement of the dots, the screws themselves which creates the coming change.
Notice that as the pairs of crossed threads widen, as that center triangle narrows towards the center, as I move from the eighth to the ninth layer, the point of the triangle reverses. It no longer points up, but points down. I am sure there is a fine geometric explanation for this, and I welcome anyone who understands to send it to me.
But as far as the plant analogy, as the prairie-fire changes its leaves into its flower, this is where we move from the branch to the blossom. We are now to the 13th layer, and that center triangle remains in its new orientation but widens out now as the flower blooms.
As I move into the reds and finally into some variegation, the center triangle thins and finally disappears and the top most patterns, the tips of the green leaves turn to flame, the scarlets stay at the outer boarder.
Twenty layers, 3 inches thick, and perhaps one of the most striking views is that from the side.
Strangely enough, beyond the design and understanding how the pattern would change, the actual threading for this design was relatively simple. My next design, a pair of triangular pieces with hidden stars will have complications in the threading that may have frustrations beyond anything I have done before.