Elaine Krajenke Ellison
The appreciation and demystification of mathematics is a common thread that runs through my mathematical quilts. Drawing, bronze, painting, glass, and photography were mediums I had investigated prior to 1980. In the early l980's, I settled on fabric to tell my mathematical stories. My quilts range from 2000 B.C. topics to contemporary ideas on mathematics. I have designed and quilted over 60 quilts. The mathematical story that each quilt "tells" will intrigued mathematician and quilter alike.
Our Bridges Conference in 2008 met in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. A paper presented at the conference titled "Making Patterns on the Surfaces of Swing-Hinged Dissections" by Reza Sarhangi caught my eye. In the paper, Reza mentions a powerful technique for dissections. The technique originated in Chapter 10 of Dissections, Plane and Fancy by Greg Frederickson. The technique is to superpose two tessellations in a way that the common pattern of repetition is preserved. An arrow-like shape is common to both the Greek Cross and the Square. This artwork is unique in the fact that I used two tessellating grids to form the arrow-like shape that is common to both beautiful shapes.