Sandra DeLozier Coleman
An array of flowers involving multiple symmetries is a salute to John Conway and Bill Thurston, who created precise notations for defining and classifying symmetries. Using signatures based on the number of mirrors and gyrations that can be counted in a wallpaper pattern, Conway offered proof that there are precisely 17 types of plane symmetry groups. Most of my symmetry images can be described easily using Conway's notation. In this image there is at-a-glance *4• symmetry, where 4 mirrors fix a point, but because there are also rotational symmetries (gyrations), the signature is better described as 4• symmetry. I wonder, could there be a more complex signature that would assign sub-signatures to symmetries within the flowers and leaves?
A hand-drawn, unmeasured image of flowers displaying less-than-precise symmetry, where petals are alike, but not identical, is also a fitting introduction to the artist’s new book of poems and images. SWIRLING SYMMETRY is a unique collection of poems based on math and physics that have been coming together over decades. Thoughts that are framed in gentle pattern and accompanied by near-symmetric art form a collection that can be compared to an arrangement of flowers. Ideas that may not have grown together, but which have been carefully put in place to lead the mind from thought to thought, are much like the flowers in a floral design that leads the eye from blossom to blossom. It is a clear celebration of mathematics, motion and pattern.