Peter Sittner

Statement

While I have been a woodworker for most of my life, artistic expression is a relatively new experience. I stumbled across the geometric sculptures of John Robinson and was intrigued. Soon after, I discovered the work of Bjarne Jespersen and was first awed, then challenged and finally inspired. My submission, Hopf Knott, is the result of a natural progression from the two simplest wood carving projects in Mr. Jespersen's book, Woodcarving Magic. Unlike Mr. Jespersen's incredible creations, my submission was not carved from a single block of wood. Here, the challenge was to cleanly join the parts after shaping and finishing.

Artworks

Hopf Knott is the offspring of two forms that have intrigued me for some time, the Hopf Link and the Borromean Rings. While the sculpture may appear to be a series of connected Hopf Links, it is actually two sets of Borromean Rings, an inner set and an outer set. Of course, the "rings" are stretched to make the crossings possible and shaped to resemble Hopf Links. The 6 outermost points correspond to the vertices of a regular octahedron.