Susan Goldstine
Artists
Susan Goldstine
Professor of Mathematics
St. Mary's College of Maryland
St. Mary's City, Maryland, USA
Statement
For me, the most exciting part of mathematics is communicating it to others. I am especially interested in models that make mathematical concepts tactile or visual. This passion has led me to many artistic projects in the course of my work as a math professor and to some unexpected and delightful collaborations.
Artworks
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Fibonacci Downpour
21 x 26 x 26 cm
Merino yarn, cotton thread, embroidery hoop
2015
I based Fibonacci Downpour on Anne Lorenz-Panzer's knitted shawl pattern Not a Drop, released under her professional label Arlene's World of Lace. Her original shawl is rectangular with a distinctive teardrop stitch pattern. Since the drop shapes are formed by bifurcating and then rejoining the vertical lines of stitches, I became curious about ways to decouple the bifurcations and merges to form branched designs.
Here, the vertical stitch lines branch and form drops following a physical version of the Fibonacci recursion. The number of drops and branchings in each row are consecutive Fibonacci numbers. As the Fibonacci numbers are asymptotically exponential, the fabric falls into a more or less pseudospherical form.