2017 Joint Mathematics Meetings
Lana Holden
Artists
Lana Holden
Fiber artist
Skew Loose LLC
Terre Haute, Indiana, USA
Statement
I find my creativity is enhanced, rather than inhibited, by the imposition of structure. Much of my work pairs a standard idea from knitting or crochet design repertoire with a mathematical idea in a compatible but unexpected way. I try to make specific connections between the mathematics and fiber arts concepts, rather than simply exploring random combinations, for the most spectacular results.
Artworks
Moore's Parterre
60 x 60 cm
Cotton, wool, polyamide, and silk yarn
2014
The essence of Bruges crochet technique is the making of a crocheted tape that is shaped as it is made into a curve to form dense lace. Immediately after learning this technique, I became interested in exploring it for creating space-filling curves.
I experimented with the classic Hilbert curve for early studies, but chose Moore's variation for the larger work for a couple of reasons. First, the inherent symmetries of Moore curves are aesthetically pleasing. More importantly, in Moore curves, the starting point and endpoint are adjacent points, allowing the piece to be a closed loop. (Can you find the join?)
The long color sections of the yarn used display the point clustering properties of Hilbert/Moore curves.