Sabetta Matsumoto

Designers

Sabetta Matsumoto

Associate Professor of Physics

School of Physics, Georgia Tech

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

https://matsumoto.gatech.edu

Biography

Sabetta Matsumoto is an associate professor in the School of Physics at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her physics research centers around the relationship between geometry and material properties in soft systems, including liquid crystals, 3D printing and textiles. Her lab studies knitted textiles from the point of view of knot theory and as an additive manufacturing technique. She is also interested in using sewing, 3D printing and virtual reality in mathematical art and education.

Looks

Image for look '532 cape' — 532 cape
model: Sabetta Matsumoto photographer: Henry Segerman

About the look

532 cape

batik dyed quilt cotton fabric, polyester batting, polyester and cotton thread

2023-2024

This cape is a quilt is the northern hemisphere of the stereographic projection of the 532 tiling of the sphere. Tilings of flat space often form the basis for patchwork items, such has squares, hexagons and triangles seen in many quilts. The 532 tiling isn't planar -- it tiles the sphere. It has the symmetry of a dodecahedron on the sphere. In order to make it planar, the design was stereographically projected onto the plane. The straight lines of the triangles on the sphere become curved in the plane, making for elegant curves in the patchwork. The 532 cape consists of wedges each made from 7 spherical triangles. The motif is colored using color wheel with 10 hues and spirals them around the central decagon. The back of the quilt is navy blue batik fabric, which acts as a neutral to make the spiral on the front pop.