Artists
Statement
I’ve been doing chain maille for many years, selling jewelry and chain maille ties. Lately I’ve been more interested in mathematical patterns, both within coloring patterns in chain, but also within chain itself. I’ve been fascinated by “weird spaces” for a while, and chain maille, doesn’t have to be the 2-dimensional design we’ve assumed since seeing armor as a child.
Artworks
Not Really a Ball in Chain
32.0 x 32.0 cm
Aluminum rings
2025
This is a Hyperbolic Soccer ball. Where a traditional soccer ball has pentagons surrounded by hexagons (6-gons), a hyperbolic soccer ball has heptagons (7-gons), surrounded by hexagons.
The center ring, encircled in a large blue ring serves as the “center” of this plane. There are colorings within the design; the first 7-gons have a silver purple silver connection to them. All of the connections to 6-gons are silver purple silver, while 6-gon to 6-gon are silver black silver. In the next iteration the 7-gons have purple magenta purple connections to the 6-gons, facing away from the center, for a bit of purple splash going out.
At any point, the rings can be flatted, to basically look like the flat center pattern presented in the picture.