2021 Joint Mathematics Meeting

I am feeling a little giddy because I just won an award for the first mathematical artwork I’ve ever exhibited. “Laura’s Flowerpot” is a collaborative work made with my friend Duane Bailey, a mathematician and professor of computer science at Williams College, Massachusetts. The exhibition was curated by the Bridges Organization for the 2021 Joint Mathematics Meetings, an international conference of mathematicians. You may visit the exhibition here, and watch a 9min video of Duane and I discussing our sculptures.

The Artist Reception is today, Friday Jan 8th by zoom. All are welcome. Time: 4pm EST, 9pm GMT Information on how to attend the reception is below.

Join the Zoom reception via your web browser, the meeting ID is 867 8631 2058, and the Passcode is JMMbridges. If accessing by phone, the Passcode is 7707585650. Find your local number here. There will be Zoom breakout rooms so that small groups can split off to discuss particular topics in more depth. To access these you must have version 5.3 or later of the Zoom app. Please upgrade before the meeting if needed, at zoom.us.

Happy New Year indeed! I’m looking forward to connecting with old friends and meeting some new ones.

Mountain Laurel

Mountain Laurel (oblique view)

 

Mountain Laurel is one of three recently completed sculptures now on display in the Schow Science Library at Williams College. They show an area of three-dimensional Penrose tiling that continues to infinity in all directions. This ongoing series is a collaboration with my friend computer scientist Duane Bailey who has spent 30+ years investigating Penrose tiling. Our exhibition is called a.periodicity a mathematical term for this curious symmetry.

Mountain Laurel

Cloaking Device

Laura’s Flowerpot

The sculptures are structurally identical -all precisely the same size and shape. But each is coloured differently according to some aspect of the mathematics. Mountain Laurel provides insight into the relationship between 2D and 3D versions of Penrose tiling.

In two-dimensions Penrose tiling requires two different shapes to construct; a fat rhombus and a skinny rhombus. Although each tile in the sculpture is identical, Mountain Laurel codes them according to the shadow they would project onto a flat surface. Green tiles would project the shadow of a skinny rhombus in 2D. Pink tiles would create the shadow of a fat rhombus in 2D.

In all three sculptures, colour enables us to see unexpected shapes and patterns when the sculpture is viewed from different angles. Mountain Laurel is built from identical rhombi -the tiles are all the same shape – but the composition yields marvelously irregular patterns. Shapes and rhythms appear and disintegrate as you move around the sculpture.

 

The back of the sculpture provided its title Mountain Laurel. Here’s work in progress with binder clips and reverse-engineered clothes pins.

Aperiodic tilings are mathematical models for quasicrystals, physical solids that were discovered in 1982 by Dan Shechtman who subsequently won the Nobel prize for his work in 2011. I’ve also built them in stained glass, with mathematical rules encoded into the surface pattern.

 

 

 

 

Artist residency, tiling projects

Work in progress on mathematical tiling done during my Artist Residency at MASS MoCA this month. Also models made with computer scientist Duane Bailey this past July. Scroll down this post for construction pics.

 

38 lanterns for NYCity gala

 

This time last week I was in NY City at MASS MoCA’s 15th anniversary fundraising gala with artist Darren Waterston showing off our latest collaboration, a sold-out edition of 35 lanterns. It was such a pleasure to work on Darren’s spectacular installation Filthy Lucre (the centerpiece of his show Uncertain Beauty at MASS MoCA). Watching him paint beautiful, mysterious landscapes onto panes of glass for the lanterns was equally splendid. A real treat.

Darren Waterston, painting landscapes onto glass

 

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The Plank: Patinated and Polished to Perfection

Creative collaboration: 8.5ft of steel reinforced, painted, kiln-fired and copper-foiled stained glass for NY artist Jason Middlebrook; now finished and on exhibition in Chicago.

Detail

Soap and water

Scrubbing off flux

Brushing on patina

Applying patina

Polishing

Carnauba waxed

Finished!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glazing the Middlebrook plank

Photos taken in the studio today, starting with tack-soldering the copper-foiled glass into the steel frame.

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and the flip side of the plank, with glass in place and ready to be soldered tomorrow morning.

Plus one last photo of our fancy gloves…

Read other posts about Jason Middlebrook‘s stained glass plank: the early drawings; welding and fabricating a steel armature;  reinforcing the armature, cladding with copper foil, modeling the tree bark, taking templates and cutting glass.

Or come to Open Studio tomorrow, Friday Sept 5th, from 4-6pm

Open Studio Friday, Sept 5th 4-6pm

My latest artist collaboration: a stained glass plank for Jason Middlebrook. Come and visit my studio before it leaves for Chicago. All welcome (details below).

Above, still wrapping the armature with copper foil. Below, glasspainting.

Read other posts about Jason Middlebrook‘s stained glass plank: the early drawings; welding and fabricating a steel armature;  reinforcing the armature, cladding with copper foil, modeling the tree bark, taking templates and cutting glass.

The glass on the left still has one layer of contact paper from the sandblasting. I’m painting enamel into the areas that were blasted.

Removing contact paper masks. After a little cleaning up, I kiln-fired each piece to fix the enamel permanently into the surface of the glass.

If you’re really interested, and live near enough, do come and visit my studio on Friday to see the plank before it leaves for Chicago.     Time: 4-6pm, Friday Sept 5th. Where: 359 Rue Madeline, Readsboro VT 05350. Email: dcoombs@myfairpoint.net or call me, area code 802, 423~5640.