Mathematical Beading

I was feeling depressed this weekend, I didn't even have the will to bead. Maybe I just needed a break. So, I went browsing the web and stumbled on an interesting lamp by Bathsheba Grossman who is an "artist who combines math, science and sculpture, to make objects like this lamp. You can only produce the shape of this lamp with a 3D printer (rapid prototyping)." Hmm....that's a challenge if ever I heard one!

This just spoke beads to me and sent me off on some research. I came across the website of mathematical sculpture artist Vladimir Bulatov

I was fascinated by his sculptures and once again thought.....beads. I've always been a bit of a math geek...I used to do something called 'crossfigures' which are like crossword puzzles but with numbers and clues like "square root of 4 across". So, while putting together these shapes is challenging for me it's still quite doable.

Here's the first one, almost finished. It's an extended dodecahedron. I'm not crazy about the colors but it was just a prototype to see if I could actually make one. There's a very intricate weaving pattern that goes on with this but once you understand the pattern of the weaving it kind of falls into place.

I think, once I've worked out all the glitches, these will make great pendants and if I can make them small enough really nice beaded beads. There seems to be no end to the things you can do with dodecahedrons and if I don't restrict the size and do sculptures it could really get interesting.