09/07/2024
Pete and I are honored to be part of Grand Rapids ArtPrize 2024- Art for Honor Veteran's Memorial Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan- we are just opposite the Children's Museum! ArtPrize runs September 14-28 and our entry is 71394! Much of our work relates to tiles that tessellate, or fill the plane without gaps. Typical tilings, known as wallpaper tilings, are repetitive. We are drawn to aperiodic tiles, which don’t allow this repetition. Until very recently, aperiodic tilings required multiple shapes. In 2022, a single aperiodic shape, called an Einstein, was discovered by retired printmaker (and amateur mathematician) David Smith. (with Joseph Samuel Myers,Craig S. Kaplan, and ChaimGoodman-Strauss) Its resistance to forming patterns is visually intriguing, and we have explored several varieties of Einstein tiles in our work, using wood, felt, and ceramic. This piece explores three examples of Einstein shapes found by Smith: “Mr. Smith’s Hat” and the Turtle both require some tiles to reflect, but the third shape, a variation of the Spectre, does not permit reflections. The proportions of each piece evoke the idea of a frieze. This long format draws the viewer into seeing what appears at first to be repetitive, but with rotations in the tiles that break up any regularity. The single-color family reminds us the shapes are identical. “Mr. Smith’s Hat” and the Turtle use the lightest color for reflected tiles.Pete Benson Nancy McClain https://www.artprize.org/entries #71394 Thanks to Nancy McClain for her amazing ceramic expertise!
