Being in school exposes you to various techniques of art.  Through art classes, through science and math, and especially through the architecture of the school’s grounds.  I enjoyed my art classes, I wasn’t that interested in science, but the only math class I really liked was geometry.

Geometry helped me to understand how the structure of the world around me exists, and how different shapes offer dimensions to create a world of possibilities.  Through geometry, I learned how to tessellate which is found everywhere you look.

Tessellation involves tiling a pattern when the pattern has an infinite beginning and end, and there are no gaps between shapes and patterns, and the shape doesn’t overlap.  Tessellation is everywhere.  Look at your kitchen tile and the bathroom tile on your floors.  Those patterns are infinite.  Look at textured clothing.  The design of a honeycomb.  A checkerboard.  Nature’s creations.  Their shapes tessellate and continue on and on forever.

Some have asked me if tessellation is more math or art.  I’d say it’s both.  Have you ever had a kaleidoscope as a kid?  I’ve had a few, and the way that the reflection helped create an infinite amount of tessellations made an incredible light show come alive through looking inside a tube.  The way the shapes dance and rotated inside the tube was like looking at a symphony of shapes perform without music or choreography.

Robert Fathauer is widely know for his tessellation themed art. He is known for mathematical art, and one of his most famous techniques involve fractal tessellations that can have hundreds and thousands of different complex shapes http://www.robertfathauer.com/TessellationArt.html.

One of the earliest artists that worked with printmaking techniques was Maurits C. Escher, and he was famous for the metamorphosis print theme.  As a Dutch artist, he embodied other artistic talents as well, but the ability to create a tessellated pattern and morph that image into a new pattern by slowly altering the original pattern was unprecedented https://www.nga.gov/features/slideshows/mc-escher-life-and-work.html.

Which is why I love to art about art.  It’s more than just a drawing, more than just a shape.  It’s a conversation between you and the canvas you’re looking at. 

Figure 1 – Relativity (M.C. Escher). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_%28M._C._Escher%29