Sculptures from Fabric Structures

Sculpture from Fabric Structures James Mallos

Mathematically InclinedTakoma Park, April 5, 2013

Closure, 2013.

PicassoLewitt

Calder

Shapiro

A short history of assembled sculpture

Asawa

The components are sculptures themselves:

Empathetic Neutral Antipathetic

identification alienation

...at the Textile Museum bookstore.

Where it all started for me...

(By the light of later understanding: an assembly of empathetic elements evokes society.)

Photo from “The Primary Structures of Fabrics.”

I liked this picture:

I started weaving...

Offering, 2008.

...and making images of weaving, which is easy, because...

...every computer graphics surface mesh is just a basket drawn in a different way...

Triangular truchet tiles for weaving.

...so all the characters in computer animations are baskets...

...but that doesn’t make weaving any easier to do...

Olivier’s Fingertip,Sculpture NOW 2009.

Big Little,Crystal City BID2010-11

...whether big...

Flat City, Artomatic 2010.

...or...

...small.

Maquette for Olivier’s Fingertip, 2008.

Weaving’s got an ugly problem...

...closed shapes require splices.

An attractive solution is unit weaving: all the elements are short, and splices are everywhere.

Da Vinci, “Codex Atlantico.”

Truchet tiles show that unit weaving works on any orientable surface (but not on a Möbius strip or the like.)

Triangular truchet tiles for unit weaving.

Many of my sculptures are unit weaving.

City of Alexandria, Mental Map, 2007.

Sketch. Artomatic 2007.

Maquette for Nightweeds, 2007.

Maquettes for Genes of Shape, 2009.

Recycled Can Fabric, 2011.Textile Museum Green Photo Contest

Knots Code ShapesArtomatic 2012.

So...are there other fabric-making techniques that can make every surface?

A theorem in topology gives a clue...

Any closed surface can be slit open in such a way that the whole surface can be stretched out to a polygon with an even number of sides.

Any closed surface can be slit open in such a way that the whole can be stretched out to a polygon!

Eiffel Tower(1889)

Elastomeric Dip Coat

2-Manifold Surface without

Boundary(2013)

The elastomeric surface slit,

stripped, and stretched out to

a many-sided polygon

Making a polygon is child’s play for any fabric-making technique...

...but we still have to suture up the cuts. That means working new-into-old, or patching.

Everything we want to make is a patch.

Crochet is the only endless thread* technique that readily works new-into-old.

* i.e., the whole yarn or wire supply does not need to be passed through each stitch.

Kinds of Crochet Chains

Lefty RightyWalking

Zip Crochet: crochet in heavy-gauge wire

Pre-forming Zipping

Zipped chains Technique of a crochet

Workshops

Thanks!

Brief Boom, 2013.(in Strathmore Drawing for Art)