Thursday, March 1

Goals

Where do we look for inspiration? A few years ago our friend Paul started taking pottery lessons and we witnessed his evolution from beginner to expert potter. I haven't seen any of his recent work, but I'm sure he has achieved grand-master status by now! The bowl pictured is a gift he made for us and it sits on our coffee table. It usually holds a pen, the keys to our mailbox and a letter opener, but for official guests it is emptied and displayed in its purest form.I don't know how long it will be until either of us can make a bowl this smooth and symmetrical, but we keep on trying. It may be even longer until we figure out how to put a cool swirl glaze on our pottery.

Another source for our artistic inspiration has been the artwork we have seen in our travels. We really enjoy mosaics and ceramic tilework. The mosaic pictured was not at the Alhambra, but it is available here. Recently, a NYT article suggested that medieval Muslim artists had found patterns for their mosaics that were solutions to mathematical puzzles that have only recently been solved. Here is a link to the original Science article titled "Decagonal and Quasi-Crystalline Tilings in Medieval Islamic Architecture".

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