Last week we visited my wife’s sister-in-law Kathy, who lives in a suburb of Milwaukee. Kathy suggested we visit a quilting exhibit at the Wisconsin Museum of Quilting and Fiber Arts, in nearby Cedarberg. I’m not a real fan of quilting, and imagined a display of quilts that I might have found on my great-grandmother’s bed. But it sounded like a nice trip through Wisconsin’s countryside, made more interesting with plans to visit a winery.
The exhibit that we saw was totally unexpected. I did not expect to see tessellations, hyperbolic paraboliods, and planes. The exhibit was a pleasant surprise, especially in that Kathy and I are both professionally trained mathematicians. It was called “Counted Threads”, and the museum’s description of the exhibit is quoted here:
Counting Threads brings together an exceptional group of seventeen contemporary fiber artists and mathematicians whose work explores the often symbiotic relationship between fiber art and math. The link between math and textiles has been observed throughout history, from the 19th century Jacquard loom’s use of binary numbers to the historic exploitation of planar systems in the development of repeat patterns for fabric and carpets. Counting Threads updates this lineage by looking specifically at the way contemporary fiber artists utilize the language of math as a means for artistic exploration.
https://www.wiquiltmuseum.com/current-exhibits
By organizing this exhibition, the museum seeks to understand how artists working today are creatively activating mathematical concepts and making the conventions their own, expressed through fiber art. Principles explored in Counting Threads include geometry, hyperbolic planes, tessellations, symmetry, and diagrams. Working in a variety of media and processes, including quilting, crochet, lacemaking, string art, and video, the artists come from throughout the U.S., Canada, and as far away as Australia. Several of the artists consider themselves foremost mathematicians, who utilize fiber as a method for mathematical inquiry.
The seventeen artists featured in Counting Threads include Black Girl MATHgic, Meg Callahan, Anna Chupa, the Contemporary Geometric Beadwork Team, Libs Elliott, Audrey Esarey, Jacquie Gering, Caroline Hadley, Veronika Irvine, Chawne Kimber, Thomas Knauer, Ahree Lee, Sarah Nishiura, Michael J. Ross, Daina Taimina, Erick Wolfmeyer, and Carolyn Yackel. Integral to the display of these artists’ works will be the inclusion of notebooks, preparatory diagrams, formulas, and technological explanations, which will illuminate for the viewer the math behind the works as well as the artists’ thought process.
These photos (posted with permission of the museum) represent just some of the exhibit’s collections. Click on a photo to view it and to scroll through the others in a lightbox. Click on a photo for a close-up view. Click the “X” in the upper right corner to exit the lightbox view.
If you’re in the neighborhood of Milwaukee, check it out! I hope you enjoy the exhibits as much as I did. It runs through November 13, 2022.
