Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Geometry

I was pretty lousy in geometry. Actually I'm not a math hero at all. There is this embarrassing story ... 8th grade ... nope, it better stays untold. Just let me say that most of my math teachers were lovely men and it was not their fault that my interest was way below zero. Now if the Count von Count had been my math teacher - who knows? I'm sure however even the Count wouldn't have been able to teach me more than the very basic of geometry.

When I stumbled upon this beautiful quilted wall hanging by Evening in the Garden I thought that being so clueless is a real pity, but then again I'm lousy at sewing, too ...


A while ago while changing channels I ended up in an educational programme for kids, though. Wanna know what I've learned?

The circle is a simple closed curve. Not at all simple is this circle with content aka the beautiful Kaleidoscope pendant by Dianne Karg Baron.



The triangle is a polygon with three corners and three sides. MC Stoneworks doesn't stop at the triangle with these earrings, she also includes spirals. Spirals are curves which emanate from a central point, getting progressively farther away as they revolves around the point. Ok, I guess I'm not allowed to call them swirly thingies then. That's still not all, though. There are cubes, too. Or should I say three-dimensional solid objects bounded by six square sides?


When trying to explain basic geometry with team members' items, I can't leave out Bead Origami and Gwenbeads.
While Bead Origami brings you this beautiful octahedron - a beaded pendant ......


... Gwenbeads uses words like icosahedron and dodecahedron and makes it look so good! See for yourself. Hm, maybe she could teach me.



P.S. Ok, it's true that I was never brilliant at math, but I have to admit that I exaggerated about the shapes a bit. Actually I was very good in the early stages of set theory in elementary school. We had the little shapes in all colors and with different textures and it was fun. So call it artistic freedom and don't sue me. Thank you ;-)

By Cat's Wire

Featuring artisan handmade creations by the Starving Artists jewelry team. SATeam members create handcrafted jewelry and beads. More information about our team and its current shop owner members can be found at SATEAM.etsy.com and here on ArtFire.

8 comments:

mcstoneworks said...

Who knew geometry could be so fun and so pretty. Beautiful examples of geometric shapes.

AMDesignsbyAngela said...

Thanks for the geometry lesson, Cat. If they had only used beautiful examples such as yours when they taught this subject in school, I might have done better.

Ness said...

Now this is lovely geometry, like natural geometry... when it's all numbers I lose interest!:D

Lovely choices to illustrate, Cat.

Anonymous said...

Super examples. love Gwenbeads' bead.

DawninCal said...

If geometry had been taught this way in school, I would have paid way more attention!

Who knew such lovely work would lead back to geometry?

RitaJC said...

Adorable! Especially the beaded beads!

Happileerving said...

These geometric pieces are beautiful. I love the repetition and sense of order in their design.

Jeanne said...

See, here's proof that math really is useful and used later in life. The #1 complaint I heard in any math class was 'why do we have to learn this stuff? We'll never use it!' Oh yes, I agree that really cool examples like this would be really useful in getting kids more engaged in class...and some really special teachers do that. Those are the ones we remember fondly.