Readers of The Blog Formerly Known as The End of the Pier Show may remember that I occasionally crochet nudibranchs, echinoderms, and cnidaria from scraps of yarn or bits of plastic bags. The inspiration for this hobby is documented in a presentation by science writer Margaret Wertheim, now available on the TED Talks website. Margaret describes how the Crocheted Coral Reef project began as a statement about the destruction of these marine habitats as a consequence of climate change, and she engagingly explains the relationship between the morphologies of nudibranchs, corals, and yes, even frilly lettuce, and the mathematics of hyperbolic geometry. The idea that hyperbolic planes and shapes could best be represented using crochet techniques was developed by Dr. Daina Taimina, a mathematician at Cornell University.
With her twin sister Christine, Margaret founded the Institute for Figuring, a Los Angeles-based organization that promotes interchange between arts and aesthetics, and the fields of science and mathematics. In addition to a tour schedule and extensive documentation on the Crocheted Coral Reef, the IFF website includes online exhibits on topics such as the mathematics of paper folding, and the fractal Menger Sponge. The Institute hosts lectures on insects, knot theory, tensegrities, hand-held computation devices, and snowflakes. There are also links to sites about mathematics and art, and the connections between the two.
Unit blocks, or the Fourth Froebel Gift, in proportions 1:2:4, designed by Caroline Pratt. From the Froebel Web
In her TED talk, Wertheim mentions the pioneering educator Friedrich Fröbel, who invented the now-ubiquitous concept of kindergarten. At the IFF site, there is also an online exhibit, Inventing Kindergarten, to complement a realspace exhibit that was presented at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles in 2006. Fröbel believed that early childhood education was the birthright of all humanity, and wrote that "By education, the divine essence of man should be unfolded, brought out, lifted into consciousness.” His system of teaching, which in part involved sets of “occupational gifts” that encouraged experimentation with form and pattern, was based on engagement with physical and mental activities designed to help children understand the world around them. The Fröbel “Gifts” include sets of blocks, such as the one shown above, colored paper shapes, wooden sticks, wire rings, paper cutting, paper folding, and modeling clay. I distinctly remember the blocks pictured above from Montessori school, as well as paper weaving, colored paper shapes, and modeling clay (the smell of which, like the smell of tempera paint, sets off entorhinal and hippocampal memory-storms). If you are also a Montessori school survivor, you might enjoy this story from The Onion.
Hillside Home School, Taliesin, Spring Green WI. Photo by Jeff Dean, Wikimedia Commons
The American architect Frank Lloyd Wright was influenced by Fröbel’s teaching methods at an early age, as his mother purchased a set of the blocks during a visit to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. In his autobiography, Wright wrote:
“Now came the geometric play of these charming checkered colour combinations! The structural figues to be made with peas and small straight sticks; slender constructions, the jointings accented by the little green pea globes. The smooth shapely maple blocks with which to build, the sense of which never afterwards leaves the fingers: so form became feeling. And the box with a mast to set upon it, on which to hang with string the maple cubes and spheres and triangles, revolving them to discover subordinate forms.”
“That early kindergarten experience with the straight line; the flat plane; the square; the triangle; the circle! If I wanted more, the square modified by the triangle gave the hexagon, the circle modified by the straight line would give the octagon. Adding thickness, getting ‘sculpture’ thereby, the square became the cube, the triangle the tetrahedron, the circle the sphere.”
“These primary forms and figures were the secret of all effects . . . which were ever got into the architecture of the world.”
I don’t recall any toys that influenced my career choices as specifically as the Fröbel blocks did for FLW, but access to lots of field guides, nature books, and backyard plants and animals definitely nurtured my interest in the natural world. I also had a Visible Horse model that might have influenced my mad anatomy skillz.
