DESIGN PERSPECTIVES
Drawn from the tap root at
DESIGN EXPLORATION
Design Exploration - Tahomahomesite (weebly.com)
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DESIGN PROCESS
... long story short ..., how did this evolve ... and,
what makes the star move ...?
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Briefly, I had been contemplating the shift of the magnetic poles of the planet, around the turn of the century ..., looking at the topography of the continent of Antarctica, I realized there were basically six passages from the exterior to the interior, where that amazing spike in the middle is concurrent with the South Pole - one on either side of the Antarctic Mountain Range, and two sets of two on the opposing shore line:
Even though they weren't equidistant, (by now, I am seeing the geometric logic of the spacing) I figured, those six passages might have been carved out by the magnetic lee lines ... it seemed possible that I could explore the movement of six shifting lee lines using the six primary (Red/Yellow/Blue) and secondary (Orange/Green/Violet) colors ...
The question at that point was, "How do the lines move?"
I drew a circle with six points and played around with it untiI I found a coherent rhythm of movement - and started drawing ... as I drew from one point (passage) to another across the circle, half way around, I was amazed to see a 5 point star with a stem ... kept going, and completed the circle to find a 6 pointed star formed by two 5 point stars joined at the stem (!!!!!)
I extended the lines to expand the star, and came up with this:
The question at that point was, "How do the lines move?"
I drew a circle with six points and played around with it untiI I found a coherent rhythm of movement - and started drawing ... as I drew from one point (passage) to another across the circle, half way around, I was amazed to see a 5 point star with a stem ... kept going, and completed the circle to find a 6 pointed star formed by two 5 point stars joined at the stem (!!!!!)
I extended the lines to expand the star, and came up with this:
Then, I assigned each line with a color, and colored in the sections according to the lines that defined them, and came up with this:
... then, I asked, "What is happening at the core that would make the lines move, and the star turn ...?"
The next exploration revealed that if I drew the star on the vertical axis - lo and behold,
the 6 point star turned into ..., a 12 point star ...!!
OK, now I knew I was onto something ... two 5 point stars combined to make a 6 point star, combining horizontal and vertical axis to yield a 12 point star ... reflecting all 12 shades on the color wheel, the 12 tone scale in music, geometry and movement in space ... already, I was way past lost, with so many ways to explore this emerging dodecahedronal design!!
At this point, the question, again was ...,
"What is happening at the core to make the star turn?"
At this point, the question, again was ...,
"What is happening at the core to make the star turn?"
I had injured my head, was barely functional, not sleeping ... so had removed a cupboard door to use as a drawing board, took a yardstick and ruler and drew a grid ... photocopied that, and spent the next couple of years drawing, day and night - and then the next several years- generating the drawings you see at the top of this page:
... it turned out that whatever I drew at the core would generate very different designs within the star ... with no set pattern ... it was a completely open possibility ... I was drawing with colored pencils on 11 x 17 inch paper ... every drawing took hundreds and thousands of hours ... after a couple of years of non-stop drawing, my mind was filled with the design, waking and sleeping, eyes open or shut!
As you can see, after 5 generations of the expanding design, it was off the page. I wanted to see how big it would get if I could draw 7 or 10, even 12 generations (that would be REALLY BIG!!) ... so I got a big piece of butcher paper and started to rough that out ... one morning, I turned over and accidentally put my elbow on the drawing and tore it ... crumpled it up to throw away, and stopped myself in the nick of time ... rescued the core:
One of the major realizations came when I saw I had been focussed in polarity,
using the horizontal/vertical axis as the foundation:
... and thought to see what would happen
if I divided the circle into three,
instead of four basic sections:
if I divided the circle into three,
instead of four basic sections:
WOAH!!
... that was when I started to see how it could move ...
the segment 'stars 3' shows where that went ....
Over the next several years, I clawed my way through one deep void after another ...
graduated to a polar grid, as you can see in 'stars 4' and 'stars 5' ...
and kept on going wherever the next clue led me to explore ....
I have more drawings not posted,
but the ones on the site represent
the different stages of the exploration.
This is the most recent image:
... who can tell how it might grow from here ...?
k. allen
October 2022