GEORGE STOLL
GEORGE STOLL
From the invention of zero 2,500 years ago in India to the use of the Golden Section in classical architecture, the world of mathematics fascinates me even if Im no more than a tourist. Yet despite my rudimentary understanding of math and geometry, the abstract possibilities intrigue me because its patterns are so often surprising and elegant.
I first heard about catenary curves twenty years ago from a man I was working with on a construction crew. He illustrated the difference between a parabolic arch made with a stream of water from a hose and a catenary curve made by hanging a chain between the two points of his hands.
Six years ago in Barcelona, I spent five days exploring Antoni Gaudis architecture where he used catenary curves extensively. They are best illustrated on the attic story of the large apartment building, Casa Mila, often called La Pedrera. This entire floor was originally intended for storage and doing laundry and so the arches were left raw and unplastered. Its 270 arches are of various heights and spans and of single-brick thickness. Gaudis technique was to hang a chain between two walls, adjusting it until the size and width was correct, and then have his carpenters make a wooden pattern directly from the chain. His brick-layers would then invert the wooden pattern and build the arch following its outline.
Catenary curves have occurred in my work by default or design for years. They show up in the Mothers Day Pearls and aluminum foil Christmas garlands pictured in this catalog. They are also the source material for the two Tupperware pieces included here. For these, I took snapshots of hanging Christmas lights (loosely catenary) that determined the shape of the shelves and the arrangement of the tumblers.
The four pieces in the show are hung 1 1/8 inches away from the wall on steel pins and are created with materials usually used for making jewelry. These include beading wire, silver rings and glass beads. I selected beads from Czechoslovakia, Ghana, China and Japan because of there inherent paint-like quality. They are arranged in groups by color of equal lengths within each piece. These lines add up to prime numbers. A prime number is a number that can only be divided by 1 and itself (i.e., 2, 3, 5, 7, 13, etc.) For example, one of them consists of 11 overlapping curves, and each of the 11 sections is of equal lengths of 11 colors. I employed the lengths of color to reveal the patters and, like Gaudi, used gravity as a partner and guide.
Page 6
Untitled (11 length of colored beads on 5 pins,12 inches apart)
2011
glass beads, beading wire, silver rings, & steel pins
31 1/2 x 48 x 1 1/8 inches
Page 7
Untitled (29 length of colored beads on 6 pins, 28 1/2, 5 1/2, 33 3/4, 5 1/2, and 28 1/2 inches apart)
2011
glass beads, beading wire, silver rings, & steel pins
42 1/2 x 101 3/4 x 1 1/8 inches
Page 8
Untitled (17 length of colored beads on 3 pins, 21 inches apart)
2011
glass beads, beading wire, silver rings, & steel pins
18 1/2 x 42 x 1 1/8 inches
Page 9
Untitled (11 length of colored beads on 13 pins, 11 inches apart)
2011
glass beads, beading wire, silver rings, & steel pins
132 x 21 1/2 x 1 1/8 inches
Page 10
Untitled (whatnot with 8 tumblers)
2007
beeswax, paraffin & pigment, painted wood shelf
26 1/2 x 54 1/8 x 5 1/4 inches
Page 11
Untitled (whatnot with 6 tumblers)
2011
beeswax, paraffin & pigment, painted wood shelf
24 5/8 x 26 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches
Page 12
Untitled (9 tumblers on wood)
2010
beeswax, paraffin & pigment, painted wood shelf
Page 13
Untitled (9 tumblers on wood shelf)
2008
beeswax, paraffin & pigment, painted wood shelf
Page 15
Untitled (43 Tumblers in a holiday arrangement)
2008
Beeswax, paraffin and pigment on a painted wooden structure
74 x 100 x 12 inches
Page 14
(Rear) Untitled (43 Tumblers in a holiday arrangement)
2008
Beeswax, paraffin and pigment on a painted wooden structure
74 x 100 x 12 inches
Page 16
Untitled (35 Tumblers on a wood shelf)
2007
Beeswax, paraffin and pigment, painted wood shelf
Page 17
Untitled (Mother's Day, 18 1/2 x 21 mm Australian multicolor white South Sea and black Tahitian baroques, strung in a harlequin pattern)
2002
plaster, nail polish and silk thread in a wood, aluminum and denglass vitrine
65 1/4 x 12 x 9 inches
Page 18
Untitled (Christmas: garland, white and yellow)
2004
aluminum foil, gesso, alkyd
15 x 35 x 7 1/2 inches
Page 19
Untitled (Christmas: garland, red and green)
2004
aluminum foil, gesso, alkyd
12 x 23 1/2 x 13 inches