ornament: marking time

Pattern shapes our lives. It is in the structure of the beating heart and the cycle of time. It is visible in a slice of watermelon and the grid of a wrought iron fence. Pattern is generative: linear, planar or geometric it has the power to replicate itself inexorably. Pattern is primordial: it is in the gestures of a child's first drawings.

It is the vehicle that orders and binds the power and beauty of nature to the pottery, weaving and architecture of traditional societies. It provides the means for the embellishment of objects in our own material culture. And it offers a rich language and vast repository for metaphor and meaning.

Pattern is not new to my work. While I was raising children in a small farmhouse my view of the world was often from the inside out and my landscapes were made within grids of small windowpanes. Later I used the folded configurations of the backside of envelopes in patterned motifs in my work. Read More >>