It is not surprising that many of the ideas and designs which find their way into my pieces reflect a mathematical flavor. Having spent so much of my time immersed in the arcane technical skills needed to develop this process, I could not help but notice beautiful "objects" along the way.
I am drawn toward recursive structures (eg fractals) on both an intellectual and a visceral level. When I look at the natural world, I see recursion-- trees, mountains, clouds...and I am not alone in suspecting that it is fundamental. I am deeply indebted to Douglas Hofstadter for opening my eyes to this concept with his remarkable book, Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Braid [1979].
Because my process involves moving along a path (vectors), I have grown deeply interested in L-systems (a type of fractal composed of line segments). The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants, by Prusinkiewicz and Lindenmayer [1990], provides a beautiful manifesto for the linking of these concepts to the biologic forms we observe. (The "L" in L-systems comes from Lindenmayer). One of my great joys, was the discovery of free software modelled after the style of this book: Lauren Lapre's LPARSER. Many of my recent sculptures reflect experiments with these structures.
Another delightful discovery was the Geometry Center at the University of Minnesota. Here, I have had a chance to see some of the frontiers of geometrical mathematics. To my surprise, I found that the mathematicians and I share some of the same questions and problems. This past summer I had the good fortune to meet Chaim Goodman-Strauss at the Center. Our discussions and meetings were invaluable to my understanding of symmetry and tiling concepts.