On this page I show the sculpture projects which I have worked on in Summer 2008. Some of these are completions of projects started before, and some are initial stages of pieces which will be cast in Fall 2008.
I have made several sculptures based on the trefoil knot and the figure 8 knot. In this next sculpture I have made a large figure eight knot. The cross section is a hypocycloid (concave triangle) twisted in such a way that there is only one edge and only one surface, analogous to the Mobius band. These pictures show the wax model of the piece, which is approximately 20"x17"x14" in size.
I made a large bronze trefoil knot with a hypocycloid cross-section, but there were defects in the pour which required extensive welding repairs. At some points I had to add metal which made the cross-section bulge out, so it is still triangular, but sometimes concave in and sometimes convex. The welding repairs also improved the sound quality, so the piece now has a nice ring when struck. I mounted it over a granite base, hanging from a bent bronze rod, as I have before in smaller pieces. A thin steel wire around the piece catches on a loop of steel having a narrow gap cut in it. That loop hangs from the top of the bronze rod arch, firmly held in a notch in the rod, so the piece can move while hanging, and is easily removed or replaced. Here are two pictures of the mounted piece, which will be polished a bit more to get a good finish.
I have made a wax model of an umbilic torus, which is a circle with a hypocycloid cross-section, twisted so that it has only one edge and one surface. This piece is approximately 6"x7"x2". Pictures of it are below.
I have previously carved several versions of the umbilic torus from wood, but all the ones I made have been either bought or given away. So I decided to buy some more Brazillian wood and carve more. I just completed one made from cocobolo wood, displayed on a base of black walnut, as shown in the following pictures.
I also carved a piece of Brazillian bobinga wood into a completely different pattern, still based on a torus, but with a different knot embedded in the surface. In this one the knot goes around the torus, passing through the center hole five times before coming back to its beginning, so the result has a beautiful pentagonal symmetry. I have not yet made a base for it, but I am thinking of casting a base out of bronze, shaped to precisely hold the piece in a vertical position. I am also planning to make a bronze version of this sculpture. The two pictures below show the two sides of the piece, which is slightly less than 6" across and 2" thick.
To see more types of sculpture I have tried, follow the following links:
Links back to:
Webpage of Alex Feingold,
Department of Mathematical Sciences,
Binghamton University.