I can’t tell anybody how to design stuff – not really.\u00a0 That involves amassing all the design tools and concepts you can get your hands on, assimilating them, and letting them steep in your brain until they gel into something useful.\u00a0 This is only about what might be a useful tool to know about.\u00a0 I’ll start way back, at the beginning………..<\/p>\n
Fractals are computer generated images, derived from a simple calculation.\u00a0 Fractals themselves are rather uninteresting, or rather I might say endlessly repetitive.\u00a0 It is fractal theory that gives us something useful, which is\u00a0a representation of infinity.\u00a0 Many fractal images look like some blot of oil on water, with swirling patterns.\u00a0 Focus in close on one of the parts and you’ll see that the part also has the same pattern.\u00a0 Focus in again and again and again and every time you will find the same pattern, on into infinity.\u00a0 From this comes the rather profound thought that the perimeter of England (the theorist was British) is infinite.\u00a0 That is the Koch snowflake, by the way, in fractal theory.<\/p>\n
How could that be, when we all know that England is a finite area?\u00a0 Well, it’s a matter of resolution.\u00a0 Typically, countries are measured in miles\/kilometers.\u00a0 Let us say that England is 2,000 km around, just for discussion.\u00a0 If you measure England in centimeters, around each and every rock and outcropping, it will measure 100,000 km around.\u00a0 In millimeters 2,000,000, in angstroms 1,000,000,000,000,000, in quark theory 1 x 10\/500,000th power, and so on.\u00a0 All very interesting, in a “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin” sort of way.<\/p>\n
It’s a blog – I’m supposed to write something ;<}<\/p>\n
So, what does this have to do with anything, you ask?\u00a0 First off, that the actual beginning of fractal theory is pretty new, and required the computer to calculate and display, but there has been a human representation of the concept for centuries.\u00a0 That representation is the Mandala.\u00a0 You’ll find many definitions of the mandala.\u00a0 Jung called it the unconscious self, some call it a picture to meditate with.\u00a0 I call it a\u00a0image of God, as do some others.\u00a0\u00a0“God” in this case meaning “all things”.\u00a0 Everybody, no doubt has seen a mandala somewhere – typical Persian rug patterns have the gist of it, often.\u00a0 Draw a square, draw a circle in the square, draw a square in the circle, bisect each edge of the square to make four little squares, put a circle in each, and a square inside of each of those – on and on to “human infinity”, meaning the size of the brush and the painter’s skill.\u00a0 That is the framework of it, though they are more artistic than simply squares and circles.<\/p>\n
Go out into your back yard or your local park, and look around you.\u00a0 There are trees, there is grass, there is dirt.\u00a0 Walk up to the tree and take a look.\u00a0 Hmmm, leaves, let’s pluck one.\u00a0 Check it out, the leaf has veins and ribs and patterns and this curious texture.\u00a0 Pull out a magnifier- deeper still. Take a section and put it under a microscope – see the inner structure, the bacteria who maybe live inside, the DNA, RNA, eventually the atomic structure and the universe, all in a leaf.\u00a0 The mandala is the wisdom of the ages, drawn on a piece of paper. What is small is large, what is large is small.<\/p>\n
So, you have a stone and you want to make a ring.\u00a0 All design is really about one thing – elements and transitions.\u00a0 The parts, and how the parts are tied together with each other.\u00a0 You can make a bezel for the stone, get a piece of wire for a shank and stick it on the bezel, and there’s your ring.\u00a0 But let’s apply the concept of the mandala to it, shall we?\u00a0 Let’s draw a circle inside the square that is our bezel.\u00a0 That could be anything that takes our bezel to another level (I told you I couldn’t teach you how to design, really).\u00a0 Cutting the sides into a half bezel or multiple prongs, engraving the sides, putting and engine-turning type thing around it.\u00a0 Then divide it again – carve your multiple prongs into sculptural shapes.\u00a0 Then divide it again – enamel them or set tiny stones into the junctions.\u00a0 The same goes for the shank, but more importantly the same goes for the transition.\u00a0 Instead of soldering a wire shank onto a bezel, why not make it flow up into it?\u00a0 Or split it so it’s being held in something like roots or vines?\u00a0 And again, divide – blend, enamel, texture, deeper and deeper.\u00a0 This whole thought works in the literal sense – much classical jewelry is literally space divided and redivided and then enameled or engraved with a pattern, all very rigid and structured.\u00a0 Not very different from an actual mandala, really.\u00a0 More importantly it works on a more conceptual level, too.\u00a0 Instead of setting a cabochon in a bezel, set it into a custom setting – take it deeper.\u00a0 Instead of bending a wire into a shank, carve a shank into a certain, definite shape.\u00a0 Or take the entire process away from settings and shanks at all, and make a sculptural piece – that’s what happens when you pay greater attention to transitions.<\/p>\n
All of the examples I’ve given are simple – they’re also pretty common in jewelry.\u00a0 But the point is to understand what you are doing, and to do it with a will, not by chance.\u00a0 Everything on everything can go deeper – you can solder down a silver bead, or make that bead a diamond or a carved “bead” or enamel or anything.\u00a0 All for a simple bead.\u00a0 Not so simple, when you think about it.\u00a0 And taking the concept literally can merely make for ornate or even “busy” work.\u00a0 This is just to say, “I need a hinge – it could be knuckles soldered on a plate, but what if I took that deeper, think a little farther, divide the concept into it’s parts, and make those parts into something\u00a0more than just knuckles on a plate………..?”\u00a0 Think about that leaf, that’s really so much more than just a leaf, in the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I can’t tell anybody how to design stuff – not really.\u00a0 That involves amassing all the design tools and concepts you can get your hands on, assimilating them, and letting them steep in your brain until they gel into something useful.\u00a0 This is only about what might be a useful tool to know about.\u00a0 I’ll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/johndonivan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/37"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/johndonivan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/johndonivan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/johndonivan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/johndonivan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/johndonivan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/37\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/johndonivan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}