Decorative Objects

A Story

We have been spending more time with straight-up artists, and this has us thinking more about color. And also thinking that people might not be ready to make room for a new artistic table, but they might have wall space for something unique. 

The pieces below are what we call 2.5-D or two-and-a-half dimensional. They are 15 by 15 inches, and the color bars (lacquer on aluminum) project from the background about 3/8 of an inch, so the object has a somewhat different look depending on your viewing angle. One object has color bars that progress from blue to yellow, and the other object from red to blue. We made these fine frames from beech wood. 

The pattern is called a Magic Line of Three and is derived from a magic square of three, which is a special 3-by-3 arrangement of the integers from 1 to 9. In this arrangement, every column and row adds to 15, and the pattern comes from drawing a line in order from 1 to 9 and then returning to 1. This kind of mathematical ornament was championed by Claude Bragdon in his book Projective Ornament in 1915, which is now out of copyright but can be purchased through artist Tauba Auerbach's noble undertaking Diagonal Press.