CoM | Tessellations in Cloth and Paper: Smocking and Origami

Monday, April 21, 2025
 – Live Presentation with
Jeannine Mosely

Session at 12 Noon Atlanta time
(check your time here)

Please join us starting 10 minutes before this session using the following button.

For published CoM presentations please visit the G4G YouTube channel

After this virtual CoM presentation on Zoom, we will meet for an informal social session in a different Zoom space where we can all see each other (see the blue button below).  That Zoom meeting will start around 1pm ET.

Please join the social using the following button:

Tessellations in Cloth and Paper: Smocking and Origami

Origami tessellations and fabric smocking are both art forms in which a flat surface is transformed by bringing together symmetrically chosen tuples of points. The surface between these points is distorted by this action, creating a (hopefully) attractive design. Because paper doesn’t stretch, the resulting structure will be composed of a collection of developable surfaces connected by straight or curved creases. The structure is typically maintained by tension. In smocking, the point tuples are held together by small stitches on the back side of the fabric. Because woven cloth stretches, the surfaces between the points drape fluidly.

Designs in one craft can inspire counterparts in the other. We’ll look at some examples and examine how they are related.

Jeannine Mosely is an artist, mathematician, and engineer. She has been practicing origami since she was 6, and textile arts since she was old enough to be trusted with scissors and a needle. She is best known for her construction of the Business Card Menger Sponge, a modular origami sculpture constructed from 66,000 business cards.
 

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