Mandelbrot

Fractal art caught my attention many years ago when the psychedelic images first appeared. Only later did the idea of interpreting them in fabric come to me. One day I stumbled onto the website of Rose Rushbrooke which completely captivated me. As far as I can gather from her notes she needle-turn-appliques (is there such a verb? there is now!) all her fabric down. Since I have been duly "corrupted" by Melody Johnson et al, I mix fusing, with needle-turn, with satin-stitching raw edges. It goes so much faster when you can fuse the very fiddly bits.

So here is what I have been doing over the past few days. The purple background was auditioned but rejected in favour of a brown (which will also be cut down and in turn appliqued onto another background.) I LOVE doing this kind of work.

Here is another Mandelbrot set, which I did some time ago and had just put away, not knowing what to do next.
I was surfing online and googled 'Mandelbrot' and was absolutely delighted to discover that Benoir Mandelbrot is alive and well at 80 and is an Emeritus Professor in Mathematics at Yale University in the USA. I even found an email address for him. I think it's wonderful that he has lived to see his mathematical work take off in various popular art forms!

I downloaded a freeware Fractal program and had great fun looking at various fractals. The maths is beyond me, but you don't have to understand it to enjoy the intricate shapes that are works of art in themselves. Try your hand here.