Patterns of Care and Cycles of Time

This month I returned to carving linoleum after a long break, working diligently toward an exhibition called Patterning. What began as a straightforward idea soon revealed itself to be a demanding dialogue between geometry, symbolism, and persistence. I created two families of prints: one rooted in hexagonal tessellation (Eternal Weave and Nurturing Pattern), and another in circular mandala form (13 Moons). Together, they explore how sacred geometry can hold the weight of human meaning: motherhood, care, cycles of time, and the radiance of the sun and moon.

Hexagonal Rotational Tessellation:

Eternal Weave and Nurturing Pattern

A tessellation is the tiling of a plane using repeated shapes without gaps or overlaps. The regular polygons that tessellate perfectly, squares, equilateral triangles, and hexagons, are the foundation of many designs across art and mathematics. I began with the hexagon, adapting the Escher method of modifying one side and transferring that modification to its opposite side, then rotating the pattern clockwise around the form.

You will notice in the photos above how I started to brainstorm and work on the pattern. In the first image, the hexagon was labelled with A, A, B, B, C, C. The second A was REMOVED from the hexagon and rotated upward to the first A to create the head and arm. And then B was removed and moved to B...C was removed and moved to C....I used tracing paper so that I could easily trace the design within the hexagon to see how it would work and tweak her form until I was happy with the overall shape.

From this geometric base, I carved the image of a woman cradling an infant. Her hand extends outward to support the baby in the next tile, so that each mother’s gesture becomes part of a collective cradle. The result is a hexagonal rotational tessellation, where each woman interlocks seamlessly with the next, and the rotation of figures creates an infinite lattice of care.

I created two versions: a large print measuring 20×28 inches, titled Eternal Weave, and a smaller 12-inch version titled Nurturing Pattern. Both designs root themselves in sacred geometry, but they also speak in profoundly human terms: intimacy, interconnectedness, and the shared responsibility of nurturing. In their repetition, the women suggest that within the weave of humanity, all are held.

M.C. Escher often used tessellations to transform fish into birds, reptiles into abstract rhythms, but my imagery departs into the realm of motherhood and feminine strength. Here, geometry is not abstract but maternal, soft, and cyclical, embedding themes of compassion where Escher’s work often emphasized play and paradox.

Circular Mandala

13 Moons

If the tessellations carried weighty symbolism, the circular mandala was meant to be my “easy” piece. I envisioned a wheel of thirteen moons circling a radiant sun: a year’s lunar cycle condensed into sacred geometry. The concept was elegant, but the execution proved unexpectedly formidable.

Dividing a circle into 13 equal slices requires constructing a tridecagon (13-sided polygon). The central angle of each wedge is:

360∘13=27.692∘\frac{360^\circ}{13} = 27.692^\circ13360∘​=27.692∘

That number: 27.692° became my adversary. Too wide, and the wedges overlapped. Too narrow, and the final slice left a glaring gap. My protractor, with its markings at whole and half degrees, mocked me: the true angle lived in the cracks between.

I lost track of how many times I came back to this problem, but I can count at least:

• Attempt No. 1: 28° — too wide, the last wedge overlapped nearly an inch....begged AI to save my beautifully carved block...

• Attempt No. 2: Shaved inward to ~27° — I looked at the 1.6mm that AI told me to shave off and thought I knew better....I was wrong! Now it was too narrow, leaving a gap over an inch....I begged AI to save my wretched soul...

• Attempt No. 3: Adjusted outward by 3.6 mm — overshot again.

• Attempt No. 4: Narrowed by 1.6 mm — still wrong, the gap stubbornly reappeared.

• Attempt No. 5: Re-checked with protractor — now it read 27.5°, but the circle still fell short.

• Attempt No. 6: Thought I had 27.75° — but the print revealed otherwise, leaving 7.5° unaccounted for at the end.

• Attempt No. 7: Finally zeroed in on the elusive 27.692°, or at least as close as human hands and rulers could manage.

By the time I reached Attempt No. 7, I learned to mark off the wedges on my paper. And it should be noted that all of this time was spent sitting on my knees on a hardwood floor in a confined work area....in August...in Missouri...In an ancient farmhouse without reliable AC...

Each trial required me to recarve edges by millimeters: 1.6 mm here, 3.6 mm there, 2 mm corrected back again. In mathematical terms, I wrestled with central angles and chord lengths. At a radius of 12 inches (the size of my circle), each wedge’s chord at the rim should measure exactly:

s=2rsin⁡ ⁣(π13)≈5.744"s = 2r \sin\!\left(\frac{\pi}{13}\right) \approx 5.744"s=2rsin(13π​)≈5.744"

(Don't feel bad....I don't know what that means either haha)

I measured and re-measured, but the human hand is not a compass made of steel. Only later did I discover from my brother, a mathematician, that a particular website could have given me a perfect 13-gon template instantly. “Why didn’t you just call me?” he asked, laughing. I laughed too, though by then I had already carved my way through the lesson.

"I guess you just truly suffered for your art," he teased me.

Symbolism

Despite the frustration, 13 Moons took shape. A radiant sun anchors the center, while 13 lunar phases circle outward, forming a wheel of time. The design honors the feminine — the moon’s pull on fertility, on tides, on the rhythms of months and years. The figures within the wedges suggest dance and ritual, their flowing garments and lifted arms connecting celestial time with human celebration.

Where Eternal Weave and Nurturing Pattern speak to the intimacy of care, 13 Moons speaks to cosmic cycles. The feminine is not only the nurturer of children, but a participant in the rhythms of the universe itself, tied to the waxing and waning moon, grounded in the radiant constancy of the sun.

Reflection...Geometry, Art, and Sabr

What surprised me most was how this “easy” mandala became the crucible for my patience. I had to return to the carving table repeatedly, narrowing and widening the wedge angle until it landed close to 27.692°. The work taught me that geometry is exacting, but my hand is human. What held me through was the willingness to return, to adjust, to endure the errors until something balanced emerged.

In this, the process mirrored my faith. In the Qur’an, patience — sabr — is described as a virtue of resilience and trust:

Carving 13 Moons became a meditation in sabr. Every misstep in angle, every discarded wedge, every overlap or gap, the hours spent sitting on my knees and hunched over the design were invitations to persist. The pattern only emerged through endurance.

Closing

In the end, the prints stand together as three reflections on pattern:

• Eternal Weave — humanity cradled in intimacy and interconnectedness.

• Nurturing Pattern — the shared responsibility of care.

• 13 Moons — the cosmic cycles of time, feminine energy, and the radiant sun.

Geometry gave me the structure, but the carving gave me the lesson: art is not only in precision but in persistence, in symbolism, and in sabr. Patterns are not just visual designs; they are lived truths, woven through human care and the rhythms of time itself.