The Five Elements In Gabrielle Meyer's Art

My intention is to raise awareness of the importance of taking care of the environment and how beautiful the elements are in their natural state. However, when the elements are tampered with it becomes a part of the piece and eventually harms it. My work focuses on each element in its natural state and when it has been tampered with through littering, erosion, toxic waste, etc.

This body of work is inspired by the characteristics of the five elements untouched and altered by mankind. I was first inspired by Gabrielle Meyer’s artwork, an artist who works with the mathematical concept of hyperbolic crochet to transform her pieces. Hyperbolic crochet is a form of crocheting that mathematicians discovered that could only achieve the hyperbolic plane and was the only technique able to mimic coral. I began crocheting as young as ten years old, however, I wasn’t introduced to hyperbolic crochet by Gabrielle Meyer until last year. I was inspired by the way she used crocheting to make pieces that were not common such as an afghan blanket, but instead a piece of art. It gave me another way to manipulate and interpret a concept such as earth, wind, water, and fire in an artistic way. Instead of the basic approach I transformed my pieces into organic form with geometrical principles.
To portray the different characteristics associated with each element I was inspired by Ruth Asawa, who gained inspirations from organic material (bug wings, trees, flowers) and used wire to recreate them in organic form. In my piece, The Source, I gained inspiration by the different layers of soil and made them into organic form as earth is the source of life and has many different components. However, in Torn Away, I show the effects of erosion on earth and how it destroys its