There are related patterns in nature, mathematics, music and art – the Fibonacci sequence, Da Vinci’s Golden Mean, and on.

My art is guided by a sense of rhythm instilled by my first sculpture professor at UW-Madison. Rhythm is a pattern (thank you, Fibonacci), and Professor Cramer’s teachings demonstrated that odd was more interesting than even in our sculptures.

Some of us internalized ‘the odd’ more than others. I think I was predisposed toward the ‘slightly off’ as opposed to the harmonious and well-balanced.

Oddness usually manifests itself literally in my artwork, most notably in the number of key elements. When I made lighted sculptures, they always had an odd number of lights (even if that number was 1).

Welded and wired metal lamp with 5 blown glass blooms.

My flirtation with embellished monoprints found me using an odd number of natural pearls as a finishing touch for several pieces.

Monoprint with wire and natural pearls, mounted on raw silk.

When I made pieces with larger glass elements, they were odd in number and uneven in size to boot.

Welded steel sculpture with blue glass flowers

My modern tabletop plant sculptures nearly always have an odd-numbered total of glass pieces.

Welded steel plant with 7 purple glass blooms

A sculpture I did for a charity auction conformed to the charity’s theme (inclusion of the color pink, wall-hung and no bigger than 8×8″), sporting 4 kinds of flowers (large glass, small glass, metal and ceramic), each in an odd number.

Welded steel wall sculpture with ceramic and glass flowers

The oddity is present at the micro-level, too: petals of my ceramic flowers are always in an odd number.

My ceramic flowers with petals in 5, 7 and a 9-7-5 sequence.

It’s getting to the point where ‘even’ looks very ‘odd’ to me!