GUEST SCHOOL TESSELLATION ART GALLERY 13
    < Prior Page   
    Next Page >   
Zaneis Elementary School, 4th Grade, Wilson, Oklahoma
ZANEIS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Wilson, Oklahoma

These kids' tessellations are by Mrs. Aycox and Mrs. Creswell's 2011-2012 Zaneis Elementary 4th Grade Students in Wilson , Oklahoma. Students used the paper cut method shown on www.tessellations.org after studying transformations (a way of moving around a grid) in Math.














Click on any Polaroid™ to see a large version of it on a separate page.













The beautiful symmetry art under this line are... and are not... tessellations. As abstract shapes, they tessellate: they cover a flat area without gaps or overlaps, like bricks do. After the children put in details like water, air, and faces ... then this art ceased to be tessellation.

"Without gaps or overlaps" is the key phrase. Air and water have no definite shape or size, so they're background... they're gaps. Zack's "Lightning & Ocean" and Kaylee's "Pretty Peace Signs" are the perfect examples. As abstract tessellation, they are undeniably perfect tessellation with admirable engineering precision. When we're told Zack's is air and water, though... air and water are formless gap-fillers, so suddenly Zack's perfect tessellation ...isn't. And the border around the peace signs is arbitrary-- nothing about a peace sign insists that it should have a jagged sawtooth-like squarish border, right? Kaylee's art, when she added the peace signs, became far more beautiful-- I'd happily frame it and put it on my wall-- but it stopped being a tessellation, except as an abstract tessellation. Art rules are weird, huh. I guess that's why so many great artists like Picasso and the Dadaists love to defy rules.

We could also say that the "face & head" art like "King and servant", above, is...and isn't... tessellation: A happy face implies that there is a happy body attached to it, right? So, where are the bodies? Are the bodies hidden behind other heads, like the audience at a movie? That's overlapping... and overlapping isn't in tessellation. We're used to seeing heads without bodies, though... in Roman sculptures and portrait photography, for example.

...And, how about the noses in DJ's elephants? Thoses noses overlapses the elephantses in front of them, don't they. To fix that problem, Bruce Bilney had to turn half his elephants upside-down and backwards. Hehehe.. I guess that just like DJ's elephants, half of Bruce's were mad.

It's all a bit tricky and subjective, isn't it.













Thanks for looking at the Zaneis Wildcats' art. We should be especially appreciative of this art: Cats don't have thumbs or even monkey tails, so they can't easily hold pens and crayons. I guess they use their teeth. Tessellations are hard; symmetry art from young cats is double-tough.

HONEY Elementary School Logo
    < Prior Page   
    Next Page >