Seed by Seed, 2023

Associate Professor Marianne Fairbanks, doctoral candidate in Anthropology Molli Pauliot, and Professor of Digital Arts Stephen Hilyard collaborated to create this banner celebrating the 175th anniversary of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Fairbanks and Pauliot came together around a shared interest in the language and structures of textiles, basketry, and natural fibers. Using these shared interests, they have created a design for the banners that celebrate the technical skill of the handmade. This abstract visual language is at the heart of textile forms and innovation, which is possible when we apply this knowledge to create solution-based designs and beautiful objects. Hilyard created a software workflow involving polygonal modeling and instancing to create a 3D digital model of the 160,000 beads in the banner. The final image was digitally rendered from this model. Developing ideas for honoring the Ho-Chunk Nation and the university’s commitment to Our Shared Future, this design team recognizes the past while focusing on future community building between these two forces.

Zigs Zag, Zags Zig, 2019

The title of the piece refers to the back and forth nature of this design. Formally the work uses two different line-based patterns (one soft and undulating the other hard and diagonal), the sawtooth triangles that serve to interrupt and define the patterns, and a binary palate of black and white to create a cacophony of movement and some level of disorientation for the viewer. Conceptually, the work is grounded in ideas of a more emotional back and forth and how one can vacillate between polarities of feelings in this current moment, and in this case places as they travel to and from on the bus.