Jhane is inspired by many different things, such as nature, people, and art to name a few. She discovered fractals, one of her greatest inspirations, in the 1980's, and has been designing with them ever since.
What are Fractals?
Fractals are shapes or patterns which follow certain rules. One requirement, for example, is that a small part of a fractal will often resemble the entire fractal. A tree branch resembles a tree (on a smaller scale). A twig looks like a branch. This property is called "self-similarity." Some forms in nature that exhibit fractal shapes are plants, weather, geologic activity, planetary orbits, animal group behavior, and music. We are constantly surrounded by fractals, although we don't often think of it that way.
Fractal geometry, the systematic study of fractals, is often called "the geometry of nature" because so many naturally occurring shapes resemble fractals. Unlike the more familiar Euclidean geometry, which deals with straight lines, arcs, circles, and polygons, fractal geometry deals with irregular shapes. However, fractals are neither random nor chaotic. They obey rules that keep them from being totally chaotic or totally orderly. In 1980, Benoit Mandelbrot helped to discover the order in fractals when he found the self-similar characteristics in his fractal sets. Computer generated fractals are created using fractal geometry.
Examples of Fractals
Click on an image to enlarge.
Studying fractals helps us see the underlying order in seemingly random things. Fractal geometry give us tools with which we can better predict the weather, create natural looking objects using mathematics, and design fabrics! Physicists find so-called "strange attractors" when studying turbulence in celestial mechanics. Biologists use fractals to diagnose dynamical diseases. Other uses of fractals are to describe astronomy, meteorology, economics, ecology and in the study of galaxy clusters.
How Does Jhane Use Fractals?
When Jhane creates designs with fractals she may start with a "fractal seed", a simple shape which gets turned into a fractal by applying a rule that replaces the seed with a more complex shape. This in turn is the seed for a yet more complicated shape which becomes the seed for a yet more...well, you get the picture. The cool part is that one seed and one rule, applied over and over, creates a complex shape that can look remarkably like things we see every day in the world around us.
Another approach Jhane uses starts with a shape that's created by a fractal equation. When Jhane sees a fractal pattern that she likes she then modifies it -- always on a computer! -- by adding color, dimension (visual depth) and other design elements. The finished product, which might be a shirt, a sweater or an upholstery fabric, is a one-of-a-kind design.
Once again, Jhane proves that math and science can create art.
