Coventry-based weaver Theo Wright has been awarded funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England for a new project, Permutations.
This Grants for the Arts award will fund the development of new handwoven work for interior display, based on mathematical ideas in the area of combinatorics, looking specifically at the 24 permutations of four symbols.
Theo is best known for his handwoven scarves, some of which (such as the Symmetry scarf pictured) are also inspired by mathematics.
The finished textiles will be exhibited in June 2015 at the New Brewery Arts gallery in Cirencester alongside work by other makers from the Crafts Council Hothouse programme.
Combinatorics is an area of discrete mathematics that, loosely speaking, looks at the counting, ordering and combining of objects, and how sets of objects that meet certain criteria can be analysed and generated. It has applications in many areas, from calculating poker odds to bell ringing, from generating Pascal’s triangle to solving Rubik’s cube.
With a first degree in Computer Science followed by another in Textile Design 30 years later, it is perhaps unsurprising that Theo takes a distinctive systematic approach to his weaving.
Theo has started a blog about the project at www.theowright.co.uk/permutations-blog
Leave a Reply