This short series of three works are made from recycled steel baking dishes, and were created in homage to Professor Ethel Harriet Raybould. The first work was made to be a part of Tinker Tailor, Soldier Sailor: 100 Women, 100 Brooches, 100 Stories exhibition that toured Australia. It was Co-curated by Dr Dorothy Ericson and Artisan in Brisbane.
In the 1920’s Raybould, denied funding as a woman and owing to unsupportive parents, lectured in domestic science at the Education Department in Queensland in order to pay for her university tuition. At the University of Queensland she studied mathematics and received a gold medal for her undergraduate studies, a masters degree, and followed this by attending Columbia University in New York for two years. When she returned she became a professor in pure mathematics at Queensland University, becoming the first female academic employed there.
The primary material for this piece is an antique Willow (an Australian brand) baking tin, a reminder of her foundation lecturing in an arena that was perceived as a more appropriate role for a woman. Mirroring her story, this simple domestic object is the foundation of each of the pieces, into which a pattern, based on her later significant career achievements, is cut.
Through a numerical analysis of her lifespan, the number eight, and following from this the symbol of infinity ∞ (with its appearance of an 8 on its side) became the guiding motif and iterators for the patterns displayed in the work. Infinity expressed shape through an iteration of the Koch Snowflake, one of the earliest identified fractals.
