PATTERNS IN NATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY
A PROJECT OF YLEM: ARTISTS USING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

MYRRH’S FAVORITES, ARRANGED BY SUBJECT                 GEOFFREY CHANDLER'S FAVORITES NEXT >

SCIENCE IMAGING HAS CHANGED OUR VIEW OF NATURE
The New Landscape in Art and Science by Gyorgy Kepes
Paul Theobald and Co., Chicago, 1956.
Recognition of the beauty of science images and the poetry of science ideas was a revelation to readers in the 1950s, even though the images were in black and white. This is the book that set Myrrh on her present course in art.

PATTERNS IN NATURE
Art Forms in Nature by Ernst Haeckle
Dover Books, reprint of fine 19th century biological lithographs and drawings.
(Myrrh has lost her copy)!
Haeckle said he had rendered enough specimens to keep artists busy for a century. Myrrh has used it extensively.

On Growth and Form by D’ Arcy Thompson
Cambridge University Press; London; 1961; ISBN#521-09390-2; $2.75.
Originally published in 1917, Thompson’s groundbreaking observations with respect to mathematical relations in natural patterns (like minimal surfaces in bubble shapes and microorganisms) made this book a classic.

Patterns in Nature by Peter S. Stevens
Little Brown and Co. in association with The Atlantic Monthly Press, Boston - Toronto; 1974; ISBN#0-316-81328-1; $10.00.
Peter Stevens belonged to the Philomorphs, a Harvard study group about form. His book identified just a few themes, like spirals, that repeat themselves at different scales from plankton to galaxies, and explained the possible reasons.

"The Study of Patterns is Profound," byTrudy Myrrh Reagan
Leonardo, Vol. 40 #3 2007, MIT Press, $15

How the Leopard Changed Its Spots: The Evolution of Complexity by Brian Goodwin
Charles Scribner’s Sons; New York, New York; 1994; ISBN#0-02-544710-6; $23.00.
Newer research and insights have revealed dynamic processes in chemistry and biology that build patterns.

The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature by Philip Ball
Oxford University Press, New York; 1999; ISBN#0-19-850244-3 (also available in soft cover).
The text that the YLEM Patterns in Nature Group is using. Explains in much more detail than Patterns in Nature the reasons for the forms that we see. Builds on Brian Goodwin’s Leopards insights, and explains them better.

FLUID FORMS
Sensitive Chaos: The Creation of Flowing Forms in Water and Air by Theodore Schwenk
Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1965; $10.50.
Myrrh feels the inherent grace of the universe when she studies his examples.

An Album of Fluid Motion by Milton Van Dyke
The Parabolic Press; Stanford, California; 1982;
ISBN#0-915760-02-9.

The Deep: Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss by Claire Nouvain
Excruciatingly clear pictures of both graceful and monsterous creatures taken by deep sea robots are shown in this lovingly-designed book.
University of Chicago Press, 2007 $45, ISBN-13 978-0-226-59566-5

PLANT FORMS AS SCULPTURE - TWO BOOKS
Nature as Designer: A Botanical Art Study by Bertel Bager
Reinhold Publishing Corporation; 1966; $14.50.
Between Ornament and New Objectivity: The Plant Photography of Karl Blossfeldt by Hans Christian Adam; Taschen; 2001; ISBN#3-8228-5509-X.

THE HUMAN BODY
Behold Man: A Photographic Journey of Discovery inside the Body by Lennart Nilsson
Albert Bonniers Forlag; Stockholm, 1974; ISBN#91-0-038093-8.
This photographer did the original LIFE magazine pictures of the unborn and premature. His life’s work has been to probe the mysteries of the human body, often using equipment he designed and built.

Mysteries of the Mind by Richard Restak, M.D.
National Geographic Society; 2000; ISBN#0-7922-7941-7; $35.00.
An excellent introduction. In 1983 Myrrh took a course in the anatomy of the brain and hasn’t been the same since! In 1984 PET scans began to show what researchers formerly could only infer from loss of function in injured patients.

Sacred Mirrors: The Visionary Art of Alex Grey with essays by Ken Wilber and Carlo McCormick
Inner Traditions International, Rochester, Vermont; 1990; ISBN 0-89281-257-5; 29.95
Grey, who studied both scientific illustration and esoteric religious traditions, combines these in startling, transformational paintings.

The Architecture and Design of the Human Body
Just out, May 2005! Gorgeous paintings that are scientific illustrations that show much of interest about the body.

THE EARTH AND SPACE
The Deep Frontier: An Atlas of the Ocean by Sylvia A. Earle
National Geographic Society; Washington, D.C.; 2001; ISBN#0-7922-6426-6; $50.00.
Comprehensive, with maps, photos of life forms, and deep sea exploration apparatus.

Earth’s Dynamic Systems by W. Kenneth Hamblin
Macmillan Publishing Company; New York, New York; 1992; ISBN#0-02-349490-5; $58.00.
A geology text with vivid illustrations, many satellite images and diagrams of processes that explain puzzling features. Geology is a very visual science!

Earth Watch: A Survey of the World from Space by Charles Sheffield
Macmillan, New York; 1981; ISBN#0-02-610090-8; $14.95.
Wide angle distant views of Earth in exquisite detail miraculous for its time, and still startles. Wonderful patterns.

The Home Planet by Kevin W. Kelley
Addison-Wesley, Menlo Park, California; 1988; ISBN# 0-201-55095-4; $22.95.
Like Earth Watch, but includes several views of the whole Earth from space, and awestruck comments by astronauts of all nationalities.

Orbit: NASA Astronauts Photograph the Earth by Jay Apt, Michael Helfert, Justin Wilkinson
National Geographic Society; Washington, D.C.; 1996; ISBN#0-7922-3714-5; $40.00.
Newer, more various views and patterns, some closer to Earth.

Other Worlds: Images of the Cosmos from Earth and Space by James Trefil
National Geographic Society; Washington, D. C.; 1999; ISBN#0-7922-7491-1; $35.00.
One in a series that shows the wonderful Hubble and other astronomical images. If you find a feature you like, you can usually find it at NASA’s web site.

OVERVIEW
Catching the Light: The Entwined History of Light and Mind by Arthur Zajonc
Bantam Books; New York; 1993;
ISBN#0-553-08985-4; $12.95.
Puzzling, marvelous features of light and perception from early on (Newton and Goethe) to modern physics, told in a warm narrative style.

The Web of Life by Fritjof Capra
Anchor Books,New York, 1996; ISBN 0-385-47676-0, $14.00
A synthesis of complexity theory, Gaia theory, chaos theory and other explanations of the properties of organisms, social systems, and ecosystems. These supercede simplistic mechanistic and Darwinian models. Systems and communities, rather than individuals and single species, are the focus. "A rare blending of the heart and the head..." - Thodore Roszak.

What is Life? by Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1995
ISBN 0-297-83327-8, $40.
A wonderful primer in Gaia theory with many vivid photos. It was Margulis that realized the enormous role bacterial activities have in making this a habitable planet.

Ubiquity: Why Catastrophes Happen by Mark Buchanan
Three Rivers Press; New York, New York; 2000; ISBN#0-609-80998-9; $14.00.
Probing patterns and processes gives us a gut feeling for how the world works of which we are a part. Two insights in this book: 1. Extraordinary events like the tsunami are as ordinary as the magnitude 3 earthquakes that happen all the time - just extremely rare. This makes them extremely hard to predict. 2. In an avalanche, a snow bank can be set off by the hair that breaks the camel’s back. This insight pertains to human affairs, like economics. Should this make us fatalistic? If you or I are that “one more hair,” our will to act is crucial.


USING PATTERNS IN OUR WORK
Abstraction in Art and Nature by Nathan Cabot Hale; Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 1972, 1980
ISBN#0-8230-0049-4; $14.50.
A design text that teaches us to show nature in a deeper way, experimenting with processes and gestures that mimic natural forces. Before the invention of photography, he points out, artists were necessarily caught in showing the surface “reality” of objects.

Nature and Architecture by Paolo Portoghesi
Skira Editore, Milan, Italy; 2000; ISBN#88-8118-658-6; $75.00.
A big coffee-table book with marvelous photos of both nature and architecture.

GEOMETRY
Sacred Geometry by Robert Lawlor
New York: Thames and Hudson 1982, reprinted 2003,ISBN 0-500-81030-3, $18.95
A workbook of geometrical experiments and their application in religious traditions, architecture, natural stuctures, music and the human body.

The Power of Limits by Gyorgy Doczi
Shambala Publications; Boulder & London; 1981; ISBN#0-87773-194-2; $9.95.
About the “golden section” or “golden ratio” and Fibonacci numbers. Gorgeous line drawings. A recent speaker at the YLEM Forum, Keith Devlin, argues that common “golden section” examples in man-made structures like UN headquarters are not really so - but that the ratio is pervasive in nature. (Artists who deliberately use it as a tool will debate the point! Jay Hamblin wrote an influential design text on it that was widely used in the art deco period).

Symmetry in Chaos: A Search for Pattern in Mathematics, Art and Nature by Michael Field and Martin Golubitsky
Oxford University Press, New York; 1992; ISBN#0-19-853689-5; $35.00.
Computer algorithms for strange attractors (complex paths that tend toward certain forms without exactly repeating their motions) have been programed here to light up when they hit the same pixel 1000 times. Surprising symmetrical patterns that mimic nature result!

Fractals: The Patterns of Chaos – Discovering a New Aesthetic of Art, Science and Nature by John Briggs
A Touchstone Book by Simon & Schuster; New York, New York; 1992; ISBN#0-671-74217-5; $20.00.
Lacy plots of mathematical functions, and examples from art and nature showing fractal qualities. Of the many books on this subject, this is one of the loveliest.

ABOUT ART MAKING AND PERCEPTION
Illusion in Nature and Art edited by R.L. Gregory and EH Gombrich
Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York; 1973; ISBN#0-684-14185-X; $9.95.
Essays on optical illusion, camouflage and the craft of representation.

Experiences in Visual Thinking by Robert H. McKim
Wadsworth, Belmont, CA; 1972; ISBN#0-8185-0031-X.
A rich and playful book that evolved from a course to loosen up engineering students and teach them to draw and visually manipulate ideas. Bob McKim was an early member of YLEM.

Envisioning Information by Edward R. Tufte
Graphics Press; Cheshire, Connecticut; 1990, 1994; $48.00.
The first of four books celebrating the art of showing concepts visually. Tufte will be remembered as one who enshrined the diagram as an art form.

PATTERNS GROUP MEMBERS: LISTS OF YOUR FAVORITES WELCOMED!