Kantpatroon voor een kleed van kloskant met goudenregentakken en -bloemen c. 1912

Louise Wilhelmina van der Meulen-Nulle made this lace pattern with golden rain branches and flowers. The drawing is delicate, almost scientific. You can see the hand of the maker, planning, adjusting, and testing out ideas. I bet Louise was thinking about geometry when she made this. How the circles and triangles can make up the curves of the leaves and the gentle sway of the flowers. There’s something really special about rendering something as organic as a flower with mathematics. It makes you wonder if she was thinking about nature at all. I think of Hilma af Klint, another artist who used geometric shapes to stand in for natural forms. It makes you wonder if Louise knew about her work, or the work of other artists who also used math to make art. I like to think artists are in an ongoing conversation. It is a real thought experiment of translation - turning nature into math into art.