Schools

A Portable Shrine. A Storyteller's Box. A Teacher's Journey.

DHHS art teacher Suzanne Gaskell on Thursday night will present her work on the Kavad of a Sacred Geometer, which explores the intersection of visual art and math. The event is the latest stop on a journey that started more than three decades ago.

 

On Thursday night, at Wesleyan University, Daniel Hand High School art teacher Suzanne Gaskell will present a colloquium on a project that first stirred her interest more than thirty years ago while completing her undergraduate degree. 

According to a profile on the Wesleyan University website, Gaskell first became interested in Islamic art while an undergraduate. She later learned about a Kavad, according to the profile: 

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 “I happened to see this wonderful box, and I read the caption and it said was a Kavad. It’s typical in Rajasthan - storytellers would go village to village with the Kavad to tell an epic story like the Mahabarata or Ramayana. Because the inner compartment yields Krishna or other deity, the Kavad serves as a portable shrine as well as storyteller’s box.” 

Many years later, while studying at Wesleyan, she took a math class. As an artist and art teacher, she found the material so difficult it sometimes made her eyes sting. But then she had a breakthrough. One night the teacher started talking about Fibbonacci and the golden mean, and Gaskell started to wonder how artisans who had not mastered advanced mathematical concepts were able to do the math that was an essential part of their work. 

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Her curiosity about that ultimately led to her work on the Kavad and the colloquium Thursday, which is part of the work she is doing towards obtaining her Masters in Philosophy in Liberal Arts as Wesleyan, the profile says: 

Ultimately, Suzanne’s Kavad incorporates many types of complex patterns, not just Islamic; Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Judaic patterns are referenced. “The underlying geometry of the Kavad with the generative, regenerative and transformative processes implicit in the figures has informed sacred art and architecture everywhere.”

The colloquium is Thursday, May 10, 2012 at 6:00 PM at the Usdan Campus Center, Room 108, Wyllys Avenue, on the Wesleyan University Campus in Middletown, CT. Following a presentation by Gaskell, there will be a light reception, and participants will be allowed the opportunity to manipulate the Kavad, and talk further with her. 

The Kavad and a series of related drawings will be on display until May 18th at the Usdan Center. 

 

 

 


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