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“Only love can be divided endlessly and still not diminish.”
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh


This quote sums up my feelings towards fractals: the more they divide the more I love them!
In some ways, fractals tame the feelings of anxiety I used to have when contemplating the infinite. I gave up on studying astronomy because of that angst when I thought of space going on and on, forever and ever.

“The problem with introspection is that it has no end.”
- Philip K. Dick


When I took calculus and learned about limits that angst returned. But somehow in a form I could handle. Learning about how to resolve the paradoxes of Zeno by utilizing infinite sequences allowed me to come to terms with at least one aspect of the infinite. I was fine until I hit Cantor and the levels of infinity – but that’s another story!

“I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity.”
- Simone de Beauvoir


What really got me interested in infinite processes was reading about chaos theory, iterative processes, and finally, fractals! I have been reading/studying/generating fractals for over 30 years.

According to Merriam-Webster, a fractal is:
any of various extremely irregular curves or shapes for which any suitably chosen part is similar in shape to a given larger or smaller part when magnified or reduced to the same size.


They can arise in many mathematical areas, but the Mandelbrot Set was accessible and easily programmable. I remember when I could first explore the Mandelbrot Set with my second PC – in all 16 colors!

There are several websites that describe the Mandelbrot Set – I will not go through the details here. Suffice it to say you can generate very cool pictures from it! I did so for a very long time using software that I wrote and continuously modified. I was mostly interested in the math.
At some point I started showing my pictures to others, either through sharing files or posting on Facebook. A few years back I opened this store on Fine Art America to try and sell some works I really liked.

When I decided to explore the more artistic aspects of fractals I started utilizing image manipulating software (I use GIMP, but think Photoshop). That allowed me to become a little more artistic and opened up my creativity. I then discovered that the professional versions of fractal-generating software were capable of so much more than I could realistically program myself. And when I retired, I purchased Ultra Fractal. This is the program I am using now to do most of my art.

The best part about working with fractals is that it is endlessly fascinating, it is always surprising, and it is a whole lot of fun! And it does appear there is nearly an infinite amount of knowledge still left to acquire.

I try to at least hint at infinite processes in my work. I think it’s worth it:

“...it's very much like your trying to reach infinity. You know that it's there, you just don't know where-but just because you can never reach it doesn't mean that it's not worth looking for.”
- Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth