In a different life, Donald Perry might have been an engineer. Then again, maybe he already is.
Perry creates paper art, but on a level that’s a little more sophisticated than the average paper plane. Every fold has a meaning, every crease has a purpose. The result is a work that’s pleasing both aesthetically and mathematically.
“I know most people don’t see it,” he said as he pointed out a set of ridges folded in a Fibonacci series — a mathematical set that starts by counting one, three, five, eight and 15. “But I know it’s there.”
It all adds up to about 40 years of artistic pleasure. Samples from those 40 years will go on display Sunday at ESU’s Eppink Gallery in King Hall. The exhibit, “Measurements/Relationships,” will stay up through Oct. 31. Sunday’s opening reception runs from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
The art itself is abstract, although some concrete images can be discerned from time to time. One striking piece could be a sword or a downward-angled cross in a sea of red. Another works whorls and ridges that could almost be fingerprints set amongst the blue-green of the sea.
And he’s not above the occasional pun. One carefully folded piece entitled “Gazette Duet” is black and white and, yes, mostly red all over.
Perry considers his artistic career almost a destiny — more than one relative worked in a paper factory, meaning that he had plenty of sheets to work with as a child. And his grandfather, an engineer who designed equipment for the factory, had a shopful of fascinating tools and a hands-on approach to designing.
That’s part of why Perry himself wound up at Hutchinson County Community College. It was one place where a budding engineer could learn to work with machine tools.
“My grandfather was concerned about the direction engineering was going,” he said. “He thought a lot of them were college graduates who never got their hands dirty. He felt if you designed the equipment, you should know how to make it.”
It could have happened. But while taking a design geometry course at Pittsburg State University, Perry began to notice the nearby art classes. It became an interest and then a passion.
“I spent days and nights and every waking hour in the art rooms,” he said.
He also began to notice that he saw things differently than most people, or even most artists.
“I would look at something and I could see it laid out like a blueprint,” Perry said. “That led me to explore things as though they were an exploded view.”
It’s a view that can still be seen in much of his work, along with bright colors and curious patterns.
And always, there’s that mathematical side. From a single sheet of paper, Perry can create amazingly elaborate designs one twist at a time. Some are geometrically balanced with hidden triangles. Some are deliberately based on the Golden Mean, a ratio of 1 to 1.618034 believed to produce an instinctively pleasing response in art and architecture.
Of course, discussing mathematics among college art students can draw some strange looks at times. Even when you’re the teacher.
“I used to teach a design class here and whenever you’d bring up division of space or some kind of mathematics, it would drive some students crazy,” Perry said, smiling. “There’s some kids that have trouble reading a ruler.”
But his work has always drawn interest. And it’s usually had no trouble selling. One gallery in Chicago sold a number of Perry’s works to Japanese buyers. Architects seem to take to it as well, he said.
Perry himself sees his work, or at least his methods, as almost Impressionistic, working on one spot at a time until the work is done.
“It becomes almost like a language,” he said. “What looks tedious is like having a conversation with something. You make a mark, it responds to you and you respond to it. The tedium disappears.”