In the mythology, Vulcan and Minerva sit closer together than their domains suggest. One works through fire and force, the other through clarity and design, but both belong to the world of craft — the shaping of material into something intentional. Their stories run on parallel lines, sometimes touching, sometimes diverging, always within the same landscape. In that sense, Minerva really is Vulcan‑adjacent.

Some patterns shift in unexpected ways when you change how the brightness behaves. This one started with a monochrome sketch, Minerva #3, then doubling the values and wrapping them back around to create a sharp break in the middle of the scale — a contrast that wasn’t there before. It’s still the same underlying pattern, just seen through a different lens.

For the nerds: (v is value, the V in HSV) $$ v \to 2.0 * v \bmod 1.0$$

Color can act like a spotlight when it’s tied to a narrow band of brightness. In this variation, only a small slice of the scale maps into color, and the rest falls back toward black. It isn’t a dark piece, but the contrast makes the colors read as shapes rather than transitions — a few lines sharpen, others fade, and the structure shows a different face. I start these as monochrome sketches; the color sits on top, more decorative than structural, but it still reveals things that were quieter before.

Color can change emphasis in a pattern without changing the pattern. The series is about patterns. There will be monochrome and full‑color images, but they all started as monochrome patterns. The colors provide me with artistic choices for how to present a pattern.

Today’s artwork consists of straight lines and right angles. This piece comes from prototypes I set aside during the Vulcan work. Vulcan had its own trajectory, these fit better in Minerva.

In this piece the small boxes come forward — the straight lines fall into the background once you see them as box edges. I am staying in the little‑boxes world for now.

I’m still in the little‑boxes world today — the same ingredients, just pushed a bit in another direction. Working inside a tight boundary has a way of sharpening things, and it’s a familiar move in the studio.

The boxes stretch a bit in this one — the same grid, just opened up into larger units. I’m still working inside the little‑boxes world, letting the proportions shift without leaving the straight‑line, right‑angle boundary.

No words today — I’ll let the art speak for itself for awhile.