When I was a kid, I was in the Boy Scouts. For a short period of time, one of the scout masters was a man named Mr. Zoerb. I can only remember going on one camp-out where he was there, but remember just how much he knew about nature, starting fires, sharpening knives, and weather. Weird what sticks with you and what gets left behind.

Years went by, and there he was again, my high school math teacher. Freshman year was algebra, which I thought was pretty stupid. It always seemed like abstract concepts that wouldn’t ever serve a purpose. I remember thinking “I hope someone finds X soon, because I’m getting damned tired trying to find it”. Looking back, I may have been a little off base on that whole line of thought, because I’ve actually had to “do math” and was surprised just how much I remembered. I had him again for Senior math, although for the life of me, I can’t remember anything about what was taught. Apparently all of that was just preparatory to (nearly) fail calculus in college.

Sophomore year was different. That year, Mr. Zoerb was my Geometry teacher, and I was still convinced there was absolutely no real-world application for any of the stuff we were learning. Would I ever need to figure out the radius of a cone? Nope! The opposite angle measurement of a parallelogram? Not a chance! Anything to do with a compass? Hell no! A compass was next in the conga line of obsolescence, right up front, sandwiched between the abacus and the slide rule. That being said, geography came easy to me and as useless as it was, I actually had fun trying to solve all the little puzzles that we were given. Much to my surprise, later in life as I was doing some home-owner type projects, being able to figure out angles for trim actually called all that knowledge out of the mental dustbins it had been relegated into.

Lately, turning wood has become the dominant focus of free time and I’m finding I like doing some kind of embellishment to turned items more than I like the actual turning itself. Much of my experimentation with different processes has played out on this blog, whenever the creativity muse stops by to visit. Some might remember the project where I burned the mandala-like patterns daughter #2 had put on a bowl. (Here’s the article, for anyone who’d like to see it.) Looking at that piece, I thought “I wonder how she comes up with those patterns”, and “I wonder how hard it would be to make it look less “freehand”?

Armed only with a pencil and a will to succeed, I sketched out a mandala that I thought could easily be burned over and tried my best to make it all symmetrical and even. It quickly became apparent that drawing mandalas freehand belongs on the list of artist-like stuff I suck at, alongside drawing stick-men, straight lines, and anything that’s supposed to resemble a known object. There would have to be a better way.

So I went to YouTube to see if I could find instructions to make the mandalas look more symmetrical and less like it was done by an epileptic toddler. There, I discovered a channel called Geometry Trip. This guy does absolutely amazing work, using just a compass and a straightedge, to make the most intricate designs I think I’ve ever seen. Everything he makes is based on the intersection of circles, connecting points between circles, and all that “stuff” Mr. Zoerb tried to teach unwilling student back in the late 70’s. Suddenly, the thought of playing around with a compass actually sounded fun!

Here are the first two projects that I’ve completed. The first one is a “simple” mandala, done (mostly) by following his tutorial. I know it was a “simple” mandala, because the video was titled “How to Draw a Mandala for Beginners | Step by Step” and he said in the video this one was easy. To him, I’m sure this was barely a warmup. To me, I quickly learned that “simple” is a relative term and that I needed a better compass. New compass in hand, this was the result:

The second piece is another project that started out mimicking the beginning of one of his videos, then things just kinda strayed off course. When it was done, I decided it needed color since the last one was left bare, but it took some time to think about how bright the colors should be. I finally settled on very sedate colors, since the base color of the wood was darker. I used the “acrylic wash” effect from my old wood carving days and this is the end result. Much better than the first attempt!

I hadn’t really thought much about Mr. Zoerb for at least 20 years, but heard a few years back he had passed away. As I was making these designs, though, a lot of old memories HHS memories came back. I figure if he’s able to see these from the other side, he’d most likely approve, or at least approve more than the construction packets that we had to fill out and turn in for a grade. Guess that’s what I tell myself anyway.

Rest in Peace, Mr. Zoerb.