Mary Holstege
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mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Mary Holstege
@mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
100 followers 1 following 700 posts
Retired software engineer. Now I write programs to make art.

Will natter on about tech in general with forays into linguistics, football, cooking, politics […]

🌉 bridged from ⁂ https://mastodon.social/@mathling, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact
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mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

Curls
Gradient coloured curls (sea green to pale yellow) twist this way and that across the center of a black canvas. There is something of a Chinese dragon about the overall form, perhaps, rearing up and looking to the left. Code-generated art 2020, XQuery + SVG
December 9, 2025 at 3:22 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Day one shower destruction

After all the huge bags of smashed up tiles they removed, it is hard to believe they still have more to hack out, but the top remains untouched
Interior of shower, showing piles of smashed up tiles, a crowbar, and rather ratty insulation.
December 8, 2025 at 10:36 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

Earthrise
The heavily cratered surface of the moon, with just the tiniest sliver our beautiful blue planet peeking over the edge. A scattering of stars. Hand drawn, digital.
December 8, 2025 at 3:56 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#silentsunday #photography

Turkeys escape Thanksgiving
A gang of turkeys strutting about on the neighbour's roof. Friends, let me tell you that in the pre-dawn dark, the sound of a turkey on your roof is absolutely terrifying. You wonder, just for a moment, whether you haven't landed into a Jurassic Park timeline, where the raptors are looking for a door knob. Photographer: me Location: Cupertino
December 7, 2025 at 5:04 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
A plethora of pale blue snowflakes over a black background. Some of them are quite intricate. They come in a variety of sizes.
December 7, 2025 at 5:02 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

Masks
Abstract in black and red over white background. A loose assemblage of curves chopping into each other. Hand drawn, digital.
December 6, 2025 at 6:01 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#caturday

Cats are dignified and graceful creatures
Black cat with a little white collar and a streak of white on her belly forms a lumpy triangle, with one hind foot sticking out towards us. She had green eyes and looks directly at us: "What you looking at?" She sits on a rumpled throw blanket on a love seat in front of a bookcase. Cat: Nyx Photographer: The Cat Whisperer
December 6, 2025 at 5:58 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Just the skeleton on which we will hang the triangulation:
A broadly circular black branching pattern. Inside it, several smaller similar branching patterns in red.
December 5, 2025 at 7:20 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Open venation algorithm run using the points on a Poinsot spiral as targets, then recursively doing that into the spaces, then doing a wee Delaunay triangulation.
A glowing fractured drop of lava, shattered into hundres of little red and orange triangles, with large black branching cracks running through it.
December 5, 2025 at 7:18 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#generativeart interlude

It came from the deeps
Overall, it is round, consisting a many small triangles in various shades of green and blue. There is a black skeleton, spidering out from the middle left in spiky branches, and finer horseshoe-crab-shaped little skeletons scattered about the open spaces. What *is* this? Some kind of radiolarian?
December 5, 2025 at 7:16 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

Celtic knots
Bright golden glowing knots braid and twine over the whole canvas, also golden.
December 5, 2025 at 5:59 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

Glass
Abstract colourful squiggly: it looks like we are looking at something through a thick set of glass bricks. It's so distorted though, we can't tell what it is. You think you have it, but... no.
December 4, 2025 at 3:38 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Palisade Green, sequel to Atraxian Blue available as ebook https://books2read.com/u/3RrNwn or print https://books2read.com/u/m0XB6y

Renny thought he'd escaped from his father. He thought he had his addiction under control. Then a bot turns up on his doorstep […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]
Cover for Palisade Green by Mary Holstege. It shows glowing rings with streamers of red dust peeling away from them.
December 3, 2025 at 5:04 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

A doodle
Aqua swooshes of varying scales, with smaller ones filling the gaps between larger ones, curling and tangling. The overall shape is vaguely pentagonal with a little tower at the top. It's cool.
December 3, 2025 at 3:18 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

Another oldie. I drew this at exobiology conference.

Several Robust Biosignatures
Hand drawn digital artwork. There is a textured green world with a visible atmospheric haze against a navy sky with a smattering of stars. Clusters of lights are visible near the terminator. There is a small heavy cratered moon and some kind of orbiting space station with large solar panel wings.
December 2, 2025 at 4:05 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

An oldie: hand drawn, digital

Titam
A space probe looks for a safe landing zone in a rough orange and brown landscape, with orange haze and rain falling from the thick clouds. In the background, an orange yellow planet with faint rings.
December 2, 2025 at 12:55 AM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#silentsunday #photography #sfba
A beautiful red-shouldered hawk resting on the top of a telephone pole. Behind her is the blue blue California sky and the top of a redwood. Location: California Photographer: me
November 30, 2025 at 5:09 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
You will pry my tower from my cold dead claws

#caturday #photography
Black cat with green eyes sits at the top of a carpeted cat tower. You can just see a little ring of white fur around her collar. Her fur is sleek. She is solidly built. She is resting her jaw on the edge and staring off to the side with all the disdain a cat can muster. You thought you might pet her now? Entice her down with a string? Never, foolish mortal. Well, perhaps the string.
November 29, 2025 at 5:52 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Oh, hello? What happened here. Gradient colours scrambled, that's what.
Spreading blobs in dense rings in various shades of rusty tans and browns. Something you might see under a microscope, perhaps.
November 28, 2025 at 7:59 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Add a little swirl and a little fish-eye
Imagine a partial tiling of diamond tiles, rendered in glowing yellowish-green with green rings, swirled about and distorted, all over a glowing blue/green background.
November 28, 2025 at 7:58 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#generativeart interlude

A little tiling, a little step union signed distance function, some dstance to gradient mapping

#xquery #svg
Some glowing golden triangles, forming a partial tiling, over a glowing blue background (the glorious 'managua' gradient). The triangles have rings of red banding.
November 28, 2025 at 7:56 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#silentsunday #bloomscrolling #photography
A bright red zinnea with yellow in the center turns its face to the sun, rising high above other little plants. In the background is a small Japanese decorative pagoda.
November 23, 2025 at 8:22 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
No one watches women's sports
#soccer #nwsl
Packed PayPal park for NWSL final
November 23, 2025 at 1:21 AM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#caturday #photography

All cats are cats.

All cats are predators.
There's something about having a large carnivore stare at you with her large golden eyes... A lion, looking at us though a screen of bare branches. In the foreground, slightly out of focus, part of the head and shoulders of a man looking towards the lion. You know, potential prey. It is deep into the dry season and everyone is a little hungry. Photographer: me Location: Botswana
November 22, 2025 at 5:58 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#generativeart interlude

The forest is a place where one gets lost. The night is falling, the snow is deep, and the wolves are tracking us.

#xquery #svg
There are many trees, black in the foreground and fading to a skeletal grey in the distance. There are faint shadows from our light. The ground is covered with snow and there are dots of falling flakes. Mists swirl between the trees. In among the trees: red eyes watch us with keen interest. It is a spooky, abstract scene. Colophon: The trees are 5 to 8 generation parametric trees with some randomization of angles, branch lengths, and widths. The mists are low opacity smooth curves formed from circular arcs. The wolves just found their way in. It is just that time of year.
November 20, 2025 at 5:25 PM