Each year, the Bridges Organization (www.bridgesmathart.org) brings together hundreds of participants from dozens of countries for a five day conference. This year, for the first time, the Bridges Conference will be held in Richmond. The Exhibition of Mathematical Art, Craft, and Design is free and open to the public from 9:00 am to 5:30 pm on August 1–3, and from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm on Sunday, August 4.

All cultures have found ways to combine mathematics and art, whether it is a hand-pinched frieze pattern along the rim of an ancient clay vessel or an algorithmically generated aperiodic monotile tessellation laser-cut from plastic polymer. Math and art are essential parts of being human. They are powerful languages and tools for communicating and making sense of the world.

Expect to find a wide variety of media and subject matter, including beautiful physical models of mathematical objects such as lattices, knots, topological surfaces, and polyhedra. There are geometric origami, intricately patterned quilts, and amazing handmade examples of beadwork, crochet, knitting, and tatting, each with an underlying mathematical story. In addition to new media such as 3D printing, computer-controlled wood carving, and computer-generated renderings of fractals and tilings, many traditional fine art media, such as oil painting, watercolor, encaustic, ceramics, or block printing are adapted to illustrating mathematical ideas.