I’m working on a quilt that is laid out in a slightly organic looking grid. Repeated blocks of geometric designs or other kinds of units, laid out in a grid like pattern, are an enduring influence in my art dating from my brief immersion in traditional American patchwork in the late 80s. While I’m still a long way from finishing this quilt, it is the time to be thinking of a title. I’ve used the phrase “rules based disorder” on this blog previously but there may be another possibility. So far my list includes these :

• reasonable order
• rules based disorder
• normal order
• regular disorder
• unusual disorder – but as I think about more words (below) this list will lengthen.

Exploring the concept of a grid that is so important to my view of the world, I found these interesting words, synonyms for the general word ‘grid’ that is either a physical structure or a linear expression of some kind. ‘Grids’ are all around us as points of reference, communication or guidance. The next few interesting words include some I’d never known existed!

Decussion sounded interesting, but I’m not sure if it is relevant here – it belongs to the world of human anatomy, viewing a cross section of the spinal chord and the medulla oblongata…. but then, perhaps this sample does open a door to using it? Hmmm …

The word Network takes us into the whole area of connection between living things via some means of communication (of which there are now so many, and currently reading a fascinating book Nexus, by Yuval Noah Harari – so a title could well spring off my Kindle page soon!

Graticule is another nice sounding word, a cartographic term which you can google and re-google for the rest of the day and possibly still make it home in time for dinner.

Plexus anatomically refers to the interconnecting and branching networks of nerves and vessels in the body, but in international affairs it means an interconnecting network. Now I know.

Matrix has wide ranging applications in physics, biology, geology, and essentially refers to an environment or material in which something develops; a surrounding medium or structure. Interesting…

Reticulum the simplest difinition I could find is that it’s a natural structure that resembles a net or web, like the veins in a leaf or the network of fibers in a cell. Everywhere I looked I saw references to the second stomach of ruminant animals including cows and sheep – think tripe – and as I don’t care for tripe much, I’ll leave it right there.