What In The World is Phi? And Why Do I Care?

I don’t travel in circles where we use words like Phi in a conversation. If you asked me a week ago what Phi was, the closest I could guess is:

Fee-fi-fo-fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Be he live, or be he dead
I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.

And that wouldn’t be quite right. Actually, it wouldn’t even be close. Yet we are surrounded by Phi. It’s part of the big design. Technically, Phi is the golden ratio, or 1.61803399. There, that clears it up right?

No? How about this?
phi

Lets try this:
Steve Puttrich's poppy painting IMG_2608 (640x427)

You know you like it, but why? One of the reasons is Phi. Steve Puttrich, the artist, knows what Renaissance artists of the 1500’s to graphic artists of today know. They know that Phi gives a sense of aesthetic appeal in balance and harmony of design. Oh, that Phi! It goes back way further, but we aren’t going there.

We are going to art and life. Art and life and what I learned about Phi from Steve while our Willow Creative Affinity Group was at Chicago Botanic Gardens last weekend. For us simple folk, its kind of like the 2/3 rule when I take a photo like this one. The tree isn’t centered. That is on purpose, and it’s appealing. The overexposure that makes the poppies so pretty just kinda happened.

Steve painted these poppies IMG_2607 (640x427)

Phi is everywhere. Its in my hand where the ratio of my palm to fingers is Phi. Its in the universe, where the dimensions of the earth and moon are in Phi relationship, forming a triangle based on 1.618. Its in the human spiral of DNA. Its in leaves. Here is Steve’s Phi tool showing the up and down of a leaf as one aspect of phi, and the left to right being the other.

Phi on leaves  up and down IMG_2618 (640x427)

Phi on leaves left to right IMG_2619 (640x427)

How have I gone this far in life without knowing this? I bet I’m not alone. Just another one of those reasons I know God is in charge. Stuff like this just doesn’t happen by itself. Our world is amazing by design!

Leave a Reply

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>