Mary Holstege
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mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Mary Holstege
@mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
110 followers 1 following 740 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 […]

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Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · Oct 1
Available today, my space opera novel, Atraxian Blue: https://books2read.com/u/b6ElAx

Chapter one preview available here:
https://mathling.com/books/AtraxianBlue/c003.xhtml

In which we meet our feckless hero, defacing a bulkhead in the name of art

#scifi #writing
Cover image for "Atraxian Blue" by Mary Holstege. It shows an abstract nest of overlapping wavy rings with ants crawling over them. The design is etched into some strangely patterned metal and signed RS.
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Chapter 27 of Atraxian Blue (https://books2read.com/u/b6ElAx) is up at http://mathling.com/books/index.html

Dinner and a show: In which Renny is amazed by Lila's cooking, appalled by what happens next, and in which Toussaint makes a dark suggesting

#scifi
#writing
#atraxianblue
Available now at your favorite digital store!
Atraxian Blue by Mary Holstege
books2read.com
December 24, 2025 at 4:54 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

The feast of seven fishes

This was a bug, but I love how it came out

#xquery #svg
Stylized fish rendered as outlines of glowing white dots, cavort over black slashes (waves?) over a maroon background. Colophon: The bug is that the black parts and the white parts are the same fish, but the point-to-point mutation functions didn't get applied correctly (or consistently)
December 24, 2025 at 3:18 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Shower fix day 1 million

The end is in sight!

It still needs a door, and there is a whole lot of drywall/siding work downstairs still, but! A shower! That works!
Interior of a shower with a bench to one side and gleaming new hardware.
December 23, 2025 at 11:39 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
It's done! I finally finished the first draft + first typo pass on the newest book. I wanted to do that before Xmas and I did, despite the on-going shower-repair saga.

Fantasy, answering the question "yeah, but what if the map *was* the territory?" Coming of age, magic, danger, a dash of […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
December 23, 2025 at 5:27 PM
Reposted by Mary Holstege
cognissart.mastoart.social.ap.brid.gy
#artadventcalendar 2025 day 23
Leave Only Footprints, Flagg
Stitched with a slightly sparkly wool. If you zoom in you can see the ice twinkling ✨️
More information on this work here
https://cognissart.co.uk/leave-only-footprints/
@textileart
@fiberarts

#art […]

[Original post on mastoart.social]
Stitched artwork depicting a snow scene with bare trees on the horizon. A stone wall crosses the centre and footprints lead through a gateway in it. Framed in a silver frame and white mount. Viewed on an angle to show texture
December 23, 2025 at 9:31 AM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

Frosty

#xquery #svg
A Pentose tiling, rendered as a soft spray of motes of light. Frost on the window. Light in the dark.
December 23, 2025 at 4:21 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#wordweavers Dec 23
What's the first and last line of dialogue for your MC?

Renny aka Tass aka Art Wanker:

"Good evening, officers."

"It will be glorious."
December 23, 2025 at 2:04 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#generativeart interlude

2025 Retrospective

https://www.mathling.com/art/2025retrospective.html

#xquery #svg
2025 Retrospective
www.mathling.com
December 22, 2025 at 10:13 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

Bam!

#xquery #svg
Blocks of various sizes and shapes explode out from an angry red ball in the top left corner. Deep shadows. Energy. Motion. Menace. Colophon: Ridged fractal noise driving shapes, shadow depth, colour. Whites from Werner's Nomenclature of Colour.
December 22, 2025 at 4:31 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Chapter 26 of Atraxian Blue (https://books2read.com/u/b6ElAx) is up at http://mathling.com/books/index.html

Belle Epoch: Dinner -- in which Tass learns that his father intends to experiment

#scifi
#writing
#atraxianblue
Available now at your favorite digital store!
Atraxian Blue by Mary Holstege
books2read.com
December 22, 2025 at 1:02 AM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

The darkest night
A space probe nears a rough grey asteroid, lit dimly by a far off sun. Stars spangle the black sky, and a spiral nebula. It is cold and lonely out here in the deeps.
December 21, 2025 at 4:04 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#silentsunday #photography
We're driving a lonely road up into misty-clogged mountains, covered in pines. Patches of blue peek through scattered clouds. It is cold, and the sun is setting. Soon the snow will be falling thickly. The house will be empty when we arrive, the furnace off, the woods close by. Photographer: me Location: Port Angeles, WA
December 21, 2025 at 4:06 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#caturday #photography

Nyx, demon

Did she wake me at 3, sprawling across my legs?
Did she wake me at 4, batting at my cheek?
Did she wake me at 5, meowing piteously?

Yes, gentle reader. Yes, she did.
Am I a bit cranky about that? Yes indeedy.
Black cat peers down from the stop of her tower, imperious. Nyx, mistress of the night, stalker of string, whiner of insistence commands you, fooling mortal. Photographer: the Cat Whisperer Cat: Nyx the demon
December 20, 2025 at 7:47 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

Tra-la-la

Fake music with medieval tabulature

Bonus fun fact: I accidentally learned all about archaic music notations by proof-reading the thesis of a music DFA

#xquery #svg
It could be an ancient manuscript showing some plainsong notes. Lines of musical notes in a fading maroon ink on a yellowing but of parchment. There are tells, though. The staff lines are anachronistic and the notes should be joined (I hadn't figured out how to get text lengths with ligatures and proper justification when I did this).
December 20, 2025 at 4:32 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

Rover alone in the dark

Hand-drawn digital

#space
A rover rolls over rough and lonely terrain. It is dark and the sky is full of stars. One is bigger. The sun, perhaps, but far far away.
December 19, 2025 at 9:43 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

You thought the tiling pattern messed with your head? Try this one. Stare into the center of the abyss. No. There are no spirals.
Red and green squares arranged in circles over a lighter green background. The squares are tilted as you move around the circles. The strong juxtaposition of red and green creates a jangling of the image. If that weren't bad enough, the tilting of the squares gives you the strong impression that there are spirals involved. No. Just circles of squares. Make it stop. It hurts us.
December 18, 2025 at 4:35 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Chapter 25 of Atraxian Blue (https://books2read.com/u/b6ElAx) is up at http://mathling.com/books/index.html

Red Specter: In which Renny is dismayed to discover that he has gathered something of a cult following back on Tas'Noor

Now available as audiobook on Apple books, soon on Overdrive […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
December 17, 2025 at 5:05 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

Sombrero nebula

Hand-drawn, digital

#space
A nebula, rather reminiscent of the Sombrero nebula, slants across a starry black sky. In the foreground, a comet? icy asteroid chunk? slightly glowing. There is a bright light just at the top of it, like a cosmic lighthouse, perhaps.
December 17, 2025 at 4:01 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

Voronoi division of an R in Kings Regular, with shrinking copies of each region
It is a capital R with strong serifs, but rendered as a series of orange, red, or yellow regions, making for a scaly appearance. Each region has a series of slightly smaller copies in slightly different shades. There is something dragonesque about it all.
December 16, 2025 at 6:13 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

A weaving driven off a pair of integer sequences from OEIS
A grid of squares in various shades: blues, tans, whites. There are lines of the same colour, creating an impression of larger squares within the pattern, except the lines are taken up in a different colour part way across, which creates the illusion that the whole thing is a little cockeyed and askew.
December 15, 2025 at 5:01 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Chapter 24 of Atraxian Blue (https://books2read.com/u/b6ElAx) is up at http://mathling.com/books/index.html

My finger! -- In which Renny can't quite believe that has happened to him, and then has a difficult conversation with the ship

#scifi #writing #atraxianblue
Available now at your favorite digital store!
Atraxian Blue by Mary Holstege
books2read.com
December 15, 2025 at 4:40 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

My take on 'bent' (@ippsketch). Based on tilings with non-straight edges and not just 4-sided tiles. This one is based on triangular tiling.

#xquery #svg
It looks like an isometric projection of some wobbly construction of packed towers. Their sides are a deep rusty brown with a yellow stripe in the middle, their tops are tan with a red stripe in the middle. The edges jink a little bit, lending a somewhat hand-drawn look to things. Black background.
December 14, 2025 at 4:50 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#silentsunday #photography #lawcode
Blocks of limestone with Greek letters carved on it in the boustrophedon style (alternating from left to right, right to left). It is the ancient Greek law code, carved into blocks for all to see at the Gortyna odeon. Photographer: me
December 14, 2025 at 4:23 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#ArtAdventCalendar

SPAAAACE

#xquery #svg
A swirly blue planet lit by the light of a friendly yellow sun. Glowing stars in the background. Colophon: the planet has a circular gradient base, with the focus angled towards the sun; the patterning is using a marbling SVG filter. From 2022. Zipf distribution for the star sizes.
December 13, 2025 at 4:31 PM
mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
#caturday #photography

Relaxation
Black cat with a few white patches on her belly lies flaked out on a white fluffy robe. Her feet are out to the sides, her front claws currently extended. She's kneeding as she dozes. She is snoring. Cat: Nyx Cat substrate and photographer: me
December 13, 2025 at 4:23 PM