iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

#GenerativeArt interlude A cat on a mat in the woods Interleaving pictures, as one does after having cracked the whole SVG image striping problem. #XQuery #SVG #CreativeCoding #HumanArt

A weaving of two photographs: a tabby cat flaked out on a mat, and a look up into the canopy of an old and twisted tree.

Photographer: me

101 1

Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026

#portfolioDay It's all generative art (generated by programs made by a human). Inspiration from nature, math, writing #XQuery #SVG #HumanArt #CreativeCoding

Asemic writing, perhaps, full of swoops and swirls and dots, An embossed appearance in bronze and silver. A cross between an Arabic and an alien spider vibe.

A still life of pomegranates in hexagons of various sizes and shades of grey. Formed by repeatedly breaking down an image, subdividing the areas with greatest variation in brightness and mapping brightness levels to a gradient (here a grey scale gradient).

Abstract in bright colours. There are swirling black lines dripping ink over a burnt orange background. Where the loops intersect, some of the regions are coloured: various blues, yellow, a smidge of grey.

A study in textures. It looks like leaves in the rain. Shades of grey against a dark background, somewhat grainy appearance. Colophon: a random shape iterated with various shifts and rescalings and opacities.

110 1

Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/10/2026

#WordWeavers 10/11: Share a passage from your WIP where the setting is doing as much storytelling as the characters. From Crystal Falls (coming soon!) a sci-fi murder mystery (text in alt)

Text reads:
The sun caught the tops of Mount Eos first. Bright flags of brilliance bloomed above them, then steadily crept down from the heights. It was not a monolith, but formed a rank of craggy pillars with wild buttresses and columns of twisted stone. In the rosy light it looked like a fairy castle, ethereal and unreal. Crystals sparkled across the turrets and towers, flashing as the light descended and caught a new set. No. *This* was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Zee had done well to find this place, convince him to come. It felt healing. Soothing. A good place to rest. To stop. He felt an easing in his chest, a tightness loosening that he hadn't even known was there.

Then the light hit the plateau, and Cantor realized that no, no, he hadn't seen anything beautiful before at all. In a sudden flush of pink and red, the whole plateau burst into flame. Light bloomed all around them. It was like a flower opening, no, a gentle smile on a lover's face, the first sip of coffee in the morning, a warm zephyr making flowers nod across a meadow. No. It was like nothing he had ever experienced. He felt as if a hand had reached into his chest and squeezed, a goddess had whispered into his ear. *Look at this.* Mount Eos indeed. Goddess of dawn. He felt breathless.

001 1

Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

An early #Caturday cat trifecta (I suppose I should say, photographer is me for all these.)

A cat sits in a shelter in a catio. The shelter has an entrance in the shape of a cat. A cartoonish black cat figure interweaves through the photograph, as if it were part of the catio. A turducken of cats, if you will.

000 0

Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

Homage to The Blank Signature An experiment with image slicing an interleaving. You would not believe the trouble I had to go through to get the strips to abut without gaps. No, starting one strip where the last ended was not good enough.

A cartoonish black cat with green eyes peers our in a birch forest, interweaving through the trees.

111 1

Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

#WordWeavers Oct 7: Share a line of dialogue that tells us everything we need to know about a character's personality. From Cantata Deeps, Anselm explains his selling technique.

Text reads:
Anselm chuckled. "Ah, my lad, my lad. What is truth, hey?" In response to Cello's frown, he added in a more serious tone. "Something destroyed the freighter. Was it a gas leak? Maybe. Was the captain old and crusty and set in his ways? Most likely. Most of them are." A little smile directed towards Pettrie. "Did I ever claim my story had anything to do with those sensors? I did not. The young man asked and I raised my eyebrows and glanced towards them, and they all assumed that it did. People want to believe, lad. They want to think the universe is filled with tidy narratives, to feel the breath of the divine, and touch wonders inexplicable."

001 1

Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

Madness, poetry, love, and rage. Solae, constructed to be the Jade Emperor's spy, flies out on a secret extended mission. Between command directives that bind them, assassins, traitors, and the mind- and body-stealing Thanarchs, they struggle to control […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

The cover of the novel "How Deep the Light of Stolen Suns" by Mary Holstege. The image is dominated by a bright halo of golden light. Clumps of stars fall towards it, made dark by its brightness. Just coming into frame on the left is the silhouette of a spaceship. It has a large bulb at the front and a long thin tail. There are a series of delicate petals perpendicular to the shaft, fanned out into a flower or star.

000 0

Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/09/2026

This is to signify that Blotrz has passed his plasma blaster markmanship test in the Centauran Fleet.

It's alien writing, that's what it is. Spidery loops and whorls and flourishes and dots in dense clusters across the page. Old gold and pinkish red embossed on a maroon background. It is Blortz's certificate, certainly, and they are most proud of it.

001 1

Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/09/2026

#GenerativeArt interlude WIP: so not the vibe I was aiming at I set a parameter hilariously wrong, but I kinda like it, so I rolled with it #SVG #XQuery #CreativeCoding #HumanArt

Spidery looping clusters of writing. Is it writing? Lines of text? They almost look like lines of text, but with large gaps. There are looping strokes, and dots and little marks. Arabic? No. Not Arabic. Something stranger. Eerie. Alien. Green and yellow. Does the colour signify?

111 1

Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026

#GenerativeArt interlude Mountains of madness A quick sketch, using simple geometry and bold colours #XQuery #SVG #CreativeCoding #HumanArt

A teal sky and and orange plain covered with sharp peaks, brilliantly lit (white, pale yellow) on the right face, cross-hatched red shadows on the back face. A pale sun shines high in the sky.

It is very simplistic, childish even, and yet even so there is something evocative about it. We're in the desert southwest, facing a long hot day of hiking.

012 2

Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2026

#ScribesAndMakers 9/22 Promotion day Releasing in a week: How Deep the Light of Stolen Suns Madness, poetry, love, and rage. It's a bit of an insane ride. Adventure. Love. Clones. Artificial people. Mind-and body- stealing space pirates. Poems. Lots and […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

001 1

Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/09/2026

Separated scan lines probe for values above a certain cut-off. We remove or consolidate shorter segments, colouring by the start points. Hilarity ensues.

Here the palette is tropical, aqua, red, orange, and the pale of Caribbean water. The background runs through aslant them from the darker blue to the paler with the reds and oranges in between. There are a series of horizonal lines, mostly long dark blue, but for a few thin bands to the right and in an arc at the top, where tiny fragments of lines in red and orange cluster. Ribbons turning in the warm ocean breezes. A ballerina en pointe. The trailing leg and tail of an antelope.

002 2

Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/09/2026

It begins with a fractal noise field, based on a different fractal noise field for the generators Dark ripples

Silver and black ripples over a slanting grey gradient, lighter in the top-left corner, darkening to the lower-right. The ripples are formed from arcing lines of varying lengths, creating a churning series of waves of froth and deep puddles.

102 2

Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/09/2026

Some parameters create distinct patterning, like the skin of a reptile or waves in the sand /Fin

Loops of coloured motes, pink and pale cream over a black background. The motes gather into two knotted fat loops. Within the loops you see waves of motes, overlapping, along the knot ends, little triangular cascades, snakeskin.

001 1

Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/09/2026

Take a closed Hobby spline over some random points Pick points along it to be the head of each swoop Exponential fade out of size and spacing of following motes Perpendicular spread out from main track (also faded in size/spacing + some jitter) Appearance […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

The curves have fragmented into individual swoops. It is like the tracks of fireflies in a strobe. See them dance and play in the night: light blue and white.

101 1

Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/09/2026

Smaller dots, stronger fade-off: shimmering dust

Swoops and curls of purple and teal dust. There are repeated trains of motes, fading away from the leader, and curls of dust falling away from the main track. It looks almost braided in texture. Black background.

102 2

Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/08/2026

Available for pre-order now! books2read.com/u/ba7oNv Madness, poetry, love, and rage. Solae, an artificial person created as a spy for the Jade Emperor, is sent on a secret extended mission throughout the Empire. Between command directives that bind […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Cover of the book "How Deep the Light of Stolen Suns" by "Mary Holstege"

The background is a golden halo with rays coming from it. Clumps of stars converge on the central light. To the left, tiny at this scale, is the silhouette of a space ship, with a bulbous front and a long tail with a florette of spikes coming from it. We can't see the end of the spaceship.

001 1

Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/08/2026

Once again, it is amazing to me how the human mind will choose to interpret a few simple strokes as a living thing, even with unrealistic colour and lighting

A scattering of pines, pale brown in the foreground but greener in the background, across a silvery plane that fades to white in the distance. Some of the pines have seen much better days, and are missing a lot of intermediate boughs.

Such is the luck of the draw in randomized numbers of branch clusters and their distributions.

001 1

Mary Holstege @mathling.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/08/2026

A series of quad Béziers, arranged in fans up and down the trunk. Trunk and swoops fattened out into polygon strokes. Scaling by distance from focal point. Now, with a bit of foreground framing: