¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo! Last week, my wife Nancy and I enjoyed a long-overdue, much-needed getaway/vacation and chose San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, a place we’d heard great things about for decades from numerous sources. We very much enjoyed our immersion into the culture, cuisine, and art that this historic city is known for. In addition to world-class dining, lots of “heart decor” and so much more, I was amazed at how many 3D geometric stars were present in this lovely city, both in numerous shops and even in permanent street art! Since artsy stars, wings, and hearts are here in abundance, there are plenty of stellated polyhedra, but the predominant variety seemed to be one of my favorite shapes, the small stellated dodecahedron (one of the four Kepler–Poinsot polyhedra) which I’ve featured in numerous places on this website. I mentioned (in my broken Spanish, resurrected from high school classes a half-century ago) to a few of the shopkeepers that a foldup version that would fit in a tourist’s suitcase might afford more sales, since shipping these lovely fabrications is probably a bit expensive.
If you want to make your own (I suggest trying in cardboard first) here’s a foldup pattern from page 219 of Sacred Geometry Design Sourcebook; you’ll want to make 6 copies of this page. Join the two edges labeled 1 and also join the two edges labeled 2. If you fold together just one copy of this page, you’ll get a double pentagonal pyramid, which is another interesting shape. However, if you fold up the 2 pentagonal pyramid halves, crease the middle shared edge, and fold the other direction, you’ll have 1/6 of what you need to make this classic shape. MC Escher fans will probably recall this classic image.
I’ve included an assortment of photos from this trip below, including a few other familiar geometries you’ll probably recognize; enjoy! For many more photos of our San Miguel de Allende, Mexico trip this past week, visit my personal Facebook page.
Other examples of small stellated dodecahedra from this website:
