Art of Infinity: Therapist Embraces Fractal Equations and Golden Mean

Caren Appel has long juggled her vocation as a mental health therapist and her artistic avocation.

A licensed clinical social worker with an office in the historic Dundalk Shopping Center, Appel minored in art as undergraduate at Towson University. She went on to earn a master's in social work at the University of Maryland at Baltimore, but also continued to take the occasional class at the Maryland Institute College of Art over the years.

She sketches and draws, and does sculpture.

“I do a lot of metal sculptures,” Appel said. “I have a welding helmet and everything. My studio's in the back of the garage.”

More recently, however, she’s focused her attention on electronically generated fractal art.

She’s shown her previous work before at venues like the Creative Alliance on Eastern Avenue. Tonight, she’s officially opening her first fractal art show at the Village Coffee & Tea Company in the historic Dundalk Shopping Center. The opening kicks off at 6:30 p.m. with champagne and hors d'oeuvres.

Fractal art, Appel said, is based on mathematical ideas and equations, such as the concept of infinity. Another common theme that comes forth in fractal art, Appel said, is the golden mean ratio— a mathematical pattern often found in nature, for example, in the patterns of storm funnels, sunflowers, pineapples and the Milky Way Galaxy.

“Some people look at fractal art and just say, ‘Hey, that looks cool,’” Appel said. “Other people look and say, ‘Hey, something is going on here.’”

Artists as far back as the Renaissance have used the golden mean ratio in their art. For Appel, the electronically generated visual images based on the mathematical equations are not just aesthetically pleasing, but resonate on a metaphysical level.

“I think it connects to who we are to a deeper, spiritual level,” Appel said. “We are all energy. And energy is frequency and vibration. Color, too, is energy and frequency."

“I do the art not just to do the art,” Appel said. “I get something meaningful out of it."

Appel said she began working on fractal art a half-dozen years ago. She learned about it from a former tenant of hers— a math whiz, she said—who did the work by hand before the introduction of software programs, which Appel uses.

Personally, and as a professional therapist, she has always been interested in meditation and other holistic healing practices.

“I’ve become more interested in the subject of energy work, it’s where I’ve been moving [as a therapist],” Appel said. “It’s emotional, mental and spiritual work.”

The fractal art helps bridge her healing career and her artistic side.

"Many viewers of the art have said that they feel 'drawn into' the art, but can't explain why," Appel said. "Some people feel there is a spiritual energy in the art."

The Village Coffee and Tea Company is located at 3 Commerce Street, Dundalk. Appel will be on hand Friday evening for artist "Meet and Greet."