gallery of symmetrical interlocking tiling pattern tessellation art

Interlocking menorah tessellation art by seth bareiss

MENORAH TESSELLATION
Caution: This is not yet a tessellation.

Happy Hanukkah. Why did it take me sooOOooo many decades of looking at menorahs and Escher art before I noticed this?! ..A half of a lifetime in ignorance, a second of inspiration, and 15 minutes of photoshopping led to this.

It should be pointed out that a proper tessellation does not have visible "air" (gaps) in it, so this photoshopped picture with white unoccupied spaces will eventually have to be replaced with a proper version. That proper version will have no gaps. I also plan a picture of tessellating dradels, to complete the Hanukkah tessellation series. ~~ Seth, December, 2011.

You may wonder, "Hey, there are only 7 candles! Aren't there supposed to be 9?" According to ModernTribe.com where you can see lots of these, what we usually call a menorah is more accurately called a 'hanukia'. A 'menorah' is a seven-stemmed candelabra found in most synagogues. A 'hanukia' is the special nine-stemmed candelabra we light for Hanukkah. Also, if you have more than one menorah, you don't have 'menorahs'. The plural is 'menorot'.

Also, a hanukia very often has 8 candles all at the same height, with candle number 9 at a different height. Why? Well, the 8 are for marking the religious holidays. The religion says we're not supposed to use those 8 for anything but religion-- they shouldn't be for work like doing homework, or play like making a shadow puppet theater on your living room wall. So, candle number 9 is for everything-but-religion; now you're not tempted to use the other 8 for shadow puppets and toasting marshmallows.