Kolam Builder
A digital studio for Kolam, the ancient Tamil threshold art, built from the symmetry hiding inside it.
Drawn at dawn, around a grid of dots
Kolam is a Tamil art form: patterns drawn at the threshold of a home each morning with rice flour, looping around a grid of dots (pulli) in a single line that weaves through without ever crossing itself. My dad taught me my first one (its the one in cover pic).
It looks organic, but it's a system
Spend enough time drawing Kolam and you start to see it. Underneath the flowing curves is a small, repeating vocabulary of quarter-turn pieces, mirrored and rotated around the dots. Once you can see that grammar, you can build it.
So I gave it a digital form. A set of symmetric blocks you place quadrant by quadrant, and the line resolves itself into one continuous, closed loop, the same way it would on the floor.
Place a piece, close the loop
Pick a block, click a quadrant, and the kolam grows. Grids go up to 15×15, with control over thickness, dot shape and size, line fill, and a randomizer when you want the floor to surprise you. When it's done, export it and take it with you.
It's a physical tradition brought into a medium that can do a few things rice flour can't: undo, resize, recolor, and keep a copy. Built with React and canvas. Anyone who loves pattern tends to lose an hour in it.