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The configuration of sticks in each star is identical.

A defining feature of these two woven stars is that each axis and each wire within each axis relates to the overall object in exactly the same way.  For a detailed description of these structures, you can read the patent papers here.

The larger star shown above is a 6-axis star.  It is made of 30 bronze or silicon bronze rods in 6 bundles of 5 that are welded together at the 12 points.  In 1997, one of these stars made its way to being a prominent prop on the MIT math professor’s desk in the movie Good Will Hunting!  It’s on YouTube here.

The smaller star shown above has four intersecting beams, or axes, and so it’s called a Tetraxis star.  In the star’s open position, the eight tips are located at the corners of a cube.  Each axis, made up of 3 rods, surrounds a common center.  You can see the pattern more clearly in this glass version shown below, to the right of an analogous 3-axis assembly.  We developed a magnetic toy, called the Tetraxis puzzle, which provides an interactive way to explore the configuration.

Here’s a busier one.  A 3-axis and a 6-axis and a 10-axis (which contains the 4-axis) all interleaved and surrounded by a folding space:

Analogous to these stars is the 10-axis star, also made of 30 rods:

Interleave a 10-axis star with a 6-axis star to get a 16-axis star:

Ten interwoven 6-pointed stars:

This is just a small sampling of the many designs John made.  As I get more pictures taken I’ll add them.

14 Tetraxis joints made in curved silicon bronze wire

Pictured below are glass and wood sculptures that are the same 16-axis configuration of rods bypassing one another symmetrically around the hollow center of the structure.

click on the image for a video demonstration

Click to download Handling and Care of Kostick Folding Stars.pdf

We don’t keep much inventory of most of the stars that are shown on this page.  But if you’d like to buy something, contact us directly to commission these or other designs, including the magnetic wooden versions that make it fun and easy to explore the pattern in which the stars’ rods bypass one another.

Two of the most basic stars, the folding Tetraxis star and the Six-axis star, are also carried by several stores, which you can find links to here.  We make them in various sizes out of either bronze or silicon bronze.

Currently producing some of these again, he is continuing to discover more geometric designs and to find innovative ways of constructing them.

On this page are photos and videos of a sampling of mainly the earlier work in bronze and glass, as well as some of the current work in wood that is based on the configuration of elements in some of the designs.

John’s explorations of geometric and synergetic structures led to numerous original designs that he handcrafted and marketed in the mid 1960s and early 70s.

John Kostick in his workshop in Roxbury, MA, 1967

The folding space is made out of 24 interwoven stainless steel rings that collapse down to what appears to be nothing more than a roll of wire.

To get an idea of how John came up with this design, look at the star that he is holding in this old photograph.

Continuing those curved wires around full circle is how he discovered this woven star, whose folding properties he hadn’t actually anticipated.

Here a 7-axis star is surrounded by a folding space to make a Space Compass.