Patterns May be an Action, or the Trace Left by an Action

Today's adventure in obscure stuff takes us to the Portland State campus again, to Patterns May be an Action, or the Trace Left by an Action, on SW Broadway. It's a set of granite panels with nature-inspired patterns on them, a companion piece to the nearby diatom sculptures titled Urban Hydrology.

Unlike its companion piece, there's almost nothing about this on the interwebs. Which is a shame, because I'm curious about the various patterns here: Are they simply nature-inspired, or are they images of something in particular, or...? None of the usual sources (RACC, Smithsonian, various online public art guides, etc.) have an entry for Patterns as far as I can tell. It does get a brief mention in PSU's Historic Resource List (even though it's not actually old), and a brief mention in the new Walking Portland, 2nd Edition, and all the other results I see are for my Flickr photos you see here. The artist's website isn't a lot of help here either, although it talks about a number of other interesting projects of hers.