Matthew Richie

We saw one of the episodes from the Art: 21 PBS series in class today. This one was on an artist named Matthew Richie. It was fascinating. Richie uses mathematical equations and software to generate images that he then turns into massive drawings and sculptures. He uses thoughts about gravity, EM, the weak and strong forces to generate images. Although his approach seemed very different, and a marriage of art and physics seems odd, Leonardo Di Vinci was the same way just tailored to his time period. Following are a couple of articles about Matthew Richie:

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/ritchie/index.html

http://www.artonpaper.com/bi/v11n03/column_richie.php

UVA vs. Community College

Today I found out why it is worth it to pay three times the tuition (compared to community college) to attend UVA plus the extra times. The very first class was at least ten times as good. The teacher has been teaching for 20 years and is a full professor there. She has published illustrations and is currently part of a group show in NYC. She is very precise about the materials but very flexible in what we produce as long as it shows effort (and lots of it). Art is a personal statement so her attitude makes sense. I have already spent hours of thinking and working from just a single class! Forget community college and go to a better institution if you can. It will be worth both money and effort; at least it is at UVA which is ranked extremely high.

Intricately Intertwined

In a chapter on symmetry, it was casually mentioned that graphs have not thickness. Of course they don’t but I had never thought about it. In fact, images of parabolas and circles are all wrong because they have a form of line. In reality, they can not have a line but only an infinite number of points that form a curve.

This translated into a thought that stemmed from the book on Cezanne that I recently finished reading. He realized that although people usually begin to draw a ball by first drawing a circle, the actual object has no line at all. So how do I know that the ball exists, and that it is separated from the room around it? It is because of the changes in color, and value. These changes result from the varying surfaces and their reflections of light due to their different curvatures. Everything consists of surfaces, and those surfaces have varying curvatures.

So now we have wrapped back around to mathematics. Different surfaces can be described by a piece of paper and a stick of charcoal. They can also be described by mathematics. Many people think my love of both mathematics and art is an odd combination; but my mind doesn’t. To me they are completely integrated, with their concepts intricately intertwined.

56

I turned 56 about a month ago. Yesterday and today, the middle finger on my left hand has a swollen digit knuckle. It hurts. It is arthritis. I remember the twisted knuckles of my mother and grandmother. Time marches on and we follow our genetic heritage.

New UVA Art Building

Today, I visited the new art building at UVA, Ruffin Hall. It is wonderful. The entire building is one big studio. All rooms have vaulted ceilings, and the entire building has gray concrete floors. Perfect studio! It is near the theater and at the opposite end of the campus from the other classes. I can't wait to begin my new class. It is almost full with 19 students. Only three days from today it will begin.

Exercise

Wow. I need more exercise. I finally got our exercise bicycle in a room with enough space to use the bike. Our bicycle has electronic sensors that read pulse. I was shocked. All I had done was move the bicycle into the room and then sat down to use it and my pulse was 109! Terrible. I used the bike for 10 minutes and the highest my pulse got was 114. The good thing is that I sat for minute after I stopped and my pulse went down to 99 which means that using the bike more often will make a difference -- which is awesome. Exercise bicycle here I come!

Too Much Repetition

My current math class has too many problems that are similar to other problems. For most people, this is so incredibly boring. In fact, I think that is why many people say "I hate math."

So, to make it more enjoyable, I am using software. We have a program that used to be offered by Texas Instruments called Derive. I am also going to begin to use Maple once I upgrade my current software to a Vista compatible version. Learning how to use calculators and various pieces of software is an important part of math that is sometimes over-looked. However, all professionals in physics and math use software as a support to all of their research.

Time Warps

In sci-fi shows, people always remember that time loops are reoccurring and reoccurring. Would this actually happen if time "reset" itself? I think not. We could be looping endlessly, redoing the same moments over and over again and never know.

Assumption of Self-focus

It was the other day that I realized that religions assume that humans have only self-focused motivations. They preach "do this or that for someone else so you can have a good death". They automatically assume that all most humans care about is themselves and their own "position" in their God's eyes when they die or where they will go when they die. I disagree. Many humans do things for others because they are doing something for other people. This is especially true for those individuals who are non-religious. As non-religious individuals, they gain nothing from helping others; no improved afterlife. Could this mean that they are actually more "pure " in their good intentions than people who are devoutly religious? I think so!

For Granted

I have been reading a book (no longer in print so I bought it used), "Techniques of the Impressionists" by Anthea Callen. In the beginning, she points out that paint was not originally available in tubes; it was kept in glass jars with cork or glass stoppers. This somewhat prevented artists from painting outside as paints were not portable.

So Windsor Newton invented paint in tubes. This allowed artists to pack up their oil paints (acrylics had not been invented) and paint out in the open as the Impressionist group often did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plein_air I have taken paint in tubes and their portability completely for granted.

Mirrors

Some years ago, I was made aware that some people live surrounded by "mirrors". The mirrors are real to them but others might not be aware of them. Whenever anyone says anything about anything, the mirror people (MP) think that person is talking about them. For MPs, everything around them is about them or for them. That is everything gets reflected onto MPs in MPs minds.

Just the other day I made an additional connection. If MPs try to pickup other people's "signals", chances are they will actually pick up their own not the other person's actual signals. This results in a huge number of self-fulfilling prophecies occurring for them both in their minds and in real life. One end result will be that a MP will think they are extraordinarily good at predicting other people's reactions although this is false as they are actually predicting their own reactions and projecting them on others.

It is important for MPs to become aware of the fact that they have mirrors and that most other people do not have them. If they can realize that they reflect everything back on themselves, they can begin to realize that nay "signals" they pickup from others are more than likely false one, and they should not react to them directly. Instead, it is important for them to confirm or dis-confirm the "signals" they have picked up with the send.

Math Beauty 2

(x^2)' = 2x or 2*x^2-1 or 2x^1

Therefore:

(16)' = (16 * x^0)' = 16 * 0 * x^0-1 = 0

[Yes, x goes to x^-1 but because it is multiplied by 0 it does not matter.]

Therefore:

(2x^2 +2x + 16)' = 4x + 2

Beautiful!

Math Beauty 1

(2^1/2)(2^1/2) = (2)^(1/2+1/2) = 2^1 = 2

Beautiful.

UVA

I am now a part-time student at UVA! The drawing class is from 9 AM to 3 PM on Fridays, but only on Fridays. Should be great to have a different teacher. All of the regular drawing and painting classes at the local community college are taught by the same teacher. He is good but exposure to different ways of doing things is also good. Otherwise it would be like homeschooling where you have exposure to only one teacher class after class after class. Wrong way to learn anything.

Silly Domains

One thing that has always bothered me is the determination of domains in rational expressions before they are simplified. It does not make sense to me and I have not had a logical explanation from anyone yet as to why it is done the way it is done.

So the domain of ((x+6)(x+4))/((x+2)(v+4)) excludes x=-2 and x=-4. But it could just include x=-2 if it were simplified first. Go figure.