When Math and Art Collide
by Lynne
Dedicated to my mother Anne, professor of mathematics, and my father Jim, professor of statistics
Once upon a time there was a set of twins who could not be more different. Their parents, likewise, were opposites. Eric was a statistics professor at Ohio State, who had attained a decent amount of respect in his community with the publication of his last textbook, being used at a steadily increasing number of universities. Flora was a free spirit a potter and weaver who would spontaneously leave the house and hitchhike around the country, sleeping under the stars and deriving new inspiration from her experiences. They were very different, but they were happy together, and both independent enough that they felt free to pursue their passions.
When the couple learned that Flora was pregnant with twins, Eric proposed that they could each name one. Eric named the one girl Darcy, a solid, sensible name, while Flora named the other Daisy. Both hoped that they would have a daughter follow in their footsteps.
Each parents wish would come to fruition. But it was Daisy who had the scientific aptitude while Darcy was a natural artist. When it came time for them to start school, Daisy became very anxious about impressing her classmates. She beseeched her dad to buy her a suit to wear on the first day of school. He, bemused, acquiesced, and she was perhaps the first child to show up on the first day of kindergarten wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. While the other children built towers of blocks and colored with crayons, Daisy caught butterflies and carefully dissected them so she could study them. Darcy, on the other hand, frustrated her teacher because her creativity could not be contained. She colored all over the walls and stole her teachers permanent markers so she could tattoo her arms and legs as well.
As the girls grew up, they each found their own voice. Tired of their twin names, Daisy insisted to be called D (isnt it easiest to reduce my name to a variable?), and Darcy went by Dada (after all, it is my favorite movement!). They became increasingly competitive and resentful of each other, constantly ridiculing each other. They put a line of masking tape down the center of their room so they could each have their own space. When it came time to go to school, they also wanted to be as distant as possible from each other. D enrolled at Columbia to study math like her father, while Dada went to study art at liberal Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Both girls flourished in college, happy to finally be around like-minded people. Yet home on summer vacation, they fought more bitterly than ever, ridiculing each other incessantly.
During one particularly intense fight, D accused Dada of studying art because it was easy and nonacademic and she couldnt handle serious studies.
Dadas eyes narrowed. She glared at her sister. D, you have no idea how challenging art is to pursue! I bet you couldnt last one day in my program. You would flunk out immediately because you have no creativity and no ability to think outside the box. I may seem a bit spacey at times, but at least Im not a square!
D angrily retorted, Im not a square, but I do know what a square is! I bet you couldnt even draw one; youve never drawn a straight line or followed a straight path in your life! You would immediately fail in my math program. I bet you would freeze on the first request to find x and just leave, completely bewildered.
Dada challenged, Well, if youre so certain, why dont you try it? Take an art class in school so I can sit back and laugh while you fail miserably
D: Piece of cake! And you should try a math class but wait, do they even have math classes at that hippie college you go to? Maybe you can take remedial addition. But Im sure you couldnt even pass that.
At this point, tempers were flaring dangerously.
Dada: Well, if were going to challenge each other, why dont we go all the way? Dont just try to take a wimpy art class at that prissy college of yours, but come on out to Portland! Take a semester away from Columbia and prove that you can do just as well as me, if not better!
D was surprised, but felt she couldnt back down at that point. Ok, fine. But then you have to come study math at Columbia. Anything I do in Portland will be impressive compared to your certain failure.
Still fuming, the twins returned to the defined halves of their room, even closing the dividing curtain they had constructed a few weeks prior. Each girl was a bit confused at how she could have made such a serious commitment. But both were too stubborn and proud to back down at that point.
Feeling a bit less certain, they both enrolled in each others colleges as transient students. They then travelled to begin the fall semester that would certainly stretch them out of their comfort zone.
At first it was, frankly, a disaster for both girls. D didnt have the needed art supplies but couldnt justify spending all the money on frivolous items that she would never need again. So she improvised. She showed up on the first day of drawing class with a pad of graph paper and a supply of ballpoint pens and mechanical pencils. The professor frowned but when D started to hedge about money the professor didnt press it just another starving artist
Dada grudgingly realized she needed to buy a calculator for class. But the TI-83 calculators that the professor required were so ugly! So she bought a pretty powder blue jumbo calculator from the school supply section
Unfortunately it didnt seem to do graphs.
The semester progressed
Ds drawing professor was frustrated with how she would take a ruler and measure the items in the still life, adjust the ratios to the size of the paper, and reduce them to geometric forms so that she could use equations and graph paper to reproduce the image in perfect scale. In painting, D calculated the precise ratios of different primary colors of paint to create the appropriate shades or tones in her subject. She then measured paint in test tubes as she poured it out so that she could consistently duplicate those colors. In Photography, she was confused when the professor explained how good photos do not have the focal point centered in the frame. Despite his advice, she took all of her pictures of objects straight on and centered. He eventually gave up on directing her.
Dadas favorite part of her math classes was graphing. While the other students drew humble graphs on graph paper with mechanical pencils, she drew them on a large scale with multi-colored pens. Once she got a little carried away and painted them. Once she got really carried away and made the graph into an abstract painting, using a splatter technique and collage elements on canvas. Her professor was dumbfounded. In her geometry class, she found it impossible to deduct logical proofs, so she wrote stories, longhand, that creatively explained how the variables changed. Thinking of her sister whose name was D, she wrote stories about a love triangle between X, Y, and Z, and how X and Y were an older couple and Z was a younger woman, so accordingly the values were their ages: 39, 41, and 25. Dada thought to herself, Hey, this isnt so bad! I just need to exercise all of my creativity to enjoy these classes, but I certainly am.
The weeks went by, and soon midterm grades came out. D was shocked to read that she was failing, when she had never gotten below a B on any assignment previously. She went to her professors, confident that they had made a mistake in calculating the grades (they were only artists, after all). But the grades checked out. D simply couldnt have her sister know she was failing, when she had said all those things about how art was so easy
She knew that she would have to find some way to pull her grades up.
Dada also received her grades. All Fs? She was shocked. She thought her creativity in her classes showed that she went above and beyond the assignment, not failed to meet its standard. She was bewildered for a moment, but then realized that she couldnt back down now, and had to pour herself into her work and prove to her sister that she could do well in this situation. If she worked very diligently, she was confident that she could bring her grades up at least to a passing level.
D decided she needed to take a different approach to her studies. She grudgingly began to listen to the advice and guidance of her professors. It made her nervous, but she began to take risks, in drawing freehand and mixing up paints out of her own intuition and growing understanding of the color wheel. She even began to experiment a little more with her photography, trying asymmetrical compositions and new perspectives. She never completely conformed, though. She still drew using very geometric forms. In Art History, they came to Modern Art and D discovered cubism. Her eyes widened how beautiful! She went to the library and checked out several books on cubism, following its inspiration in her work. She even went to the local art museum to see some of the pieces in real life. In painting, D still liked to use flat shades of color, instead of gradations of color and tone. Yet she found how to make that work for her, discovering modern artists who painted similarly and finding her technique similar to cubisms philosophy. During her study of modern art, she was inspired by another artist: Andy Warhol. His artistic technique completely resonated with her. Drawing from his inspiration, she created grids of identical photographs of an object or portrait, experimenting with form although using simple photos in the style she had originally used. She grew excited at all the possibilities she was discovering to express her unique perspective.
Dada, on the other hand, didnt see how she could ever adjust to the demands of her classes. Nonetheless, she pressed on. She stayed up late nights poring over her textbooks, staggering to classes the next day in her pajamas, with dark circles under her eyes. Yet she was determined to succeed. There was no way she would let D win at their little game! One morning, she overslept her alarm and ran to class. Just as she approached the doors, they opened and she collided with a classmate. Books went flying everywhere and she bent to pick them up, apologizing profusely. She grabbed his books: Calculus II. Analytic Geometry. Differential Equations.
Dada looked up. You must be a math major are you a senior?
He nodded and grinned. Yeah. Are you a math major too?
Um, kinda
hey, do you tutor?
Well, as a matter of fact, I do.
When can we start?
He blinked. Well, you cut right to the point, dont you? Um, how about tomorrow afternoon? Does that work for you?
Now she smiled. Perfect. Its a date.
Over the next few weeks, Dada and her new tutor, Brian, spent more and more time together. Their tutoring arrangement developed into a close friendship and then a relationship. Dada was eager to absorb the mathematical concepts if she could learn while gazing deeply into Brians blue-gray eyes. After they studied, she taught him guitar, which he had always longed to learn. After particularly late study sessions, Dada would smile impishly, grab his hand, and pull him outside. They ran up the hill on the edge of campus and collapsed in the grass, laughing as they caught their breath. Brian ran his fingers through her auburn curls as she told him stories of the mythological constellations shining above.
Dadas grades began to improve. She found that her creativity especially helped her solve word problems. And she still enjoyed graphs, even though she now limited herself to normal ones in pencil on graph paper. She gave in and bought a TI-83. She found that with dedicated, serious work she could do well in her classes. She made up a few exams which helped as well. At the end of the semester, her grade was a B.
The twins returned home for Christmas, each extremely curious how the other had fared. Dada, eager to display her aptitude, reached in her backpack and pulled out her final Calculus exam, tossing it at D. D could hardly believe her eyes: a perfect grade, with elegantly executed proofs and beautiful graphs. At a loss for words, she simply reached in her portfolio and pulled out a canvas, handing it to her sister.
What
what is this?
This is my interpretation of The Birth of Venus from a Cubist perspective. I entered in the winter art show and it placed first.
Now both sisters were at a loss for words.
How did you-
When did-
They realized they had a lot of catching up to do, as they stared at each other, wide-eyed.
Dada broke the silence. She grinned. Sounds like we have a lot to talk about
lets go up to our room and share our stories
[to be continued below....]