Open Forum

Jennifer Moore is a weaver and she uses the Fibonacci sequence and tesselations in her weaving. When I had her on campus, she worked with our math seminar students and it was a very successful collaboration. You can check out her work at doubleweaver.com. Since weavers basically invented the first computer (the jacquard loom), it makes a great tie in. 

I was also going to suggest weaving.  You probably have a weaving guild close by that could be very helpful.    Some weavers have smaller portable looms and demo looms that kids can even give a try.

Its very math heavy, and you can even look at a weavers draft (recipe for the pattern), and learn how to do "draw downs" which is sort of like graphing in geometry.

One a somewhat related note, you could also look at dying fabric or yarn as art and math.  lots of calculations go into it go get specific colors.

Hello Liz,

If you have not already include in your exhibition, you might like to add Sonia Delauney's works of art.  I also suggest looking into the resources of the Rubin Museum, located in Manhattan on West 17th street for their extensive collection of mandalas. You may also find the work of American quilt craft artists very interesting. Center for Architecture on LaGuardia Place is also a great resource for helping students see the geometry in buildings and architectural structures in NYC and our Parks. Good luck with what seems like a very interesting endeavor.

Hello Liz,

While this is not in your region, the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Oregon has organized fabulous exhibitions featuring artists who use optics such as lenses, in their art making. Sally Finch of Portland, Oregon draws elaborate, colorful grids that are often based on data calculations.

Best of luck with your project.

Shelley Curtis

The suggestion about weavers reminded me of the Crochet Coral Reef project and the Institute for Figuring. Part of the reef was in Minneapolis last year and was wonderful.

"...The Crochet Reef project resides at the intersection of mathematics, marine biology, handicraft and community art practice, and also responds to the environmental crisis of global warming and the escalating problem of oceanic plastic trash...."

Crochet Coral Reef

Lisa Friedlander

Exhibit Project Specialist, MN History Center

The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) routinely has art exhibits as a sidebar to their mathFESTs meetings. I would contact them for some remarkable pieces. MAA.org

Math is beautiful after all!

See if you can't somehow include M. C. Escher, he was really into patterns, mathematics and visual weirdnesses.

–Paul Pallansch

You might like to look at older art illustrating "mathematical instruments" (early scientific instruments). For some examples, I recently did a small display of a few medieval to early modern instrument models illustrated with contemporary paintings including these devices. If you would like to see the on-line version of the display including artwork it is posted here:  Replicas & Restorations of Early Instruments

Just a suggestion for resources if you were not previously aware:

Illinois Math Models: The Model Collection: Illinois Math Models:

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Kevin R. McCandless

Hello Andrea,

You might also want to look at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. The arts are part of their mandate and they have a long tradition of working with artists.  

Artist-in-Residence Program

On a recent visit, I loved Sweepers Clock, a video by Maarten Baas, "a 12-hour-long movie in which two performers replicate an analog clock by sweeping two piles of garbage (one for the hour hand, one for the minute hand) to indicate the time."

Artwork: Sweepers Clock

A section of their website includes math activities:

Mathematics

Claire

Dear Liz,

Many years ago I did an exhibition of contemporary art entitled, Calculating Art: Mathematics in the Visual Field. I included artists from all over the country that included a few in the New York/New Jersey/Massachusetts area including Fred Gutzeit, Debra Ramsay, Mark Stock, and Ken Weathersby.  I also find that putting an ad up on the New York Foundation for the Arts (www.nyfa.org) will put a lot of artists (from all over the country) doing this type of work in touch with you. I would be happy to talk to you further about the show.

Ginny Butera

I love thinking about math and art -- there are many interesting connections to make. I curate the exhibitions in Gould Library at Carleton College, and I've worked with several groups of math students on exhibitions on mathematics. The exhibitions were student-curated: so they were the content experts, and I facilitated the curation/installation process, and brought in resources outside of mathematics. One exhibition was about topology -- math students worked with art students to make sculptural models of surfaces that could be used in teaching as well as for display in the exhibition. That exhibit also included some books (like Geometry and the Imagination) that included illustrations and photographs of surfaces. Last year, I worked with students on an exhibition about mathematical knots: the study of knots involves lots of drawing and model-making, so that made for a very beautiful exhibition (and inspired some hands-on activities making sculptural knots from the knot table out of wiki stix). I am currently working with a group of students on an exhibition on math and origami -- again, there have been some great visual connections. 

I work in a library, so many of the arts connections I make with the math are through fine press and artist's books. For the knots exhibition, for example, one student looked at knotted decorations in Celtic illuminated manuscripts; for the folding exhibition, the students included both a 18th century edition of Euclid, and a Bruce Rogers' 20th c edition. I'd be happy to share more about what we've been doing, if that would be helpful!

The Ella Sharp Museum in Jackson,MI has helped create the traveling exhibition which has accompanied the previously mentioned mathfests. There are roughly 50 pieces that travel. The exhibition was sponsored by the Math Science Research Institute in conjunction with the Bridges organization (bridgesmathart.org). Bridges is an international group dedicated to bridging math, sciences and art. They are an excellent source of information for everything related to math and aRt

I would be happy to give you any more detail you desire off line. 

Amy

Hello Liz:

A few artists come to mind who deal with math in their artwork.

1) My friend, colleague, and fellow Brooklyn resident Sylvanus Shaw. He engages with topics such as the origins of counting, geometry, irrational numbers, and knot theory. His work is complex, but there are elements could be accessible to a younger audience. You can see more of his work at -- https://sylvanus-shaw.squarespace.com/.  Feel free to reach out to him directly or I'd be glad to make an introduction.

2) Sylvanus also recommends that you look at the late http://www.alfredjensen.com/home.html. More here--  https://www.artsy.net/artist/alfred-jensen.

3) The mention of mandalas in this thread made me think of Louise Desponte -- http://www.louisedespont.com/. She had a lovely show at The Drawing Center, in downtown Manhattan, a few months ago.

And, if you might need help with graphic or exhibition design, I'd be happy to chat with you. 

Best of luck!

Johanna

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Johanna Goldfeld Design, LLC
Graphic and Exhibition Design
Tel: 718-789-1238
Visit my website: www.jgoldfeld-design.com
Read my blog: www.jgoldfeld-design.com/blog

Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge and enthusiasm! I will certainly chase up these leads.

With gratitude,

Liz