Guest editor’s introduction

Abstract

The year: 2006. The place: Stonehenge, England. We were on a field trip from the Bridges London conference when Gary Greenfield askedme to write an article about my ownwork for the first issue of the new Journal of Mathematics and the Arts (1). Mathematics was one of my favourite subjects in school. After spending my undergraduate years studying with like-minded individuals, I was very disappointed to discover that there were people out in the world who did not like math. Very early on it became my mission to change hearts and minds, to help more people to see mathematics in a more positive light. I decided that my best option was to present visual interpretations of mathematical topics through art. While working on a graduate degree in art, it became clear to me that I wanted to explore mathematics by looking at the interactions within systems, looking in from the outside, like looking into a snow globe. I refer to this as “exploring meta-mathematics”. As my work became more and more abstract, I felt I needed more advanced mathematical training. During my next round of graduate studies, I became increasingly interested in set theory and symbolic logic. Much of my future work would be based on these two topics. I began writing algorithms that I could use to execute rule-based drawings. The sequential nature of these drawings was the perfect content for hand-drawn artist’s books. One of these small books caught Nat Friedman’s attention, and he asked me to speak at his 2000 ISAMA (The International Society of the Arts, Mathematics, and Architecture) conference in Albany, New York. This conference was my introduction to the math art community. In 2003, ISAMA held a joint conference in Granada, Spain with another math art organization, Bridges. Over the past twenty years, I have participated in many Bridges conferences and exhibitions all over the world. This involvement has given me much inspiration and led to lasting friendships. When Gary asked me to write an article about my work for JMA, I was both honored and a little intimidated. I had written artist’s statements over the years but nothing that had to go through the rigorous review process of an academic journal. The editor was patient and helped me publish a description of my artistic goals that still serves me: