Week 4 - Mathematics and the arts introduction

Part 1 - Reading - Dylan Thomas: Coast Salish artist

The article of the week focused on an "artist profile" of Coast Salish artist, Dylan Thomas. Thomas creates artwork with influences from the Salish culture, tying in his passion for math. Many of his pieces show formidable examples of symmetry, whether rotational, translational through tessellations, or reflective. The reading is unique in the way that the artist "recounts how he came to make his artwork" (Thomas & Schattschneider, 2011), followed by mathematical commentary of the pieces, from Doris Schattschneider.

When printing this article, and any article from our program for that matter, I do not use a colour printer. I was past the halfway point of the article when I finally went onto the computer to view what the pictures looked like. The power of colours that the artist uses really makes the images stand out, especially in those that he uses negative space, such as Ravens Housepost and Eagles Housepost shown below, where he hopes to eventually translate the designs from 2-D to 3-D houseposts.

I really appreciated how the author invited us into his artistic process, sharing not only the details of the art that he created, but also the meaning behind it. Just like many lyrics to songs, Thomas' art is filled with meaning and messages. The one that stood out to me the most was when he speaks of the meaning behind "Salmon Spirits", where it represents the "overcrowding of salmon in the spirit world" (Thomas & Schattschneider, 2011). The art shows the concern that Thomas and many other people from his community share about climate change, and other factors that have contributed to the alarming decline in Salmon populations, and how "their continued decline could be devastating to our (Salish peoples') communities" (Thomas & Schattschneider, 2011). 

The only time that I have ever incorporated art into my math lessons was a project using factor rainbows, factor trees, other items, creating a landscape and "using space". I know that there could be much more opportunity, and my confidence in art is holding me back. Are there any ideas that you have incorporated? While I want to say that opportunities seem more present in the earlier grades, I don't necessarily know if that's true...

References

Dylan Thomas & Doris Schattschneider (2011) Dylan Thomas: Coast Salish artist, Journal of Mathematics and the Arts, 5:4, 199-211, DOI: 10.1080/17513472.2011.625346

Part 2 - Weekly introduction, videos and activity

We need to stop defining people as either "math people" or "arts people". The intro to the week shows us that this was not a long standing belief in Eurocentric Western culture, and that other cultures don't see this barrier. Knowing that makes it feel more attainable to try to help unite both the arts and math. The weeks videos and activities show us that attaining harmony between the two groups is certainly possible.

Videos - Vi Hart showed me a new way to visualize sounds. Her Doodle Music video, much like others in her collection, took me a couple watches to grasp its complexity, for sheer volume for lack of a better word. The Sound Braid was hypnotic, and also reminded me that with the proper software, activities like this are simpler than they seem. I have a similar paid for software, and there is plenty of math in simply copy pasting different rhythms and tones, and shifting and playing around with different timings like Vi Hart does. If anyone knows of any free software, please do share. It would be a great option that students could play around with, and with many schools, including my own, not having music classes throughout their day, incorporating music into math would give students that exposure that is lacking.

Activity - I've tried my best to replicate the artwork from Teja Krasek, from the 2014 Bridges collection. It stood out to me because of how my perception of the shape changed depending on where I was looking. I used to (and still do) draw a 3-d transparent cube, and enjoy how my eyes and brain change perspective depending on which side of the cube I assume is at the forefront. It's an easy activity in class that makes the students say "whoa". This shape below offers similar feelings. Do you see it in 3-D? When imitating the image, I thought, why is one parallelogram in beige split in two? Focusing my attention on that gave me the "whoa" feeling.

This is the image that inspired me. From the 2014 Bridges conference, by Teja Krasek

 

Here is my first attempt, without tools, with subsequent notes about how to improve

After using a protractor and ruler, as well as three colours, I did my best to imitate the art shared by Krasek (2014)

"Whoa"