Science without art is sterile. Art without science is absurd. – Leonardo DaVinci.
I like this quote because, as an artist, I’m a realist too. But my self-confidence became a bit battered in my high school days since science proved not to be my long suit.
Same with math.
I found that stuff just a bit too “scientific”. That’s probably why, after my second attempt at passing grade nine, I dumped the regular courses for a stint at a school that taught the basics of a trades-type career. Besides, they bribed me to go there offering me passage into grade ten if I took them up on it. It was an all boys school and I didn’t fancy that. But, I grit my teeth and went ahead with it anyway.
Turns out I was pretty good at working with my hands and my confidence went up a notch or two. Although that wasn’t saying much.
It was an interesting experiment but, truth be told, it still didn’t push that many of my buttons. I didn’t see myself becoming a professional welder, an electrician, or a machinist. (Although later in life I could have used those skills a time or two.)
I preferred the Leonardo model.
That special blend of artistic invention with scientific grounding was way more appealing. Too bad I was about 500 years too late to learn from him personally but, then again, my languages teacher was French not Italian. I wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Eventually I got through high school by opting into a special art course. It was an important move and the timing was right. It was my second attempt at grade ten. (They made me yet another a deal I couldn’t refuse.)
It was also a return to a co-ed school and that I believed was necessary given the importance of feminine sensitivity into the whole artistic thing. I much enjoyed my time there. Leonardo would have made the same choice I think. A school of all boys and great art/science doesn’t even sound possible to me personnaly.
Besides, my teenage biological clock was ticking. I didn’t want to be in my mid-twenties and still be working my way through grade 12 high school classes.
Of course I did eventually graduate and went on to a design school in a new start-up community college about five hours driving time from my home. I chose that one because I loved the idea of designing shape and form then making it useful in a commercial world.
It was my kind of thing. I love newness especially when the newness is my idea. Or so I thought. But alas, I’ve since come to understand that most “new” ideas are simply some sort of modification of another’s brilliance. That was another confidence killer right there.
But eventually I discovered there is such a thing as pure newness. In my own nomenclature here atop this website I’m not borrowing on Leonardo but from an obscure mathematician who lived some 150 years ago. His name was August Ferdinand Mobius
He was the one credited with the invention of the Mobius Strip, which in my humble opinion was totally new, and is the greatest metaphor for duality/singularity I have ever seen. I use it often to demonstrate how my own invention can save anyone’s self-confidence from going too far down the pipe. It’s what I used to save my own confidence from disappearing.
It also fits the essence of what I’m trying to demo with these little videos too. It shows how a literary device like the palindrome can work with the art of shape.
It’s a two-for-one offer of insight goodness. Who could refuse that?
More power to you.
