Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m an artist and an educator in the field of Visual Communication, As an educator, I write and publish in various professional and academic publications. As an artist, I write to reach a larger audience and share my enthusiasm for the work I’m involved in. For example, the “364-1 project” book ( https://www.amazon.com/s/field-keywords=9781367543645 ) relates to the evolution of a design over 365 days and what happens in an artist’s mind during the creative process.
Art inspired by science is a long tradition successfully represented by the like of Leonardo, and later Picasso. As scientists today are more likely to share their work in a format all can access electronically, it has become an endless source of inspiration for artists of all media, be it music, dance or visual art. It was my inspiration and sustained my effort for the book “52 grains of sand – Geometry of Nature” that explores and illustrate the geometry of 52 families of crystals based on the resources of a well-known Geoscience library and a scientific modeling software. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1388881535/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i9
I write both to introduce my visual work in its context and to encourage the reader to join me in a multifaceted celebration. The goal of the Math-Art series ( http://bit.ly/JCGBooks ), now at #8, is an open invitation to join me in the pleasure of discovering the wealth and beauty of the seen-unseen universe, regardless of age, background, and education.
As many visual artists, I have long been reluctant to discuss my work in the written format because of the respect I have for the individual perception and experience of the viewer. However, over time, I realized that rather than impede in the free and spontaneous appreciation of an artwork, the explaining of its background and origin, far from distracting, complements and deepens the quality of the reader’s experience and makes my writing more meaningful as well.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The latest volume I wrote for the Math-Art series is titled “The Quaste quandary”. Quaste is a German word whose closest translation English would be a tassel. The name of this unusual geometry shape shows that mathematicians know sometime how not to take themselves too seriously. It also points to the unexpected beauty of many mundane objects around us, be it a knot — or a tassel for that matter.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Writing is an art unto itself. It is also a communication tool. I am an unusual writer. I do not write stories, I write about stories, stories already fully formed as images before the reader’s eye. However, I do not write as an art critic to discuss form, technique, and composition. I write about the content of the image, its origin, the process I go through to complete it. In doing so, I use language as a tool to offer readers an additional layer of information they can use to enrich their viewing and reading experience.
Writing is often a painful and demanding challenge for me. Whereas as a visual artist, a white canvas is my imagination needs to start bubbling and percolating, thinking about a white page I must fill with words is enough to freeze and block me even before I even start. To compensate that serious handicap, I copiously add pages after pages with volumes of background material I collect from various sources and that deal with the topic I’m working on. When ready, I get back into it like an editor, cutting, pasting, rearranging sentences until I find my own voice, my own rhythm.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Russian painter and author Wassily Kandinsky influenced me in many ways. His coherent and attractive perspective encouraged me to question and explore anew my visual environment. Furthermore, Kandinsky was also a trained lawyer. His approach to communication carries the rigor and clarity of reasoning of the legal profession. Something I try to follow both to clarify my thoughts relating to art, and in my own writing as well.
In addition, I could quote Paul Klee, his writing is as poetic as his art, D. Hofstadter for his persuasive demonstration of the many connections between science and art. Many other encouraged and inspired me, poets from Homer or Virgil to Hölderlin in Europe or Whitman on this continent, and many others, writers, novelists, journalists I can’t remember by name, but still carry with me somewhere, because they marked or influenced my work, my life, and who I am today.
What are you working on now?
Right now, I’m working on putting together the material for volume #9 and volume #10 of the Math-Art series. The first has to do with Sangaku, a fascinating and unique Japanese tradition that blends geometry, art and Japanese culture of the Edo era. The second has to do with a visual exploration of pattern recognition after the remarkable work of Russian scientist Bongard. A methodology that can be applied just as well in cognitive science, visual arts, and literature.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
As a producer of content, I have very little time for promoting my work properly. I do have a website, publish in the Apple Store, GooglePlay, and Kindle. Ultimately I believe publishing is a collective effort, and promotion is a full-time professional commitment. I see myself as only one element of a much larger process. That’s why I’m glad to assist when I can. Completing this interview is one. Such opportunity not only aids me to clarify for myself what I do and where I stand in the supply chain but hopefully will generate additional support and advice.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Reactivating several articles that have been gathering dust on my desk and waiting to be published and prepare the text of a lecture on Geometry of Nature I will be giving next month at an applied science conference in Crete – which led me to promote volume #4 of the math-Art series – The Riemann conundrum s that celebrates 4th dimensional geometry and the art of Crete. The book will be available for free, August 27-Sept 3 @ http://bit.ly/RiemannManifolds
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Simplify, simplify, simplify. I don’t believe Marcel Proust would have the slightest chance to be published today. It is not a matter of quality, it is a matter of context. Society changes, so its language, It is not surprising that the best film scriptwriters are also excellent authors. Visual and audio exchanges create the rhythm of modern communication. Literature again has to adapt to this environment — which curiously brings us back to Homer. As we all remember, before written, his poetry was first memorized and told orally from village to village. Yet to this day, it still stands as a significant volume in the world literature.
What are you reading now?
I’m about to start the Mathematics of the modernist villa by Ostwald and Dawes, an intriguing approach to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies Van de Roe, and other modernist architects. Books can be entertaining, educational, inspiring. When they carry these 3 components, it satisfies in me the short time I can afford reading and listening and encourages me to look for a new perspective in my own work.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Reactivating several articles that have been gathering dust on my desk and waiting to be published and prepare the text of a lecture on Geometry of Nature I will be giving next month at an applied science conference in Crete – which led me to promote volume #4 of the math-Art series – The Riemann conundrum s that celebrates 4th dimensional geometry and the art of Crete. The book will be available for free, August 27-Sept 3 @ http://bit.ly/RiemannManifolds
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
I am privileged in the sense that meaningful books I read many years ago are still populating recesses of my memory. Additionally, I don’t have that disposition that makes some of us enjoy seeing the same movie over and again. My choice would definitely look toward the future rather than the past. As I mentioned earlier probably Kandinsky On the Spiritual in Art, food for the mind as well as the senses, maybe the Eneid, a very, very long poem that could occupy many nights and last a book that would keep me occupied for many months and more: the Sanpo Jojutsu, a volume of Japanese Sangaku problems published originally in the mid-1800s, that encompass the basis of universal, Euclidian geometry and the beauty of art sustained by sound observation of natures
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