Dad was a theoretical physicist, probably a better name for his field would be ‘applied mathematics’. He was more at home with math than people. He had a hard time figuring them out and left that to Mom. Looking back, Dad would have probably qualified to be on the spectrum of autistic personalities, had one […]
G.H. Hardy’s A Mathematician’s Apology Mathematics I must have read the back cover of A Mathematician’s Apology by G.H. Hardy, before I bought it. The notes included an endorsement by Graham Green, who “hailed it alongside Henry James’s notebooks ‘as the best account of what it is like to be a creative artist’.” I have […]
Ever since I had the good fortune to visit the The Identity Shift Project site built by Jessica Safran a fellow NYU alum and Julie Hassett Sutton, fine art photographer, everything I read seems to be about shifting identity. When you think about it, life is about shifting identity. One forms his or her identity […]
Potential muses Well, inspiration didn’t come knocking today as I hoped it would. There are some potential muses on the horizon, so to speak. Out of five avocado pits, two of them sprouted a root (one each). I kept one in water and planted the other in a small pot. Oh, and by the way, […]
I have been reading Plato at the Googleplex by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. For me, its like taking a sip from a firehose. I have a keen interest in philosophy, but no training and only passing acquaintance with the highlights of the field. As an engineer by training, I am used to getting down to basics. This […]
One of the rewards of being interested in a number of different topics is the satisfaction of noting similarities and connections in seemingly disparate areas. For instance, after I re-read The Stranger, by Albert Camus, it struck me that the main character had some traits displayed by some autistic individuals. Perhaps the similarity is a trivial coincidence; perhaps by making […]
In addition to the books I mentioned yesterday, I am reading The Book of Dead Philosophers by Simon Critchley. I enjoy philosophy. It is thought provoking, and after all, what’s better than thinking? Philosophizing On the first page of the introduction to The Book of Dead Philosophers, Critchley gets right to the point, quoting Cicero: […]
Good question… My interest in studying artists like Paul Klee and Hans Hofmann is to gain a better understanding of how these artists translated their visions into visual language. One of my favorite quotes from Klee is, “An artist does not reproduce the visible, but rather, makes visible.” One of the most vexing things about […]
I am looking for ways to better express myself visually. I have been studying the work and teachings Paul Klee and am just now beginning to study Hans Hofmann’s philosophy and art. The library came through with my copy of Hans Hofmann by William C. Seitz,(1972 Reprint edition, Published for The Museum of Modern Art, by Arno Press). […]
Alas, my failed attempt at depicting a simple field of poppies has raised some ire, not the least of which is mine. My design was seemingly simple: a green field below, sky above and a look downward on a field of poppies. I unwittingly, and independently reproduced the flag of Poppystan. I hereby apologize to […]
