Bay Area Mathematical Artists, I

Yesterday was the first meeting of the Bay Area Mathematical Artists at the University of San Francisco!

It all began one balmy Friday evening in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada at the Bridges 2017 conference….the Mendlers and I hosted a pot luck dinner at our AirBnB, and we realized how many of us were from the Bay area.  In fact, we remarked upon the fact that nine of us were actually on the same flight from San Francisco to Toronto for the conference!

Bridges participants do really form a community.  There is a spirit of sharing and mutual appreciation for each others’ work.  We really do cherish those few days each year when we can all come together.  The only drawback is that Bridges comes around just once a year.

So throughout the evening, between chowing down on grilled fare and sipping a glass of beer or wine, the idea of informally gathering now and then kept cropping up.

But as we all know, ideas do not automatically become reality.  They have a tendency to wither if not watered and fertilized….so I decided to take up gardening.

I had the advantage of being associated with a University, so I could arrange a meeting space.  Location was also somewhat convenient — some of us were to the northeast in Oakland and Berkeley, and others were to the southwest in Santa Clara and Scotts Valley.  It might be nice to move around occasionally so not everyone has to drive as far all the time.  But since the meetings are on Saturdays, at least traffic is not so much of a bother.

And then come the emails!  Yes, lots of them….  The main decision to be made was deciding on a format.  I thought informal was best — I sent out a call for speakers, and put them on the docket on a first-come, first-served basis.  I wanted to take away the stress of competing for time; if there were more speakers than we had time for, we’d just start where we left off the last time.

The other reason for this is that I wanted to encourage students from my Mathematics and Digital Art class, as well as members of the newly formed Digital Art Club, to participate as well.  I think it is important to let mathematical artists of all levels have a place to share ideas and get feedback on their work.

So for our inaugural meeting, we had three speakers:  Chamberlain Fong, Karl Schaffer,  and Dan Bach.

Chamberlain’s talk was entitled The Conformal Hyperbolic Square and Its Ilk.  He discussed different ways to transform circular hyperbolic tilings (particularly those of Escher) to square images.  Chamberlain did give a version of this talk at Bridges in 2016, but included more recent results as well.  For more information, you can contact him at chamberlain@yahoo.com.

Karl Schaffer’s talk was entitled Dance’s Center of Attention Mass.  Inspired by Joseph Thie’s Rhythm and Dance Mathematics and Kasia Williams’ idea of “Center of Attention Mass,” Karl is interested in graphically showing where the center of attention is by weighting the position of each dancer on stage.  He went so far as to contact Thie — now in his 80’s — and they are actively collaborating together.

Karl is also giving the lecture/demonstration Calculated Movements at the Montalvo Art Center next March.  There is more information here.  You can reach Karl at karl_schaffer@yahoo.com.

Finally, Dan Bach’s talk was entitled 3D Math Art and iBooks Author.  Dan is keen on creating highly interactive math books which engage students of all ages.  He gave a practical talk demonstrating the software he uses, including examples of converting graphics to various different formats since it is not always a simple task to take a 3D image created by one software package and import it into another.  You can reach Dan at dan@dansmath.com.

After the talks — which included ample room for Q&A — we had a brief discussion on the future of the group.  I wanted to make it clear that while I am willing to keep things going in the current format, it is really up to the group to decide how to run our meetings.  We opted to keep things going the same way for next month — but suggestions for the future included workshops, or perhaps themed sessions, like a series of talks on polyhedra.  Participants were encouraged to think of other ways to use our time together as a topic of discussion for the next meeting.  Keeping it informal means lessening the pressure of submitting talks/papers for conferences, etc.

Then dinner!  Most of us were available for a meal afterwards.  There were two nice options nearby — a cafe with sandwiches and salads, and an Indian restaurant with a buffet.  I went with the group who preferred Indian food — and truly, a good time was had by all!  We left for dinner at about 5:30, and I finally had to break things up shortly before 8:00, since some of us had a ways to drive home.  We could clearly have kept talking for quite a while….

So our first meeting of the (tentatively named) Bay Area Mathematical Artists was a success!  There were a total of 15 of us present, including three students from USF — a very respectable number for a first time event.  We plan to meet approximately monthly, modulo the University schedule of classes and holidays.

I’ll post summaries each month of our meetings, including a brief synopsis of the talks, workshop(s), or whatever other form the meetings take.  Feel free to contact the speakers for more information about the talks they gave this weekend, and don’t hesitate to spread the word to others who might be interested!