artful science

One of my readers, Stan, sent a link, Metamorphosis: Art School outreach breathes life into QKE’s arts education from the Honolulu Art Museum about teaching science and the arts. The article features his grand niece. It is certainly true that there is a very fine line between science and the arts, and that schools acted with utter stupidity when they formed classes in which one neglects the other. The arts without science are often lacking what's needed to create great art, and science without the arts? Same deal.

I am reminded of a story told by a friend whose son became a physicist in Chicago. He was told they would have to wait over the weekend and put in an order for the machinists to prepare a device before continuing their experiment. Being the son of a carpenter, he went to his local ace hardware store instead, and had made what they needed before his co-workers showed up on Monday morning.

Our art teacher at Clear Spring School asked if we could make pantographs in wood shop. They could make them from cardboard as shown, but being made from wood makes them lasting and even beautiful:

The video is something math, science and art students should be studying and offers a pantograph they can make. If you listen all the way through to the end of it, there are some nice words about measuring your world, and making things so that you know how to draw them and better understand the world around you.

Make, fix, create, and by example, suggest that others may learn likewise