My wife Erin is a jewelry designer and silversmith with a background in mathematics, and geometric forms and an understanding of how mathematical relationships appear in nature often feeds into her design process. I’d even say she gets almost spiritual about it – while staying perfectly rational. Both of us paint at an amateur level and likewise find our non-artistic backgrounds feeding into that, not spoiling it.

As an animal sculptress you may like to check out the work of Loet Vanderveen: http://www.coastgalleries.com/vanderveen/index.cfm. He talks of the importance of studying the real animal to extract and freeze the essence of a characteristic movement. It’s also interesting to see what happens when artists reproduce animals without that kind of information – see my post on the Otaheite Dog: http://communicatescience.com/zoonomian/2008/11/30/roast-dog-and-aquatint/

And what a shame you feel the need to keep your inspiration under wraps. It sounds like some of your artist colleagues and customers are actively avoiding scientific understanding – like they’d get infected and be unable to function.

It would be really interesting to see someone who takes that view explain exactly how they feel. Any takers?

I’m an artist, but I also have a background in zoology and botany. I spend a great deal of time around other artists, and not to be too stereotyping, most of them have no background in science and no interest in science. I sculpt a lot of animals and very occasionally I will be asked how I get them to look so alive and in motion. If I mention truthfully that I have been inside a few dozen animals and have learned how they work, other artists will look at me with utter disgust. Some of my artist friends also know I am a skeptic and they will occasionally talk about how I must be missing out with no spiritual component to my art.

They miss how much I enjoy feeling the curve of muscle as I fill in the clay – knowing the animal’s shoulder for my own, and the joy of fellow feeling and epiphany in knowing I am part of that sculpture in a certain special way. But for a few genes here and there, I am no different than the fox I made to top a pot – the vertebrae, the alignment of the skull, two eyes looking back. To claim that I am missing out is missing the point – science makes the connection to my art all the stronger and all the sweeter.

It makes me sad that I am afraid to make it very public that I am skeptical and an artist. So many of my customers subscribe to the supernatural that if I made it clear that my inspiration is my admiration for natural forms, evolution and physical motion, I may lose a good number of them. So, I am afraid to say anything, to explain that I love bones and not souls might render me bankrupt.

Also, the example of Feynman clarifies my statement that people who don’t understand are missing out. I’m sure there were aspects of the world that he understood at a level I never will, and I’m comfortable admitting I’m missing out on the reward he got from that. Equally, I’m happy to admit I’m doubtless missing out on much good Chinese literature because I can’t read Chinese; but if I did understand it and enjoyed it, I would encourage others to learn. That’s where I’m at with science in this post – no more, no less.

Very cool.