2024 Joint Mathematics Meetings
Edmund Harriss
Artists
Edmund Harriss
Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Art
University of Arkansas
Statement
Mathematician, Artist, Teacher, Maker, I work to corrupt people into mathematical thinking and experiences through toys, coloring images and more. We do so much work to show that mathematics is worthy and useful (as it is), but less to show the deep sense of joy and play that inspires so many mathematicians in their work. I believe mathematical art and toys are paths into maths that can both lead to deep ideas and motivate the rigorous study required to capture them.
Artworks
When using digital manufacturing to render geometry the mathematics is often imposed on the material. As a material, however, wood talks back, revealing patterning of grain, whatever the geometry does. Yet the grain itself is a geometric structure that also reveals the history of the wood itself. This piece uses the grain of a disk of wood, as an input creating an artwork that takes its material into account in creating geometry. Furthermore, by carving always at right angles to the grain of the wood the cuts are as cleans as possible, allowing for a carving with dramatic height shifts between the cuts made into the wood.