2024 Joint Mathematics Meetings
QED Arts (Jessica K. Sklar & Bronna A. Butler)
Artists
Jessica K. Sklar & Bronna A. Butler (QED Arts, LLC)
Professor of Mathematics / Mathematical Artist
Pacific Lutheran University / B. A. Baroque Arts, LLC
Seattle, Washington, USA / Watchung, New Jersey, USA
https://tinyurl.com/qedartsllc
Statement
Mathematician Jessica K. Sklar and artist Bronna A. Butler began collaborating as QED Arts, LLC in Spring 2020, after serendipitously connecting at the Joint Mathematics Meetings. They create pieces that celebrate mathematics as a humanistic endeavor and honor its elegance, working from the premises that mathematics is for everyone and that whimsy and mathematics are not mutually exclusive.
Artworks
Our pastel depicts a fictionalized version of Leonhard Euler’s 18th-century study in St. Petersburg, Russia. Components of the piece include pages depicting two important formulas associated with Euler (the polyhedral formula \(V-E+F=2\) and the complex analysis formula \(e^{ix}= \cos x+i \sin x\)); various polyhedra; and an imagined Eulerian feline companion playing with a Königsberg Bridge-inspired cat toy. Also included is a snuffed-out candle, a traditional element of vanitas paintings symbolizing the transience of life: this, juxtaposed with the results of Euler’s work, emphasizes the fact that while earthly life is transient, one’s contribution to the world—in this case, Euler’s mathematical work—is eternal.