Blessed by the exquisite anatomy of our hands and the infinite crossing points between the so-called right and left brain, we blend the vision of the imagination with technical know-how. We are the God Kings and Queens of Tool-Makers, and with these hands we make everything…
Art Meets Science: Glass
- Blown Glass Baskets, Dale Chihuly
Discovered thousands of years ago, the science and technology of glass continues to enthrall and astound us. Quartz in the form of silica-sand is the primary constituent in window and art glass. Various oxides of calcium and boron, as well as colorants are added to the silica sand to give the glass the desired properties.
The first glass blowing techniques were developed in Syria over 2,000 years ago. Not much has changed in the methods or equipment since then, though the understanding of glass and melt behavior has certainly increased.
Click here for a short history of Glassblowing (http://www.seattleglassblowing.com/glass_history.html)
Science Meets Art: Porcelain Pottery with Copper Red Glaze
- 21st Century Copper Red Vase, Heather Mills, Christo Giles, New Zealand
Red is a difficult color to produce in a glaze (which is nothing more than a glass) but the Chinese discovered the technology ~5ooo years ago. Oxygen atoms are stripped from the copper oxides in the glaze during the reducing atmosphere of wood-fired kilns. Not only that, the copper particles suspended in the melted glaze must be approximately the same size as the wavelength of red light, or the color will not be red. Too small particles gives no color at all, and too large particles give a fleshy color that is only occasionally attractive. Click here or on the image above for more information about copper red glazes.
Art Meets Science: Red Paint
Back in the day of the Alchemists, before the Periodic Table of the Elements had been invented, artists made their own paints, by grinding minerals from the landscape (or bugs) into powder, adding a binding agent, and voila! oil paint! Red and purples were beastly difficult to make. Red dye could only be produced by the crushed carcasses of the insect Cochineal, found mainly in Mexico and South America. The famed Red Coats that Paul Revere warned the countryside about had been dyed with Cochineal.
These days, artists use commercially-prepared paints. Red? No problem! Cadmium, from the Periodic Table is used to make both red and yellow oil and acrylic-based paints–another technological innovation in painting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylic_paint.
Art Meets Science: Yves Klein International Blue
Back in the late 1950’s, the French artist Yves Klein, with the aid of Edouard Adam, a Parisian paint dealer, developed a pigment known as IKB (International Klein Blue). Using an alternative to the traditional linseed oil base, which tends to cloud the color, Klein produced a paint the color of the mineral lapis lazuli.
- Klein’s purpose was not only to make a better blue; he wished to evoke the “authenticity of the pure idea.” Prior to IKB, his monochromatic paintings had been of a variety of colors and people reacted to a gallery showing of them as if they were each a part of a mosaic. Not what he had in mind…read more here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yves_Klein)
Science Meets Art: The Art of Science Competition, Princeton University
- In 2011, 20 university departments submitted 168 pieces of art to a competition sponsored by Princeton University, around the theme “Intelligent Design.“
Click on image below to view 11 of the 56 works chosen. Nothing more needs to be said, other than: “Where are the other 44?”
Mary C Simmons ... Art and Word 
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