A Book Launch in Memory of John Sharp

Year: 2022 Authors: Eva Knoll; Felicity Wood; Paul Gailiunas; Vinay Kathotia; Andrew Griffin

Core claim

The Bridges launch event celebrated John Sharp’s contributions by presenting an e-book, exhibition, and gathering centered on his mathematics-art legacy.

Topics

book launch, memorial tribute, mathematics and art, Bridges community

Domains

transformations, developable surfaces, anamorphosis, inversion, sliceform sculpture, Op-Art, quilt design, mobile construction

Methods

exhibition, e-book compilation, collaborative remembrance, model making

Media

e-book, works inspired by John Sharp, sliceform card, D-form

Paper text

The text below is the locally extracted OCR/Markdown version of the paper. Raw PDF files remain local and are not published here.

Bridges 2022 Conference Proceedings

A Book Launch in Memory of John Sharp

Eva Knoll ${}^1$ , Felicity Wood ${}^2$ , Paul Gailiunas ${}^2$ , Vinay Kathotia ${}^4$ and Andrew Griffin ${}^5$

${}^1$ Département de mathématiques, Université du Québec à Montréal; knoll.eva@uqam.ca ${}^2$ 93 Woodstock Road, Oxford, OX2 6HL, UK; felicityswood@gmail.com

${}^3$ 25 Hedley Terrace, Gosforth, Newcastle, NE3 1DP, UK; paulgailiunas@yahoo.co.uk

${}^4$ School of Mathematics and Statistics, The Open University, UK; vinay.kathotia@open.ac.uk

${}^5$ Tarquin publications, London, UK; info@tarquingroup.com

Abstract

The e-book, Sharp Forms: Life at the Edge of Mathematics and Art, celebrates the life and work of John Sharp, a longstanding Bridges-attendee, who passed away in 2020. This paper describes the launch of the e-book, scheduled during one of the short paper sessions at Bridges 2022, including an exhibition of works made or inspired by John.

Celebrating the life and work of John Sharp

At the 2021 online Bridges meeting, a group of delegates came together for the John Sharp Celebration Gathering, to talk about and remember an assiduous fellow Bridges-attendee, John Sharp, from England, who passed away in 2020. John contributed many papers and talks, both on his own [5-12], and with a variety of co-authors [1-3, 13]. He was also instrumental in the organisation of Bridges London (2006). John was a strong supporter of both artists and mathematicians who wanted to join forces in creating, investigating, and disseminating ideas connecting the two practices. In many cases, he helped by introducing people to each other, or by providing support himself. He touched many lives.

After listening to each other reminisce about the difference John made in our lives, we discussed the creation of an e-book that would collect together stories, articles and images that came into existence because of our friend.

Figure 1: a sliceform Christmas card (left) and a D-form (right)

The outcome of this project has been the e-book Sharp Forms: Life at the Edge of Mathematics and Art [4], with a book launch scheduled during one of the short paper sessions, including an exhibition of works made or inspired by John Sharp, copies of the e-book, and a gathering of friends, old and new.

Knoll et al.

Sharp Forms: Life at the Edge of Mathematics and Art

The e-book contains anecdotes about John’s networking, articles about the ideas he nourished, personally or in others, as well as activities and models to play with that are inspired by his life. There are even ways that readers can contribute further to the volume. A large part of this e-book is available for free, and any profit generated by the rest will go towards projects that continue his work in other forms.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to all the contributors to the e-book, and to the Bridges community, for making the e-book and its launch possible.

References

[1] E.K. Ellison and J. Sharp. “Tiled Torus Quilt with Changing Tiles”. Bridges Conference Proceedings, Pécs, Hungary, 24–28 July, 2010, pp. 67–74. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2010/bridges2010-67.html [2] J.L. Hunt and J. Sharp. “The Mathematics of the Channel Anamorphosis”. Bridges Conference Proceedings, Leeuwarden, Netherlands, 24–28 July, 2008, pp. 149–154. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2008/bridges2008-149.html [3] E. Knoll, J. Sharp and R. Tobie. “Using D-Forms to Create a Calder Type Mobile”. Bridges Conference Proceedings, Leeuwarden, Netherlands, 24–28 July, 2008, pp. 457–458. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2008/bridges2008-457.html [4] E. Knoll, F. Wood, P. Gailiunas, V. Kathotia and A. Griffin. Sharp Forms: Life at the edge of mathematics and art. London: Tarquin Publications, 2022. [5] J. Sharp. “Problems with Holbein’s Ambassadors and the Anamorphosis of the Skull”. Bridges Conference Proceedings, Winfield, Kansas, USA, 28–30 July, 1998, pp. 157–166. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/1998/bridges1998-157.html [6] J. Sharp. “Sliceform Sculptures - a Bridge between Art and Mathematics”. Bridges Conference Proceedings, Winfield, Kansas, USA, 28–30 July, 1998, pp. 275–276. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/1998/bridges1998-275.html [7] J. Sharp. “Beyond the Golden Section – the Golden tip of the iceberg”. Bridges Conference Proceedings, Winfield, Kansas, USA, 28–31 July, 2000, pp. 87–98. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2000/bridges2000-87.html [8] J. Sharp. “A Transformation Sketchbook”. Bridges Conference Proceedings, Towson, Maryland, USA, 27–29 July, 2002, pp. 25–36. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2002/bridges2002-25.html [9] J. Sharp. “Two Perspectives on Inversion”. Bridges Conference Proceedings, Granada, Spain, 23–25 July, 2003, pp. 197–204. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2003/bridges2003-197.html [10] J. Sharp. “D-forms and developable surfaces”. Bridges Conference Proceedings, Banff, Canada, 31 July – 3 August, 2005, pp. 121–128. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2005/bridges2005-121.html [11] J. Sharp. “Linkages to Op-Art”. Bridges Conference Proceedings, London, UK, 4–8 August, 2006, pp. 497–502. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2006/bridges2006-497.html [12] J. Sharp. “Rigge Envelopes as Art Inspiration”. Bridges Conference Proceedings, Coimbra, Portugal, 27–31 July, 2011, pp. 171–178. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2011/bridges2011-171.html [13] M.C. Williams and J. Sharp. “A Collaborative Parabolic Quilt”. Bridges Conference Proceedings, Towson, Maryland, USA, 27–29 July, 2002, pp. 143–149. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2002/bridges2002-143.html