Chromatic Grays

When my brain is tired of making decisions and thinking, I like to let art make those decisions for me. Leftover paint fits the bill to fulfill the “I do not want to think agenda”. I had a plethora of gray, pinks and reds to mix with the grays. Some time and unfinished drawings came together with the gouache and this pretty little painting was the product. My words are not flowing, sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. This is a don’t day. At any rate, I got my painting done and it makes me happy. Its purpose as a distraction from the world worked.

That Day I Met Greg LeMond

I wrote this post some time ago and never published it. I am now with bittersweet feelings. We closed our shop after 22 years of business. It was a difficult decision, but the appropriate time with other job offerings that came available to Roger. Cycling is still a part of our lives!!

Today my ride photo is of my bikes (Grace and Beauty) leaning on each other. I used my road bike to get to the shop so that I could hit some local trails on my mountain bike. After taking the pic, I scanned the background and saw the yellow jersey and realized that I had forgotten that memory. That jersey is autographed by the one and only Greg LeMond. Roger and I have met him, we even got to go on a group ride with him.

Some background. This is bk (before kids) and we were living in Eureka Springs, AR. I was teaching 8th grade math and social studies and Roger was working at the Booze Brothers. Also at that time, Roger was riding for the Wal-Mart cycling team. This team was sponsored by the granddaughter of Sam Walton. Parts of this story sound like a gossip column, so beware. A cool side note is the granddaughter was married to a cyclist who had been on the 1988 and 1992 Olympic Track team. As well as paying for entry fees and travel expenses they also sponsored events to teach and inspire. One such event was a visit by Greg LeMond and Chris Carmichael (of Carmichael Training Systems). That day began with a talk by Greg on his life as a cyclist and Chris shared training insights. When you listen to people talk who give you stars in your eyes, they become more real, human. It reminds me of the saying that “everyone has to put their pants on one leg at a time”. I cannot fail to mention that Greg’s wife, Kathy LeMond was there also, offering her insights. At the end of the talk was a drawing for an autographed, yellow jersey that is now framed and hanging in our shop. But wait, it isn’t over. We get to go on a group ride with both Greg and Chris. I am getting woozy just typing this out. Talk about incredible experience. On the ride, talking and chatting it up we get tidbits of information from both of their lives and the people they have worked with. Chris talks about his work with Rebecca Twig and Lance Armstrong. This was after Armstrong’s recovery with cancer and making his comeback. Side note here: I am pretty sure that Carmichael took a call from Armstrong after our bike ride, Armstrong was training in the Appalachian Mountains. Believe it or not, the day isn’t over after the ride. We go to our sponsors house (the one that has the hyperbaric chamber in it for altitude training) to watch footage of tours that Greg competed in. I will tell you what, sitting literally right next to LeMond and getting the play-by-play and behind the scenes juice was priceless.

There, that is the story behind the yellow jersey hanging at Tailwind Cyclists.

Thinking About Not Thinking

When my brain is soo tired, I do activities that let me not think. This has been the case lately. I also needed to ease myself into some artwork I have been haywire without creating something and it has easily been over two months since I picked up my own artwork. Euler has been my choice of thought to not think about. Drawing a circle and some simple lines creates a composition that I can sit and color, letting my head rest.

Thinking About My Presta Valve

So, I like to take photos of my rides. Each of my rides. I probably ride 5 days a week on average. The photos are a study in composition of my bicycle, sometimes my interaction with my bicycle and the environment. After my ride I like to play with filters on my photos while I stretch out. Between my ride time and the stretch time there is plenty of time to think.

For some reason the presta valve was on my mind. It is so funny what one thought can lead you to. So here is the train of thought tonight about the presta valve.

With bicycles there are two types of valves, schrader and presta. Schrader valves are the same that are on your car tires. They are also present on bikes whose tires take lower air pressure. Presta valves are typically on bikes whose tubes and tires take higher pressure. My road bike runs at 120 psi. I air them up every other day. My mountain bike with tubeless wheels runs at 35 psi. Huge difference in the pressure, huge difference in the terrain and the tires response to that terrain. If I get a flat, it is from tire fatigue. Over time, the tube gets stretches and tears at the valve stem resulting in loss of air. Not fun. This brought me to a memory of an unusual flat. Other than a valve stem tear, gravel and/or glass particles cause a majority of flats. By the way, with regular inspection of your tires and the aide of a sharp knife you can pick those bits of particles out of your tire before they make their way to your tube. Anyways, back to the interesting flat. I had struck out to Raton, NM from Cimmarron, NM, my summer job location. Less than 15 miles into the ride, a flat. Upon checking things out, my flat was cause by a fake diamond earring. The post had gone clean through the tire to the tube. So, I got to change a flat. It is at this point in my train of thought that I realized that some might not have known how to change a flat. My feelings at this point of todays ride were of gratitude. My husband has spent quite a bit of his time showing me this world of biking. One of the first things he did was teach me how to change a flat. Instead of being stranded on a really long, lonely road before cell phones, I was able to fix the problem and get back on my ride. This brought me to another type of flat on this rather long train of thought. Another ride between Eureka Springs and Holiday Island, AR I flatted. This was a bad flat. The tire had a gash in the sidewall about an inch wide. Even if I put a new tube in it, the tube would immediately flat because the pressure would push it back through the tire and explode. These types of flats can be quite dramatic with sound, which immediately goes to yet another story. My husband had trained me well. You have to use a boot. A piece of material, usually an old piece of tire to put over the gash to hold the tire inside. For some reason, I did not have a boot. Finding a piece of cardboard in the ditch saved me on that ride.

Thoughts on the valve stem led me to this. Without the time, patience and knowledge of another person, I would not have known what to do at the time of these events. We need those who will teach is the bottom line. As an educator, I am very worried about teacher shortages. There I said it, this has been weighing me down and I do not know what to do about it besides say the words.

Euler Inspired Artist Statement

Amidst all the inherent difficulties of learning mathematics we forget that it is visually based. There are graphs, charts and several types of images associated with numbers and what they mean to us. I am inspired everyday by what math looks like. I am inspired everyday by what math has the potential to look like. Math in of itself is an abstraction of thought. When we learn to count as children, as soon as we apply a number to a picture in terms of quantity, we are taking our first steps into abstract thought. This amazes me. Exploring via drawings and images, math comes alive for me both for its own sake and that of creativity. It made me giggle when I realized I was using math ideas to divide the plane. Snicker, snicker. Using my art to explore mathematics is a relatively stress free way for me to expose myself to different ideas and learn them in my own fashion.

Euler Inspired and Case 6 are inspired by a math question I found on Twitter. What happens if you take a shape, in this case a circle and draw a line across it? What happens when you draw two lines, three lines, etc? Let’s add something else to this, the lines cross themselves once within the interior of the circle. Starting with case 0 (no lines intersecting the circle) and moving up, what do you observe with the number of intersecting lines, intersecting points and regions created by these lines and points? Can you find a pattern?

As simple as that, a potential treasure trove of visual imagery that flows and moves and has inherent meaning beyond the shapes they depict. This is math play. I can take it as far as I would like or skim the top to introduce concepts. Moving and manipulating numbers and drawings in mathematics is the same as using media in art.

Math is a tool to be used how we see fit. If I want to use it to “build” a picture then so be it. Once the mathematical thought has been applied to the canvas, I love using color to bring the drawing to life. My use of color is at times purposeful, other times experimental. I also love the randomness of using whatever colors are left on my palette after completing a work, satisfied that those paints didn’t go to waste!

Dragons and Unicorns

Dragons and unicorns on my kitchen table. How can you not love the randomness of the objects around us. A powerful combination indeed! My spirit cup and daughter’s hand sanitizer enjoy each others company next to the pepper shaker, toilet paper and paper towels that happen to be sitting on my table. Oh, and those cycling gloves I did not put away. If you know me, you also know that I have issues with horizontal surfaces, they gather everything! When I take a moment to look at the random collections around my home, they remind me of the active life I have and the need to make time for cleaning! It also reminds me of the pig and horse in my medicine cabinet.

Math Play

So yesterday I was involved with some math play. It started from the tweet below from James Tanton (@jamestanton)

What an interesting problem to explore both graphically and mathematically. After playing around with the pictures and numbers for a little bit, I felt compelled to treat one of the graphic solutions as a drawing. The enriched surface brings the feeling of exploring the problem more to the front. Playing with math both numerically and graphically was fun. There was no pressure, just play. But I learned a little something about math outside of my immediate understanding and was reminded of a favorite quote by George Polya.

"A great discovery solves a great problem, but there is a grain of discovery in the solution of any problem. Your problem may be modest, but if it challenges your curiosity and brings into play your inventive faculties, and if you solve it by your own means, you may experience the tension and enjoy the triumph of discovery." ~ George Polya

I like this nice and shiny feeling of learning, learning in a format that does not make me feel less.

Loving on Those Trees

In late May, our home and property was hit by a tornado. We were all safe, however some of the structures were heavily damaged. The aspects of our land that took the most damage (other than the garage, which was a loss) were the trees. We spent the better part of two weeks after work cleaning the organic debris from our lawn. It was difficult to see the tree damage, knowing that replanting is possible but at the great expense of time.

These drawings are for the trees.

While cutting, the visible signs of age and time became evident. As I write this, I am still struggling with my emotions over this event and it makes me want to withdraw from myself and feelings. Next week, I will start studying the biological aspects of tree rings.