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 RESUME SKETCH

 

     I was born during WWII and can remember making nurses, soldiers, parachutists and later, ballerinas, out of pipe cleaners and fabric scraps given to me by my grandmother, who was an artist.

     I discovered that I could draw when I was ten, in a huge citywide drawing class. I drew constantly during all my classes in junior high. I discovered perspective drawing in an art class and I was hooked.

     This was an entree into the world of mathematics, which has been my great passion since then. In high school and college I studied math and science. I received a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from Newcomb College of Tulane University in 1961. After graduation, since I had taken no courses in art as an undergraduate, I studied painting and drawing at the Newcomb Art School and later at Centenary College and Louisiana State University in Shreveport. I am fortunate to have had many gracious and helpful mentors.

     After twenty years of teaching math I was a winner of a Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching. I have had several one-woman shows and two events in science museums.  I traveled extensively for twenty-three years on all seven continents. 

    I am a studio artist and I work in many media. I am currently working on a series of paintings, collages, drawings and structures relating art and math.

                                        

                                                            

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

          

    Art is hard to define, but three words characterize the work that I most admire: ORDER FROM CHAOS. I believe that art can be beautiful, sensitive, lyrical, and strong. It can also have a message.

    For many years I taught calculus and geometry and made paintings. I made large floral still lifes in a loose, painterly, realistic and somewhat dramatic format using both oils and acrylics. Later I did watercolors- smaller and more detailed. I was also immersed in a project I designed relating math to the fine arts and humanities. I called it “A Mathematical Magic Show”. This began as a school event and became a geometry exhibit for science museums, renamed “Spaceshapes” My motivation for the project was to show that math and art have a rich history together in a culture where the two disciplines are rarely mentioned in the same breath. I was further inspired by a meeting of artist-mathematicians from all over the world, which I attended at the State University of New York at Albany in 1995.

    Several years ago it occurred to me that I could convey a lot of math through paintings and geometric structures. I am interested in conveying the essence of the elegant and less familiar geometries as a motivational device.  This involves intense research on the topics I want to illustrate and has required inventing and mastering new techniques.  My work is currently focused on this project, which I find immensely challenging, satisfying and enjoyable.

 

                                                                      

Louisiana Public Broadcasting
Season 3 Episode 313
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Shreveport artist Harriet Stone Evans combines her math skills with her love of painting to create designs she says can be helpful in understanding mathematical equations.

Presentations

 

   Conference for the Advancement of Mathematics Teaching "A Mathematical Magic Show"  San Antonio, TX 1989

 

   Independent Schools Association of the Southwest  "A Mathematical Magic Show"  San Antonio, Tx  1990

 

   National Council of Teachers of Mathematics   SPACESHAPES   Boston, MA  1995

 

   Association of Science and Technology Centers  SPACESHAPES  St. Louis, MO 1997

 

Awards

  

  Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching 1990

 

  State of Louisiana- Governor's Award 1990

 

Publication  

 

  Journal of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

  "A Mathematical Magic Show"   October 1990

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