The Art of Numbers

Most of my life as a scientist, the job of numbers was to measure subtle changes in our theories.  I never gave much thought to the symbol itself. Numbers were written with little thought other than what is represented. I never took the time to think, “Wow, those numbers are pretty.”

Now that I’m exploring the creative side of expression, I see the beauty in numbers. Sometimes a number is a flowing image with flourishes and color, other times it is ultra modern in its monochromatic simplicity.  All the time, it still represents a finite value….Marvelous!  Maybe even “Cool!”

Numbers are recognized everywhere.  Do we ever stop to think about how many different ways numbers impact our lives? Perhaps the thought of “stop and think about a number” will be the artistic equivalent to “stop and smell the roses.” 

Recently Tonya Davenport from CREATE MIXED MEDIA blog invited mixed media artists to create seven days’ worth of numbers sets for the project “The Week as Art”. I was honored to participate in this project on the week of January 15-21.

My numbers are photomontages created in Photoshop. I use my photographs as the ingredients for photomontages. Numbers and letters are my special interest, I photograph them a lot. As for backgrounds and textures, I often photograph things that the majority of people in their right mind would never consider noticing (pieces of paper, scratches on metal, paint splotches etc.). I love the process of building my photomontages by layering and blending together all the pieces until I get the desired result.

Here are the numbers for this week.