I
ITPenland Line
B B PENLAND SEHnni OF rRAR"; • POR OFFTrF ROX R7 • PFMI AND
PENLAND SCHOOL OF CRARS • POST OFFICE BOX 37 • PENLAND • NORTH CAROLINA • 28765-0037 • FALL 1999
The Rigor of Art—The Metaphors of Science
have anything in common.
I began by asking Don
about the concept of rigor.
Articles about research fre
quently talk about rigor,
which I presumed had to do
with following the rules of
the scientific method. Arti.sts
are supposed to break all the
rules, so 1 thought this might
be an area of real difference.
“Rigor,” Don explained,
“is not really about a preci
sion of measurement or a
cleanliness of experimental
design as much as the under-
On the surface, this might have been a tvpical gathering of
artists or a panel discussion at a craft convention. I sat in a
room full of people comparing notes on questions such as,
what is the role of technical mastery in your work? or what
motivates you to move on to the next thing? or what do you
do when you get stuck? The answers were familiar: it’s impor
tant to work without thinking about technique; the next step
comes from everything I’ve done before; failure can be as
in.structivc as succe.ss.
What made this discussion different was that while half the
participants were Penland area craftspeople, the other half
were ncurobiologists and their support staff. Their contribu
tions to the familiar discussions were informed not by strug
gling with form, color, and materials, but by the challenges of
DNA research aimed at finding genes which reverse the effects
of stroke.
The visiting group was the entire staff of Cogent
Neuroscience, a company which former Penland trustee Max
Wallace helped start as a platform for unconventional genetic
research proposed by neurobiologist Don Lo.
The gathering, which took place at Penland in October,
grew out of conversations that Max had with several Penland
staff members. He proposed shutting down the company for a
few days and bringing everyone to Penland where they could
spend time with people who were also involved in creative,
challenging, and unpredictable work. The hope was that both
groups might be inspired by exploring common ground. So
Program Coordinator Stacey Lane assembled a group of
Penland resident artists, studio coordinators, and neighbors to
spend a few days working and Rohm Drcycr
talking with the Cogent staff.
The event began with a
papermaking workshoj) led by
Ann Marie Kennedy, then
small groups .spent time work
ing in several of the artists’
studios. Everyone made pre
sentations about their work
(the craftspeople showed slides,
the biologists jTrojected images
from a laptop computer), and
we had energetic discussions
on prcj)ared and spontaneous Not jour average group of PcnIanJ students. Neurohiologist Don Lo and
several of his colleagues during a figure drawing and sculpture session which
and a few of the Penland artists to spend some time looking mation. He feels that the best science can be seen as a quest for
for areas where scientific practice and artistic practice don’t knowledge, but he prefers to describe it as an attempt to
Cogent h'euroscicncc
understand some aspect of one’s surroundings or one’s self.
Which, it almost goes without saying,
is the way many artists describe their
work.
The next morning, sculptors
Louise Radochonski and BobTrotman
led everyone in a figure drawing and
sculpting session that generated as
much energy as I’ve ever seen in a
Penland class. It would have been
impossible for a casual observer to
distinguish between the two groups.
In a discussion that followed,
glassblower Rob Levin unknowingly
picked up the thread of my story.
Artists, he said, often work with
, . . . r 1 ^ photograph neurons which were subjected to stroke
\mg oglc o w at you are conditions and then resuscitated as part of the DNA research being metaphor or they try to to create
trying to do. In other words, conducted at Cogent Neuroscience. Several of the biologists spoke of the objects that carry some kind of reso-
did you ask the right question ''"7 i" »->'*"« “«'■ ' „„cc. He wontiered if there could be
and did you design a series of any parallel in the scientific world.
experiments to tell you something about that question?” There were several comments about the aesthetic pleasures of
Ceramist and painter Tom Spleth immecliately commented scientific work, but it was Don who produced the answer to
took place during the Cogent Neuroscience exchange at Penland.
The common ground
turned out to be vast. As we worked our way through conver-
.sations on motivation, inspiration, success, failure, problem
solving, and even grant applications and funding, it became
apparent that the artists and the scientists were speaking a
shared language.
Even where the parallels were not exact, the interchange
was rich. A comment about the changing view of abstract
imagery in painting, for in.stance, led to an explanation of the
evolution in understanding how the brain maps the world.
After two days of endless connections, I decided it was my
journalistic duty to find something we could disagree about.
When the evening session was fini.shed, 1 invited Max, Don
that one of his finest art teachers taught students to evaluate
their work in exactly the same terms: what is your line of
inquiry and are you furthering it with this work? Potter Nick
Joerling continued the thought by comparing Don’s descrip
tion of rigor to his experience on craft juries where the oper
ating logic was also similar. Max
commented that scientific evalu
ation is often subjective and
everyone agreed that in both
fields judgments are based pri
marily on tbe accumulation of
experience.
My second attempt was the
proposal that art tends to be a
solitary pursuit, while science
has become more of a group
effort. Don countered that this
was true in commercial science
but academic science is still
based on independent research.
Then Max interjected that,
although many areas of research require a large team just to
cover the ground, true leaps of understanding are still the
domain of the individual scientist.Then we thought of arti.sts
who cannot accomplish their large-scale work without a team
of apprentices, a.ssistant.s, or fabricators.
Nick sugge.sted that artists arc driven by personal exj^res-
sion while scientists are driven by a search for knowledge, and
those two things are really not the same. Tom objected that
many artists don’t consider self-expression central to their
work. And Don spoke eloquently on the mistaken equation
between the accumulation of information and the acquisition
of knowledge. A lot of science, he said, simply gathers infor-
Rob’s que.stion.
“Scientists often express things through mathematical
models.” he explained. “If you make a model that’s as complex
as the process you are describing, then it does you no good.
You need to make a beautiful, simplified model that distills the
essence of the process; the model functions as a metaphor.
There’s a lot of personality in that work, and you can often tell
who made a model by the way that it’s been structured.”
After lunch and more conversation, the group got together
for summary remarks. Many people expressed delight and sur
prise at the extent to which each group was genuinely interest
ed in the work of the other. Kasturi Puranam, whose work at
Cogent involves gene identification, said she felt as though a
barrier between two worlds had dissolved. “The strange thing
is that I don’t know why that barrier was there; we apjTroach
our problems in .so many similar wavs.”
Louise Radochonski was jjoined by several other craftspeo
ple in applauding the willingness of the Cogent group to jump
into unfamiliar work. And metalsmith Su.sie Ganch found that
she was left with curiosity. She wished she could visit the
Cogent lab and learn more about their work.
The last word, however, went to Don Lo. “Being here has
reminded me of something 1 don’t like to think of too much:
the life of a .scienti.st is a lonely one. You arc perceived to be so
different and you feel that you have to stay in own your limited
world to find people like yourself. 1 now have this feeling that
in this wonderful, .strange place I have all thc.se comrades in
arms.” —Robin Drejer
Susie maj get her wish, as Cogent Neuroscience has extended an
invitation for the Penland group to spend a day at their lab in
Durham, NC. Meanwhile, Metalsmith Marvin Jensen has been consult
ing with Cogent about some of their equipment design.“We may end up
with an artist-designed gene gunfMax reports.