Introduction Post
This is Not an Art Blog . Com | Introduction Post + Meaning Behind the Title of TBMOC
Hello, this is E. Ozie!!! I’m here to give an introduction post on my entire blog, This Is Not an Art Blog . Com, and give a little introduction to my book. This blog is featured in my novel, THE BEAUTIFUL MATH OF CORAL, and inside the book, it was written from the perspective of Coral.
Coral meant for This Is Not An Art Blog . Com to never talk about art and only break down the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics topics (I wonder how that worked out for her…)
Now any blog posts after this will be written from the perspective of Coral, in her sometimes quirky, sometimes heartfelt tone. Unless I pop in and say “Hey it’s E. Ozie,” you’ll know it’s written in Coral’s perspective.
The Beautiful of Math of Coral was started in my room in the sweltering heat that was the summer of 2020.
How this book came about so quickly is a blur to me. Looking back, I wish I documented everything on a polaroid camera so there could be some nostalgic effect. Thankfully, I have dozens of sticky notes filled in my backpack and other places to remind me of the lovely work that came about as The Beautiful Math of Coral.
Amongst flipping through my sticky notes, there’s one thing I remember having a hard time with — I couldn’t figure out what my girl main character’s name should be. I wanted it to be something that showed perfectly the blend or similarity between art and STEM. I couldn’t move forward in the development of the book unless I had “the name” (dun dun dun).
Everything about this book felt serendipitous which could be a whole blog post in itself but I’ll keep this short. I found a video on the TED-Ed website titled “The Beautiful Math of Coral” and before clicking on it I thought it was going to have something to do with the color coral (shrugs shoulders).
In the video, Margaret Wertheim talked about the merging of art, science, and math when describing crochet coral reefs. She re-creates coral reefs by using a technique developed by mathematicians. Her projects show the beauty and intersection of nature, math, art, and crochet.
What she was describing and what I found through research was what I exactly wanted to do in my novel — show the beauty and intersection of STEM and art, which a lot of people may not think this way.
After watching the video, I was inspired to write about coral reefs and bring light to them in a symbolic sense. I knew my character had to be called Coral (unless someone would read a book with a character named Symmetry) and the title had to have Coral in it. So, I decided to use the title from the TED talk and The Beautiful Math of Coral was born.
