ARTWORK INSPIRED BY MY DAD

My father, Bill Mathews, was a professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics here at UCSC for over five decades. His curiosity and enthusiasm for new ideas and investigation was unending!

After his death in September 2021, our family began the gradual process of sorting through his papers - both at his home office and his office here on campus. He left behind hundreds of binders full of notes - at least one binder for each course he taught, paper he published, or idea he explored. 

This body of artwork started after talking with another artist friend who had also recently lost her father. We encouraged each other to start creating work and see where it led. In my dad’s papers I found so much of his spirit - his spunk and passion and humor and deep love for astronomy. Pages of calculations filled with exclamations of amazement, frustration, uncertainty, and revelation. Spending time with his notes feels like spending time with him. The art work emerged from the notes themselves. 

A person’s handwriting captures so much of their spirit, and it has been poignant to spend so much time with my dad’s actual marks, to study them as artistic marks as much as scientific content, and then to make my own marks on top of his. It is a kind of fresh merging, which feels powerful after the sense of separation that first comes with a death.  

Most of these works are done on my dad’s actual notes and papers. In some cases I worked with the binders themselves, turning them into canvas boards. Some drawings were done with the pens and (countless!) mechanical pencils that my dad left behind in his office. Some pieces are collages, digital collages, oil paintings, acrylic painting, or combinations! 

For me, of course, this is a series of work about my own dad, remembering him and sharing him with the world. It is my hope that these pieces also speak to a larger experience of loss and intimacy and remembering and honoring.