Like generations of artists before her, Paula Crevoshay is fascinated by nature. She knows that our sense of wonder in the face of nature inspires both art and science. In fact, there was no distinction between art and science prior to the Renaissance when artists like Leonardo da Vinci took the baton from their forebears and helped lay the groundwork for what would become many different fields in science and engineering.

From a very young age, while she was learning about the properties and techniques of her materials, Crevoshay has been absorbed with understanding how and why everything behaves the way it does. She maintains that knowledge of science is necessary to create fine art masterworks. In The Shape of Matter – Through an Artist’s Eye, Crevoshay uses art to explain science. When we think of the states of matter, most of us think of gas, liquid and solid. The root word for real and reality is the Latin word res, which means thing. For most of us, when we think of things, we think of solid objects.

We know that in solids the atoms are arranged in orderly, repeated patterns, called crystals. What many of us don’t know is that there are only seven basic shapes. The variations of these are called crystal systems. In Shape of Matter, Crevoshay introduces us to each of the systems giving examples showing their beauty and variety, along with the gorgeous fine art jewels she creates with them and Martin Bell explains the underlying science in everyday language so everyone can understand it.