Dan Gilhooley, Tony, Pythagoras and Me

“Tony, Pythagoras and Me” synthesizes my diverse creative impulses experienced over fifty years of artmaking in an attempt to portray a lifetime of creativity. The picture contains, and tries to unite, such disparate interests as traditional realism and geometrically abstract sculpture, employing media such as oil, acrylic, glitter, graphite and pastel. Tony Smith was my most charismatic and influential teacher. Tony believed art should be speculative. If an artist left a trail of creative thoughts and feelings which Tony could follow, the artwork was successful. For Tony, art was shared introspection, a mutual inquisitive search for answers to ineffable questions. Pythagoras, the ancient Greek mystic and natural philosopher, was Tony’s model for creative investigation. Pythagoras’ most important discovery was the association of musical harmony with simple numerical ratios. For Tony, this connection between nature, number, and the subjective human experience of pleasure was the greatest mystery of all.