Lee Gass, Scientist and Artist
In 2010, I worked with a group of scientists and a professional dance company to produce Experiments, which expressed the essence of scientific discovery in dance. Ea...
Never Wish for a Forest Fire
Nobody but a fool would wish for a forest fire if he lived in a forest of fuel. Because of a wildfire near here yesterday, I got to do something other than sit i...
Reflections of The Granite Madonna
 A composite of three frames of a video of The Granite Madonna by Mark Wunsch. When Mark Wunsch showed me his video of my Granite Madonna, I was ecstatic to see ...
The meanest, nastiest territorial squabblers of them all
This 3-minute clip is from a Knowledge Network "Leading Edge" program on hummingbirds, broadcast in 2006. It features an interview about hummingbirds and shows me ca...
Engagement is visceral
The Council of 3M National Teaching Fellows produces a range of materials to help teachers improve their teaching. Among them is a DVD-production project in which 18 ...
The birth of a sculptor
The image shows Lee Gass at two stages in his sculpting career; when he was learning to carve Ivory soap and sanding Red Recursion. Photos by David Shackleton and an ...
The Granite Madonna
 One frame of a video of The Granite Madonna by Mark Wunsch. Explorations of the form of a stone. In 2011, Quadra Island videographer Mark Wunsch and I began ...
Made to be touched
An Experiment in Social Engineering In May and June 2009, painter Matt Petley-Jones and I held a joint exhibition in his gallery in Vancouver. Since my work occupi...
Eternal Flame
Eternal Flame. This is one of a series of stories in the Vancouver Observer, each about or inspired by Experiments, an evening-length dance production expressing the ...
Arabesque
Arabesque. Sculpture and photos by Lee Gass. I expanded this story from one I published in the Vancouver Observer that was inspired by Experiments, a dance product...
Work on the ugliest part!
Lee Gass doing what he has done for eight tenths of a century: telling a story to a friend, fellow behavioural ecologist and photographer David Shackleton, who took ...
The Notion of Creativity
The Notion of Creativity In my work as a university professor, questions about where ideas come from were central to everything I did in research and teaching. Now a...
Nature’s Little Squeegees
Nature's Little Squeegees If you’ve spent hours sanding rocks or furniture without gloves, you may have noticed something that fascinates me every time it happens.Â...
The Last of the Caran d’Ache
At risk of telling you more about sculpting than you ever wanted to know or giving you too much information about my personal life, I’ll tell you a story. Itâ...
What is Creativity?
Detail of bronze Eternal Flame with colour scheme inverted. What is creativity? What makes the difference between creative people and the rest of...
What a waste!
Red travertine waste from Red Recursion paving a trail through the woods. It is buried now by several layers of several kinds of stone. Waste and photo by Lee Gass...
To Visualize a Stone
The Granite Madonna, in progress. Photo by Lee Gass.  Various aids to visualization help me 'see' forms as they develop, see what I’ve already done, and s...
Help!
The Granite Madonna in progress. I hope you won’t think I’m cheating to ask for help in a story about creativity, but I do need help with something. I...
Methods of Creation
In Love and Soaring, lighted by laser. Photo by Lee Gass. Methods of Creation? In responding to my story about making sculpture, Thoughts on the Creative Pro...
Heavy Rocks
Heavy Rocks Everyone knows rocks are heavy, dense, and hard, and that the bigger the rock the heavier it is. Stone sculptors change rocks' shapes and make them sma...
The Case of Michael Ondaatje
Creativity: The Case of Michael Ondaatje All my life I've wondered where ideas come from. The rich literature on creativity gives no hint of how to make id...
Looking Up
Looking Up Photos by Lee Gass  This piece of granite leaned against my studio wall for a couple of years, up high where I could see it in all weather and al...
What is it going to be?
Vinay watched me work for a while the other day in my studio.  I knew he was coming, but I didn’t notice him coming in. I didn’t notice anything, really, but...
Some of What I Love about Sculpting
Ode to Joy In progress, midday. December 5, 2009. Some of What I Love about Sculpting The sunlight told me to stop grinding and take the first photo, and a...
Brief Reflections on Experiments
To a scientist like me, Experiments, a dance production that premiered at the Scotiabank Dance Centre at the end of November, was special. It is rare for a work of ...
Something I Admire About Surgeons
Sanding a ribbon of granite on The Granite Madonna upside down. Photo by Lucretia Schanfarber. Something I admire about surgeons, dentists, astronauts, and...
Graphing in Science and Sculpting
Computer model of Heart of Anima. This is a 3D graph with its front faces removed to reveal internal structure. Model and sculpture by Lee Gass. Gail Lotenb...
Repetition, precision and chaos
Sometime in the late '70s, MSc student Dave Marmorek, now Lead Scientist and Director of ESSA Technologies Ltd, an ecological and social systems consulting company...
The Quality of the Light was Incredible
Ode to Joy in progress, illuminated by winter sunlight. The Quality of the Light was Incredible In the deep dank dark of a winter in the woods on an islan...
Lactate Burn
Forearms feel lactate burn sanding Red Recursion. Photo by David Shackleton. Lactate Burn We got our TV at Christmas when I was almost 10 years old and ther...