In artist's imagination, even Einstein took breaks

KALAMAZOO—"Between Theorems," a sculpture depicting a Frisbee-throwing Albert Einstein, found a new home this spring on Western Michigan University's Parkview Campus.

The sculpture by Montana artist Jim Dolan has been installed by the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences building. It was a gift from Dr. John A. Kapenga, associate professor of computer science, and his wife, Karen Woodin.

The couple first saw the welded steel piece at the 2012 Grand Rapids ArtPrize exhibition and wanted to install it at their home. They opted instead to have it installed near the main entrance to the building that houses the engineering college to give more people the opportunity to see and to appreciate it.

The statue has since become the mascot of the University's High-Performance Computational Science Laboratory, and there are future plans to install LED lighting and dedicated solar energy panels by the statue.

According to the artist's statement about the work, the piece shows "Professor Einstein throwing a Frisbee, taking a moment for lighthearted joy amidst his important work."

About the computational laboratory

The High-Performance Computational Science Laboratory houses a high-performance parallel computing cluster installed in 2012 with funding from the National Science Foundation. The laboratory supports interdisciplinary projects in computational science and engineering while the cluster provides a unique resource as a hybrid computing environment.

In terms of supercomputing, the cluster enables researchers across campus to make progress in solving new, prevalent computing challenges. Additionally, it allows for collaborations with other universities, organizations and enterprises, including industry.