Cross Pollinated
Cross Pollinated is a podcast about creative collaboration at the intersection of art and science. Each episode, host Kristen Orr randomly pairs a type of artist with a type of scientist and invites guests to imagine what they might create together. Unexpected ideas emerge through open-ended brainstorming and audience participation, then the conversation culminates with an impartial judge selecting the winning collaboration idea.
Cross Pollinated
Painter + Meteorologist
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Looking for ways to pull yourself out of the dull, monotonous feeling of living in screen-obsessed, capitalist hellscape? Turns out dramatic weather and visceral paintings are two things we can engage with to feel more alive- who doesn’t want more of that?!
Painting and meteorology have more in common than you might think, and we cover it all in this playful conversation between host Kristen Orr, painter Kate Fleming, and meteorologist Ryan Miller. We brainstorm collaborations and discuss things like how the weather can make paintings, how plein air artists are attuned to the movements of the sun, and how air bubbles from the past can be trapped in paint and ice. In the end, we submit a handful of our favorite project ideas to an impartial judge who selects the "winning" collaboration idea.
No matter what field you work in, you'll find value in thinking creatively alongside these unlikely collaborators.
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If you'd like to submit your own collaboration ideas for future episodes, you can follow me on Instagram, I'll occasionally post calls for ideas in my stories @kristenorrdesigns
If you're an artist or scientist who likes to think outside the box and are interested in potentially coming on the podcast, you can email me at crosspollinatedpod@gmail.com
Thanks so much for listening!
Hey everyone, we're gonna pull some cards here. First, I'm pulling a random card from the deck of artistic professions. And I got painter. Oh, I know who that's gonna be, and I'm excited to bring her on. Now I'm pulling a random card from the deck of scientific professions. And I got Meteorologist! Oh, wait, this is gonna be a good one. Welcome to Cross Pollinated. I'm your host, Kristen Orr. Each episode, I randomly pair a type of artist with a type of scientist. Then I bring on guests and we brainstorm ways that these two types of professionals might collaborate. We'll choose a handful of our favorite project ideas, and then to wrap up, I'll ask an impartial judge to select the quote-unquote winning idea. For this episode, we're bringing together a painter and a meteorologist. A painter is someone who applies pigment to various surfaces to create images that express ideas and emotions. And a meteorologist is someone who studies and aims to predict the Earth's atmospheric phenomena, which includes weather. Let's bring on some guests and see where this goes. The painter we have here with us today is Kate Fleming, someone who is many things to me, a super close friend, a business partner, a creative collaborator, just to name a few. We met in 2014 when we were both fresh out of college and had internships at Smithsonian exhibits. It was a unique and somewhat strange experience. So we bonded over that pretty quickly. Kate has been along for the ride with me on all of my various efforts to combine art and science over the years, and now on this podcast. It's super special to have someone in your life who's always game and so supportive. So thank you for that, Kate. Oh well, it's not over yet. Kate has many titles. She's an artist who works in painting and printmaking. She's an art handler, an exhibit designer, and a studio manager at Arlington Arts in Arlington, Virginia. With her painting, she often works en plein air to capture light, shadow, and the human-built landscape. She has this incredible way of showing us how seemingly mundane objects and places can actually have a lot of significance and mystery and beauty. Because she's so often outdoors making her work, she's super attuned to weather patterns and the direction of the sun. I've truly never met anyone who tracks the sun like she does. So she's the perfect person to have on for this conversation. Thanks so much for being here, Kate.
SPEAKER_05Wow, thank you so much for having me and for that introduction. You're you're gonna make me tear up. That's so sweet. It's awesome to be here. I'm excited. And I'm really excited that we're here with Ryan too.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, I'm so excited for this combination. Okay, and the meteorologist we have here with us today is Ryan Miller, a science teacher at Washington Liberty High School in Arlington, Virginia, and a meteorologist with WRC TV NBC4. I've not met Ryan, but I have heard so much about him from Kate over the years. She had him as a teacher growing up, and she always gets really animated when describing something she learned from him. And Kate, if you don't mind, I might hand it over to you to do the rest of his introduction since you know him better than I do.
SPEAKER_05Yes, absolutely. So just before we sat down, I was like taking some notes to remind myself of all the sort of various ways that Ryan has influenced my life and continues to. Um, you know, he was my high school teacher for IB Environmental Systems, and there were so many things from that class that I still remember. But also, Ryan is a weatherman, as you mentioned, and I don't watch broadcast television, but my parents do. And I cannot tell you how often they say to me, Well, Ryan Miller said that it's gonna be a really bad year for mosquitoes. So Ryan Miller features heavily in my life, and we also run into each other at the farmers market pretty regularly. So I'm just thrilled to be here with you both. And I don't know, I did write down a few things that I remembered from your class, Ryan. One of the most memorable is trying to grow corn in the classroom, which was amazing and not terribly successful, but so fun anyway.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we've moved on to potatoes these days.
SPEAKER_05Oh, I remember doing a lot of things outside, which is why I loved your class so much. I remember going to Hidden Pond and testing for water clarity. I remember setting up things to test for acid rain and doing all this mapping and ARPGIS. And I remember we made videos about our new school's lead certification and then watching them in the planetarium, which was like a major highlight. So thank you for all those amazing things.
SPEAKER_01Oh, of course. Absolutely. And I'm so glad you remember those things.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yes, it's one of the classes from high school that sticks with me maybe the most of all.
SPEAKER_06It is amazing that you remember all of that. Well, Ryan, it sounds like you're another great person to have on this episode. If you don't mind going first, do you mind explaining to us what a meteorologist is and what they do?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, a meteorologist is viewed by the folks that are watching television or catching a forecast as that person delivering what the weather is expected to be. And I've been trained to study the forecast patterns and look at the computer models and rely upon the data and try my very best to make sure that number one, people are safe and number two, property is safe. And number three, that people can use the communication that I am um spreading in some way, shape, or form to plan ahead. So meteorology kind of is just a study of the behavior of the atmosphere.
SPEAKER_06Cool. And do you mind briefly telling us about your work as a meteorologist?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I have a very unique entrance into the field. I studied weather in college, wanted to be a meteorologist ever since I was little growing up. I idolized the meteorologist in Cleveland. His name was Dick Goddard. Every night at six o'clock, I would tune in to watch the weather. I studied a little bit of weather in college, but didn't have plans to become a meteorologist. When I started teaching, I had a student many, many years ago ask me a weather question I had no idea the answer to. And so on a whim, I just emailed one of the other long-standing meteorologists in Washington, DC. His name was Doug Hill. And I asked him the question, and he just said, Why don't you come in and we'll talk about it? Whoa. Which was like, what? All right, that'd be great. I'd love to do that. And at the time I lived right next door to the studio where they ABC7 recorded their weather segments and their newscasts. And I met Doug and we just instantly hit it off. And also, coincidentally, it was at right at the end of the school year, and his producer had quit. That's the person that does forecasting and makes the graphics that they that you'll see on television. His producer quit and he said, Hey, what would you want to um potentially work here this summer? You knew I had a little bit of a weather background and enough to be dangerous. And I said, sure, that'd be great. And so I ended up spending the summer working and helping him to forecast and produce the graphics. There was no on-air work at the time. And at the end of that summer, another meteorologist left and the boss at the station said, Why don't you consider doing television? And for me, I had never done television. So I said, I would love to, but I don't know how. And Doug would spend time with me between the six and the 11 o'clock newscasts. I would go down to the studio and practice and just do hours of chroma key in front of the green screen work and forecasting. And then finally the boss was like, You're on. And next thing I know, I was doing television.
SPEAKER_06Wow. That is so cool. Yeah, it's wild that it's something that you wanted to do as a kid. And it's almost like you didn't even pursue it. It kind of just like landed in your lap. It did. I never heard that story.
SPEAKER_05And I I love hearing your background in meteorology. That's so cool.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, I was fortunate. When I first started in meteorology, I had enough to know what I was doing, but I felt like I was still behind the curve in terms of knowledge. So I went back, and at the time, the United States Department of Agriculture had a graduate program for broadcast meteorology. And you could take the class, take the classes, and they were taught by meteorologists that worked for the National Weather Service. And I was trained through them for a couple of years and ultimately was able to fill the gaps of things I felt like I was missing. And it worked out that way.
SPEAKER_05Just out of curiosity, when were you first on the air?
SPEAKER_01I was first on the air in 2004. And I had been teaching for two years at that point. So it was a perfect combination of I wasn't busy in the summertime because I was teaching, obviously, uh, and we don't have to work. And the holidays and weekends when I'm not working teaching, they often needed someone to do the weather. So it worked out perfectly. And ever since then, I've been able to blend both of those together.
SPEAKER_06So neat. Thanks for sharing that with us. I'm gonna switch it over to Kate now. Kate, would you mind explaining to us what a painter is and what they do? Sure.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Well, I would say of all the different careers that you've had on your podcast so far, painter is probably one of the simplest in terms of describing what it is.
SPEAKER_06You know, it's simple and yet I think a little challenging to define.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I mean, I would say in its simplest form, painting is applying pigment in a binder, in a medium, onto a substrate. So there are lots of different kinds of paint. There's oil, watercolor, gouache, tempera, acrylic, and then lots of newer paints that have been developed that are kind of like in between those different paints. And then of course, there's industrial paints, and then there's many different substrates that one can paint on. You can paint on paper, on canvas, wood, UPO is a plastic paper. Painting can encompass mural painting, also. That's pretty much what painting is, I would say. I mean, I know that you said in your intro that it's something about expressing ideas or emotions, but I don't even think that's necessarily required in order to be a painter.
SPEAKER_01I would interrupt you, Kate, because I remember there was a painting you did with an ice cream cone that looked like it fell out of someone's hand onto the ground and was melting.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_01That just in my mind speaks to the emotion of so much.
SPEAKER_05Oh, thank you. That painting I do feel like is successful in conveying emotion and is one that I made early pandemic of sort of like oh shit kind of paintings. But yes, I do attempt to convey ideas and emotions through paint, but perhaps not all painters do. I mean, there are plenty of painters that are simply exploring the medium, for example. To be fair, I do think most painters are trying to convey some idea through their work.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Kate, do you mind briefly telling us about your work as a painter? Sure.
SPEAKER_05I have always wanted to be an artist since I was a little girl, and it still is amazing to me today that I get to do it, you know, somewhat professionally. In my work, I'm mostly working from observation, which means that the subject that I'm painting is directly in front of me as opposed to working from a photograph. And so you mentioned in my intro that I work a lot and plenaire, which means working outside, out in the elements, working from life. So that's the kind of painting that I really enjoy the most. And it's almost like extreme painting or something like that, because I have to deal with the elements and with people and with noise and changing conditions, really, is the most challenging part of plan air. The sun going in and out, and of course, the sun is moving all the time. So I appreciate your mention in my intro of my awareness of the sun. I have over the past decade or more of working plan air, I really have developed a pretty strong awareness of the movements of the sun, both throughout the day and also seasonally. So I was excited about this conversation with Ryan. Although, of course, you know, movements of the sun is more in the realm of astronomy, but you know, meteorology plays heavily into it as well.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, awesome. Thank you so much. Let's go back to Ryan. What would you say is unique about meteorology compared with other Earth sciences?
SPEAKER_01The idea that it can change so quickly. And we are still at this point where the field itself, using science, technology, observation, all the tools that are available and AI, still cannot truly grasp all of the nuance relative to chaos and the innumerable number of factors that can dictate what's going to happen in one place relative to another. It'll humble you quickly.
SPEAKER_05It just reminds me, Ryan, of something that I think that you taught me in school, but perhaps I got from somewhere else or I made it up. That like beyond the two-day forecast, it's really like the percentage of accuracy is it drops off significantly. Is that true or am I imagining that?
SPEAKER_01No, you aren't. It's now about 72 hours. And there's a fairly large amount of confidence when I say that, you know, between a scale of zero to 100, of what we can predict and how accurate those predictions are. But after about 72 hours, all bets are off. The atmosphere does behave in a certain way. There are patterns, and that's why we get systems that develop and come around at the same time every week, oftentimes, but there is a level of chaos that after 72 hours can take control and make things drastically different than what we think they would be. Interesting.
SPEAKER_06I'm glad to have an update on that.
SPEAKER_01Every decade is just one more, you know, 24 hours.
SPEAKER_06Okay. And then are there any commonalities that you all are starting to see that exist between your two fields?
SPEAKER_01All the time. There's an art and a science to meteorology. The science obviously is understanding what our technology can do for us, tell us, interpret what it's saying. However, I've found that the longer you're able to spend time in a certain area, you become aware of the nuance that's a part of meteorology in the sense of, you know, wait a minute here. I know the computers are saying this is going to happen, but I do remember this kind of thing setting up, and that wasn't the case. So that isn't science. That's just relying upon your past experiences and trying to blend them into some type of present-day work. And Kate, so much of what she does is science-based, whether it's mixing colors because of what you can perceive and how sunlight interacts with them or light reacts with chemicals in the paint, to just simply getting a sense of sunshine. The sun in our sky in Arlington, Virginia, is always going to be in the south, whether it rises in the southeast or it's in the south or sets in the southwest, it's never directly overhead. There are reasons for that scientifically. And whether you know those scientific reasons or you just simply become aware of the patterns that develop because of your time spent outside, I think that's where that line crosses between science and art.
SPEAKER_05Absolutely. It's not only that I have a sense of where the sun will be and how fast it moves, also different seasons just have like a different quality of light, and different places in the world have different qualities of light. And I assume that's because of whatever's happening in the atmosphere or its geographic location on the globe. But yeah, exactly what you're saying, Ryan. Maybe I don't understand all the reasons why, but I know that in winter, for example, there's a lot more interesting light all day. The sun is lower in the sky all day. So that's much more interesting for painting because nice long shadows are to me much more visually compelling. But of course, you've got a really short day to work with. I'm just a person who's pretty obsessed with light in general. When my partner and I were looking for a place to live last year, every place we went, I was obsessively making sure that we had south-facing windows because I I can only exist in a home that has direct sunlight.
SPEAKER_01Well, to have that south-facing part of the house. So important for mood and everything else.
SPEAKER_05Absolutely. And so now I'm very inspired by our home. I'm getting ready to make a series of prints of the light coming in on the floor.
SPEAKER_06Oh, cool. Yes. Yeah, that's a real way that weather affects an artist is in how they're feeling mentally and also how they feel about the space and whether it's inspiring.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. You know, five or six years ago, I was going through a pretty tough time in my life. But I do remember my uncle, who's an artist, saying, Have you ever considered painting? And using that to think about what's going on, try to untangle the, you know, the knots that are in your brain. And I found that to be the most effective therapy.
SPEAKER_06Wow, that's lovely. And how cool that weather can improve the mood of an artist and painting can improve the mood of a meteorologist. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Oh, I love that. That reminds me of something that you said to me years ago, Kristen. We were talking about drawing and how drawing is like the best way to get out of your head because it requires, especially drawing from life, requires so much mental focus that there's really not a whole lot of room for that other chatter.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. But then there's some like deep level underlying thinking sometimes going on in the background. Something about that like deep focus of drawing and painting too, or any kind of deep creative work like that that is really useful in that way.
SPEAKER_06Right. Yeah. Okay. I was thinking about your project, Kate, the 50 states project, where you traveled to all 50 states and made paintings in each state. And I am just struck by the fact that you probably made paintings in all different types of weather. Like, do you remember some of the crazier weather situations that you've made a painting in?
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah. Even before that trip, actually, you and I took a trip across the state of North Carolina over seven days, and we visited seven different sites of biodiversity, and you made some beautiful drawings, and I made paintings, and we both were working outdoors. And I have a very distinct memory of being in Lynnville Gorge and it just raining and sitting underneath a little rock outcropping and trying to make a painting in the rain, which I should have mentioned this earlier, but I'm primarily an oil painter. So painting in the rain is actually not the end of the world for an oil painter because oil and water don't mix, but it does sort of create some strange things happening with the paint. But yeah, I've painted in the blazing sun, I've painted in the snow, I've painted on really windy days. That's very hard with Plenair because a painting is basically a sail once the wind kicks up. During the 50 States project, I made about 200 paintings. So yeah, basically every type of weather you name it, I have pretty much painted in it.
SPEAKER_06So cool. Okay, so Ryan, I was trying to think like what role does visual art and graphics play in the world of meteorology? Because on screen, you know, what we're all used to is seeing those colorful shapes move across a map that imply how much precipitation we're gonna get or what the temperature is gonna be like.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, if you don't mind telling us a bit about those graphics.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, and the graphics that we all grew up watching that are still used today, they're kind of lying to you in some respects because they're only one dimension versus the other two that are still out there and play a significantly larger role than what you're looking at from the top-down perspective. There are newer technologies and newer visualization techniques that are allowing for a better interpretation of what's happening. The traditional blue line with triangles or a red line with half circles to try and show the movement of air masses is somewhat antiquated, but still an industry standard in some respects.
SPEAKER_05Wow, that's blowing my mind right now. Of course, weather exists in three dimensions, but it did not occur to me until this exact moment. I am a big fan of your science for everyone segments, Ryan, where you explain some of the more complicated meteorological phenomena.
SPEAKER_01Say that five times fast. Kate, that came from this whole idea of I work in the news business, not the weather business, even though that's the part I play. And it's difficult to sit through news anymore, whether it's just because of your patience, whether it's because of the topics that are just so astoundingly negative. I pitched Science for Everyone is I want to offer content that is not going to make someone want to turn their television off or at least cry. That was kind of where it came from. Oh, that's so cool.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, Kristen, I should have sent you some of the Science for Everyone segments. They're on Ryan's Instagram, which is where I see them because I don't actually have broadcast TV.
SPEAKER_01A lot of people don't. The business is literally dying. A little while ago, I said how I grew up wanting to be a TV meteorologist. And that job still exists now. It does and it's great, but like it's changing. It's not like professional football is changing, it's not going away. But this really is in the sense of people aren't home at five o'clock or they're home at six o'clock. And the last thing they want to do is turn on the news and watch 90% of terribleness and 5% of the weather. It's a business that needs to evolve because the services it provides, well, sometimes necessary, often aren't, or it can be found somewhere else.
SPEAKER_05That's very interesting and actually makes me think about an overlap between that and painting. So my partner is a photographer, and we talk a lot about the overlaps between photography and painting. And photography, especially documentary photography, is also dying because magazines and newspapers are dying out slowly. And that of course affects the industry for photographers. And as a painter, it's like my industry is dead already. It's like painting died a long time ago, you know, something that's been said for many, many decades, if not centuries. It's sort of a joke among painters at this point. So I would just say, welcome to the esteemed club of dead arts.
unknownOh my god.
SPEAKER_06What a sad commonality.
SPEAKER_05No, no, but it's also sort of freeing, you know. It's like it's dead, but then it's not, you know, it's it's it gives you an excuse to evolve. Exactly. Exactly. It just evolves, and it's like, okay, painting no longer exists as a means to document a world that we could not otherwise document because the camera exists. So it's something else now. It's something else entirely. It's a means of expression purely, it's no longer a means solely of documentation, and that changed the whole system of patronage. I don't see it as all bad. Of course, it makes it so that it's perhaps not as viable to be a painter who is making a living off the sales of their work. But again, divorcing the making of paintings from the commercial product is not necessarily a bad thing.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, right. Okay, I am wanting to turn us towards brainstorming some potential collaborative projects that a painter and a meteorologist could work on together. It can be a potential project between any painter and any meteorologist. It doesn't have to be specifically you two, it can be hypothetical meteorologists and painters. I always encourage all the ideas, even seemingly bad or silly ones, because we're just playing and having fun here. After we generate a bunch of ideas, I will also incorporate some audience suggested ones. If we've got people that wrote in with some collaboration ideas, and then at the end of this conversation, we will pick out a few of our favorites. You know, maybe each of us will pick a favorite idea. Then I'm gonna send off some of the ideas to an impartial judge and they'll select the winning idea for that episode. So now you all know what's to come. Do you have any thoughts on what this artist and this scientist could create together?
SPEAKER_05Well, the first thing that came to my head is something that no one would ever fund because it's so niche. But I would love a weather app specifically for my usage as a painter. Okay, explain. Well, you know, I would like to be in a certain location and be able to know how long is this light gonna stay sort of like this. One of the hardest things when working plan air is partial sun. So clouds and shadows going in and out. So when I'm painting in a light situation like that, I have to make a call. Are we making a shadow painting or are we making a sunshine painting? You know, can't do. I mean, you could do both at the same time, but the sense of light would not convey. And for me, it's that sense of light is really important. So if I could have an app that would tell me, okay, over the next two hours, you will have 70% shade and 30% sun. That would be ideal for me specifically.
SPEAKER_06That's so cool, but you know, it's not just for you. I could see it being an app. I mean, it is a niche audience, but an app for any plan air artist or anyone like photographers, photographers.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I will say there is a really cool app that I discovered recently that basically is like a 3D map that shows shadows based on the time of day and the day of the year, which is pretty neat. Yeah, so maybe some combination of that, but like with more layers, you know, it's like the the shadows are good, but also like how windy is it? Which direction is the wind? You know, okay.
SPEAKER_06Speaking of wind, this is just a wacky idea. Is there a way you can let the wind paint? Like, could you set up something? Maybe it's just watercolor, but you set it up in a way that if you get a really strong wind, it pushes paint across the paper and then you get a wind-made painting. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Just use like a wind chime and put a permanent marker at the bottom.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah, yeah. I was thinking something like that too. Interesting. Or like just strings at the bottom and they have some sort of pigment on them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06I like the idea of weather making paintings.
SPEAKER_05Well, you know, something that occurs to me now, which is not exactly painting, but I know many painters that incorporate this into their work is cyanotypes, which is a photographic process. Usually you would do like a piece of paper or sometimes like a big piece of fabric. So you cover it in this photosensitive coating, and then what you would usually do is cover it with some interesting shapes. So oftentimes people will do plants or flowers, and then you expose it to the sun, and all the places where the sun hits it, it turns this very vibrant blue, and then all the places where it doesn't hit, it stays white. So it's a way of making images, and then a friend of mine, Marie, she will make paintings on top of the cyanotypes. And actually, Emily Fussner is another artist that incorporates cyanotypes into her work a lot.
SPEAKER_06Very cool. Yeah, I mean, I think those different mediums can totally be incorporated within painting.
SPEAKER_05Absolutely. Another type of weather that could make a painting is a cloud. You could put dry pigments on a surface and then let a cloud pass over. Ooh, the fog. Yeah, I'm just thinking like, could there be a whole series of different ways the weather can make paintings? You know, the sun can make paintings, the wind can make paintings, the clouds can make paintings. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Rain?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, the rain. Oh, yes, the rain, snow, certainly.
SPEAKER_01Snow would be interesting if you could like spray some kind of aerosol where you can color the snow. Obviously, in a localized environment, but that'd be so cool. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Something else that came to my mind is that pigments are made from stuff from the earth. Right.
SPEAKER_04Elements.
SPEAKER_05From the elements, right, which is perhaps more in the realm of geology, but wind blows rock and creates the sort of pigments and dust that are used in different things. You know, I could see some overlap there somewhere.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. Weather made pigments or something. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Well, also like wildfire is weather, right? Oh.
SPEAKER_01And talk about the impacts to the atmosphere and to the light. I mean, you can I can tell instantly when we have wildfire smoke in our atmosphere just because of the sunlight's change and the way it looks.
SPEAKER_05Oh my gosh, yeah. Like wildfire smoke is obviously so terrible, but so visual. It's so interesting to work from. I remember a few years ago when we had pretty bad wildfire smoke out here for like the first time that I can remember in my life. I was making a lot of paintings because that very like sepia-toned light is so interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I mean, it's sort of post-apocalyptic, obviously, but it was for a few days. But where I was going with wildfire actually is carbon, which is pigment. It's black, right? Oh, so uh there's you know, you could go through after a wildfire and collect carbon and make pigments and then make paintings of that burned up landscape. Wow, that is powerful.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, that would definitely be intense. I love the idea of using the material of a subject matter to depict that subject matter. It's very like full circle. Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_05Does meteorology always deal with prediction?
SPEAKER_01Uh actually, no. There are forensic meteorologists that are hired to either be deposed or be a part of a court case or an insurance settlement where they have to go back and quantify or qualify whatever weather event destroyed something or caused harm in some capacity relative to a legal issue.
SPEAKER_05Interesting. Yeah, that makes me think about something that you mentioned a while ago, Kristen, when we were first talking about having this conversation, is the sort of overlap between conservation and meteorology and the way that wet paint will absorb things from the environment into it. Yes. And then is used as a means of dating a painting and also getting a sense of where it was made and things like that. You know, that science is so far beyond me. I am not a conservator, but you know, there are paintings conservators that work on those things.
SPEAKER_06Right. And that is so cool to think about how if someone is making an oil painting outside and particles get trapped in the paint, it's like preserving parts of the environment in that way.
SPEAKER_05Yes, like parts of the atmosphere, potentially.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And that's what they found with snow. Snows in Antarctica, and the snow just captures little air bubbles, and those air bubbles can't escape, and then you get more and more snow, and you get a thick ice sheet. You've got a perfectly preserved and cold snapshot of what the atmosphere was thousands of years ago.
SPEAKER_06Oh, that's so cool.
SPEAKER_01Which is one of the ways that we know that we're causing climate change because you can go back, and the deeper you dig in Antarctica, the older your samples of atmosphere. We've got perfectly preserved atmospheric samples from 420,000 years ago, which is even predates humanity. Um, and you can look at exactly the composition of the atmosphere as it existed then versus now.
SPEAKER_06That is amazing. I didn't know that that was a thing, that there were little pockets of atmosphere trapped in ice.
SPEAKER_05Wow. That makes me think about an artist. I know, I know we we're supposed to be thinking about hypotheticals here, but it's just making me think about the painters that I do know that are making lots of interesting work. There's an artist who lives in the DC area named Noelle Kasowitz, and she makes a lot of paintings about climate change and thinking about sea level rise and about the tides. And she's made paintings that are flotation devices. What? She's actually taken her paintings out into the Potomac River and floated on her paintings. What? It's performance and painting. The paintings are hung from a pulley system and they go up and down with the tides.
SPEAKER_06Oh my god.
SPEAKER_05As if sea level were to rise up to the level of a museum and then the tide is coming in and out. You can lift the paintings away from the rising sea.
SPEAKER_06Wow.
SPEAKER_05It's quite amazing work.
SPEAKER_06That is so cool. Are any other ideas coming to mind?
SPEAKER_01You know, I feel that there is such a need for people to divorce themselves from technology, whether it's their phones or whatever. I want to make, and Kate would probably agree, people more aware of what's happening beyond that screen that they're staring at for a majority of their daytime. Weather certainly can command the attention, and I think art can cross that dimension and gather attention too. So I think there's something there.
SPEAKER_06Right. They both pull you out of the stupor that the phones induce.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's like the anti-scrolling that is so needed in today's society.
SPEAKER_06It's making me think of going outside when there's a big thunderstorm approaching in the summer, and you just get that thrill inside of you. It's like, oh, this is what it feels like to be alive and like witness the drama of this world and our atmosphere. Similar to seeing a painting that shocks you or hits your brain in that certain way that you're like, whoa, it sends a thrill through you in a similar way.
SPEAKER_01Yes, so true. And so many of the wonderful human beings I get a chance to teach, like they don't experience that. And Kristen, you just mentioned it. Things that make you feel alive, right? Like there's so many things that don't these days. I was challenging some of my students. I'm like, you should go. That one person that you've had a crush on that you like, that you just always just had a thing for.
SPEAKER_00Like, if they're single and you're single, go ask them out. Take a risk. And you know what? It may go great and you feel alive, and it may not go great, and you may feel you're going to feel alive.
SPEAKER_05That's so true. That's funny because you're just like so on the front lines of that too, Ryan, as a high school teacher. Like you just see it so up close and personal being around teens all day.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's just, and there's just a lack of humanity in a lot of them. And I feel bad. I do. I just think, man, you could have it so much better if you just find a way.
SPEAKER_05Touch grass, as they say, right?
SPEAKER_01Literally and figuratively.
SPEAKER_05I think I just aged myself.
SPEAKER_06It's okay, I could always cut it out.
SPEAKER_05But finally, but something else that comes to my mind is like, okay, so we have meteorological maps, visuals, right? Can those maps and those images be used to convey a completely different kind of information? Like, I don't know, just something completely divorced from the weather.
SPEAKER_06Like I'm trying to think what would move in a pattern the same way. Maybe even like your emotions as they kind of like flow through the landscape that is you or something.
SPEAKER_05Sure, sure. Another idea that just popped into my head, you know, we've been talking a lot about like modes of art making, but are there ways that a painter could contribute to the telling of weather? I mean, it could be like, okay, here's Kate, expert witness who really paints in this one spot a lot. She says it's gonna rain. She can feel it. That's kind of silly, but I like it. It could also just be like, hey, you want to make those maps look like really beautiful? You know, a painter could make the graphics that go on the news.
SPEAKER_06Can you imagine if they didn't look like pixelated and not the most beautiful colors? Like, if you imagine letting a painter make those aesthetic decisions, that would be so cool.
SPEAKER_05I mean, Ryan, imagine if there was an in-house painter at MBC4 who every day is just frantically cheering out paintings.
SPEAKER_01Most stressful job in the uh I kind of love it though.
SPEAKER_06There are painters who will listen to music and freestyle a painting. It's almost like that. You're freestyling with the weather data you're getting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Well, and it's also like set painting, you know, because if instead of a green screen it were uh, you know, a stationary image that were painted, that that would work, or a series of them like on a flip chart that you're just like frantically flipping through.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's true. That's true. Like the old style meteorology was, you know, as I was told, because I'm not that old, but like they have like uh, you know, kerosene markers or kerosene to wipe the markers off the board and would draw like their own fronts and everything.
SPEAKER_06Oh, they definitely need an artist there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Wow. Let's bring back the old ways. Yes, exactly. At this point, I'm going to mention two audience suggested ideas because we don't have time for more than that. The first idea comes from John H, who said you could make the same painting in different types of weather or climates.
SPEAKER_01Or you do it at the same same date, same time every year. Oh, yes. Oh, I love that. And can aggregate everything together to see how things have changed. Like maybe the artist can just like not see that painting again, and then a year from now they do another painting, but like let somebody else see change over time if there is a change that's evident.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. The second idea comes from Sarah O, who said similar to how meteorology is predictive and continuously updated based on new data, maybe you could approach a painting in a similar way where a painter could paint something based on the predicted weather for a particular day in the future. Then when that day arrives, they can paint the actual observed weather on top. That's pretty fascinating.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like a seven-day or a 10-day forecast, like the graphics you see on television. And every day then paint on top of whatever you painted initially, what the weather actually was, like the temperature or the sky condition, or if it rained.
SPEAKER_05Oh my gosh. Wait, I love that idea to like just even like make a painting of a view and then update it every day and just paint over that same painting. Like that one painting is just perpetually in progress, and it just gets like thicker and thicker and thicker with paint.
SPEAKER_06Right. And maybe you don't have to completely cover the previous layers, you're letting things poke through. But yeah. So at this point, do you all have a favorite idea that you want to mention? Oh my gosh, I can't even remember all the things that we just said. I know. Okay, I'll say I really liked the idea of making a painting using all of these elements, like you were talking about, Kate, all of the elements of weather, like the rain and the ash from a wildfire. That's a neat one.
SPEAKER_05I do like that. And I do just because it's funny and I like it, is my idea of a painter as sort of the expert witness for the weather. I just love it.
SPEAKER_06Because you are you're keyed in, like you know.
SPEAKER_05I feel like I really have a lot to contribute.
SPEAKER_06Like I get that is really out there, you know. Get that lady on TV.
SPEAKER_05That would be a good time. We could collab, Ryan. That would be a great time.
SPEAKER_01Hey, why not? It's something different, we'll do it.
SPEAKER_06Love it. Oh my gosh. If this episode inspires that, I would be so happy.
SPEAKER_05We will, you know, site cross-pollinated and raise more.
SPEAKER_06Please. Absolutely. I also really liked the idea that Sarah O submitted about continuously updating a painting based on new data. I thought that one was cool too.
SPEAKER_05I like that too. I like that because it's a painting and it's also sort of a performance, you know, it's a very conceptual work of art. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_06Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Cool. Do you have a favorite, Ryan? I kind of like the idea of someone going and painting in the exact same spot every year, but not being able to see their final product after they're done with it. Look how it changes over time, just to see how their observations have changed.
SPEAKER_05Right. Yeah, I do love that too, because that would be a record of the weather and also a record, if you did it over long enough time, of the artist's skill.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Yeah, right. And their eye, what they're noticing.
SPEAKER_05Yes, I love that idea. And I love repetition. I love, you know, documenting the same place over and over again. It's something I've done a lot in my work. So I love that idea too.
SPEAKER_06Wow. Well, I think we generated a lot of really amazing ideas. And I thank you both so much for coming on to share your skills and your knowledge and the expertise that you have in your particular fields. Thanks for yeah, being willing to do some weird brainstorming with me. It was really fun. Of course.
SPEAKER_05Thank you so much for having us. This is such a treat. Truly, Ryan, I've mentioned you to Kristen so many times. And I hope that at some point we can all be together in person.
SPEAKER_01That'd be great. Yeah, we'll have to do that. When summer hits, let's try that out at the uh at the studio. That'd be fun.
SPEAKER_05Oh my gosh, that'd be so fun. Let's do it.
SPEAKER_06Thank you both so much. It really was a pleasure.
SPEAKER_01Oh, the pleasure was mine. Thank you guys for your time.
SPEAKER_06Thanks so much. All right, I'll talk to you all later. After talking with Kate, the painter, and Ryan, the meteorologist, I went through everything we had discussed and pulled out six collaboration ideas. Here's a rundown of the ideas that I sent to our impartial judge. Idea number one: a weather app specifically designed for plenaire painters and artists. It shows where shadows will fall based on the date and the time of day, as well as wind direction, air quality, cloud cover percentage, etc. A key feature is that it tells you how long you have until conditions change. Idea number two: a series of paintings made by different types of weather. A variety of methods would be used, like attaching brushes to a wind chime to let the wind paint, using light-sensitive coatings to let the sun paint, concrete to let acid rain paint, and fire-resistant substrates to let a wildfire paint, for example. Idea number three, a study that compares the ways that atmospheric samples from the past are preserved in both layers of paint and in ice. It investigates what we can learn by analyzing these tiny pockets of trapped air in these different materials. Idea number four, a special weather report where a painter is brought into the newsroom to create live paintings based on the weather forecast. These are then shown on the green screen, and a weatherman interprets them for the audience. For idea number five, I came up with one based on something Ryan had mentioned. So this one is a weather and painting event aimed at helping people feel alive. A field trip is taken somewhere to witness a dramatic storm, and while there, an abstract painter helps participants capture the storm's energy through painting. And the last idea, idea number six, creating an abstract painting based on the predicted weather for a particular day, then updating it with another layer based on the actual observed day. This would reference how meteorology is predictive and continuously updated based on new data. We have a new guest impartial judge for this episode, so let's see what they have to say. We're now here with Mallory Miles, our guest impartial judge for this episode. If you've listened to past episodes, you might remember her from the screenwriter and ornithologist episode. She was the bird scientist that I brought on for that one. Dick Woodruff is typically our impartial judge, but his preferences lean pretty heavily towards the artistic ideas. And I was interested in bringing on an impartial judge who was a little more balanced in their art and science views. I think Mallory is a great person for this because she's both a biologist and a creative writer. So I think she's going to have some great insight. Thanks so much for joining us, Mallory.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, my pleasure.
SPEAKER_06In a hypothetical world, if you had a few thousand dollars to grant to one of these ideas, which one would you pick and why?
SPEAKER_03So there are several good ideas here. It's a hard choice. But I did have one that kind of mulling them over. It was the one that took me down the Google rabbit hole for the longest, like trying to find out more about this. So I am kind of interested in the study of air bubbles in paint and ice. But I think that personally I think it would be interesting to expand this study a little bit and include not just testing the air bubbles, but also some of the pigments that were used in the paint. Like I know a lot of them are coming from plants or animals. And I wonder how like different climate conditions affected what plants and animals were available for people to use as pigments. Right. And how that's reflected in the paint as well. So also interested in the air bubbles, but I think it could get it could be even bigger and more exciting. Well, that was my favorite.
SPEAKER_06Okay. I think that's a really great one.
SPEAKER_03It really gets at the idea that meteorology is about not just the weather of the day, but about climate, you know, and really how the weather of the day grows into a climate and that climate permeates our our culture so much, you know. It felt like a really good art science fusion.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, I agree. Okay. So did you have a least favorite idea? You don't have to pick one if you don't want to. I did have a least favorite idea.
SPEAKER_03Although, you know, they were all fun to read, but I think my least favorite one was like having the person paint in the newsroom because I just feel like there's a discrepancy between like how fast you could paint versus the length of a news forecast. Also, I feel like the weatherman could just make it awkward somehow.
SPEAKER_02I have concerns about that.
SPEAKER_06There was an aspect to that idea where you actually bring an artist on for a segment. You interview them and say, you know, this is the expert painter who stands in this one spot and has a lot to say about the weather today.
SPEAKER_02It would be it would be funny, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02But I'm not sure I'd give a thousand dollars for that. Okay, good to know.
SPEAKER_06Well, I have one last question for you. Some people that I've talked to about the format of this podcast have mentioned that they feel like there doesn't even need to be a winning idea selected at the end of each episode, maybe because they felt like it takes away some of the playfulness of the conversation. I was just interested to hear what you think about it. Do you think there's some value in keeping this impartial judge element to the conversation?
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's a good question. I don't think that it adds a ton, but it's kind of fun. Yeah. Having been someone who submitted an idea, you have a little bit of a dog in the fight. Choose mine.
SPEAKER_06And I think there's some value in somewhat mimicking like the real world scenario of applying for grants and thinking through that process. Anyway, I'm interested in hearing people's opinions on this. So thank you. Thank you for sharing that.
SPEAKER_03No problem. Maybe someone will actually give you a thousand dollars to give out to then, then it would be incredible.
SPEAKER_02I think maybe that's actually the hope. Is that the pipe dream? I think that is the dream. I'll I'll have my fingers crossed for you.
SPEAKER_06All right. Well, thank you so much. Uh, I think you picked a great winning idea.
SPEAKER_03Oh, thank you. I I was not deliberately trying to go with science to balance dick out, but oh, but I knew I knew you would do it just inherently.
SPEAKER_06So well done.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And well, I also feel like that one really has maybe the best balance of art and science. They seemed the most intertwined to me. Yeah. But it could be biased too.
SPEAKER_06Well, everyone's biased. But when it comes to art and science, you're probably one of the least biased people, I think.
SPEAKER_03Oh, thank you.
SPEAKER_06Well, thank you again, and I'm sure we'll talk to you soon.
SPEAKER_03Sounds good. I'll talk to you later.
SPEAKER_06Bye.
