Painter + Meteorologist

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Hey everyone, we're gonna pull some cards here.
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First, I'm pulling a random card from the deck of artistic professions.
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And I got painter.
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Oh, I know who that's gonna be, and I'm excited to bring her on.
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Now I'm pulling a random card from the deck of scientific professions.
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And I got Meteorologist! Oh, wait, this is gonna be a good one.
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Welcome to Cross Pollinated.
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I'm your host, Kristen Orr.
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Each episode, I randomly pair a type of artist with a type of scientist.
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Then I bring on guests and we brainstorm ways that these two types of professionals might collaborate.
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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.
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For this episode, we're bringing together a painter and a meteorologist.
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A painter is someone who applies pigment to various surfaces to create images that express ideas and emotions.
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And a meteorologist is someone who studies and aims to predict the Earth's atmospheric phenomena, which includes weather.
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Let's bring on some guests and see where this goes.
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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.
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We met in 2014 when we were both fresh out of college and had internships at Smithsonian exhibits.
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It was a unique and somewhat strange experience.
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So we bonded over that pretty quickly.
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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.
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It's super special to have someone in your life who's always game and so supportive.
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So thank you for that, Kate.
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Oh well, it's not over yet.
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Kate has many titles.
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She's an artist who works in painting and printmaking.
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She's an art handler, an exhibit designer, and a studio manager at Arlington Arts in Arlington, Virginia.
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With her painting, she often works en plein air to capture light, shadow, and the human-built landscape.
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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.
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Because she's so often outdoors making her work, she's super attuned to weather patterns and the direction of the sun.
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I've truly never met anyone who tracks the sun like she does.
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So she's the perfect person to have on for this conversation.
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Thanks so much for being here, Kate.
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Wow, thank you so much for having me and for that introduction.
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You're you're gonna make me tear up.
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That's so sweet.
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It's awesome to be here.
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I'm excited.
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And I'm really excited that we're here with Ryan too.
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Yeah, yeah, I'm so excited for this combination.
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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.
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I've not met Ryan, but I have heard so much about him from Kate over the years.
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She had him as a teacher growing up, and she always gets really animated when describing something she learned from him.
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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.
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Yes, absolutely.
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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.
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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.
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But also, Ryan is a weatherman, as you mentioned, and I don't watch broadcast television, but my parents do.
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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.
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So Ryan Miller features heavily in my life, and we also run into each other at the farmers market pretty regularly.
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So I'm just thrilled to be here with you both.
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And I don't know, I did write down a few things that I remembered from your class, Ryan.
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One of the most memorable is trying to grow corn in the classroom, which was amazing and not terribly successful, but so fun anyway.
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Yeah, we've moved on to potatoes these days.
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Oh, I remember doing a lot of things outside, which is why I loved your class so much.
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I remember going to Hidden Pond and testing for water clarity.
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I remember setting up things to test for acid rain and doing all this mapping and ARPGIS.
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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.
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So thank you for all those amazing things.
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Oh, of course.
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Absolutely.
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And I'm so glad you remember those things.
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Oh, yes, it's one of the classes from high school that sticks with me maybe the most of all.
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It is amazing that you remember all of that.
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Well, Ryan, it sounds like you're another great person to have on this episode.
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If you don't mind going first, do you mind explaining to us what a meteorologist is and what they do?
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Yeah.
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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.
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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.
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And number three, that people can use the communication that I am um spreading in some way, shape, or form to plan ahead.
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So meteorology kind of is just a study of the behavior of the atmosphere.
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Cool.
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And do you mind briefly telling us about your work as a meteorologist?
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Yeah, I have a very unique entrance into the field.
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I studied weather in college, wanted to be a meteorologist ever since I was little growing up.
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I idolized the meteorologist in Cleveland.
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His name was Dick Goddard.
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Every night at six o'clock, I would tune in to watch the weather.
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I studied a little bit of weather in college, but didn't have plans to become a meteorologist.
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When I started teaching, I had a student many, many years ago ask me a weather question I had no idea the answer to.
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And so on a whim, I just emailed one of the other long-standing meteorologists in Washington, DC.
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His name was Doug Hill.
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And I asked him the question, and he just said, Why don't you come in and we'll talk about it?
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Whoa.
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Which was like, what?
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All right, that'd be great.
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I'd love to do that.
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And at the time I lived right next door to the studio where they ABC7 recorded their weather segments and their newscasts.
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And I met Doug and we just instantly hit it off.
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And also, coincidentally, it was at right at the end of the school year, and his producer had quit.
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That's the person that does forecasting and makes the graphics that they that you'll see on television.
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His producer quit and he said, Hey, what would you want to um potentially work here this summer?
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You knew I had a little bit of a weather background and enough to be dangerous.
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And I said, sure, that'd be great.
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And so I ended up spending the summer working and helping him to forecast and produce the graphics.
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There was no on-air work at the time.
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And at the end of that summer, another meteorologist left and the boss at the station said, Why don't you consider doing television?
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And for me, I had never done television.
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So I said, I would love to, but I don't know how.
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And Doug would spend time with me between the six and the 11 o'clock newscasts.
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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.
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And then finally the boss was like, You're on.
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And next thing I know, I was doing television.
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Wow.
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That is so cool.
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Yeah, it's wild that it's something that you wanted to do as a kid.
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And it's almost like you didn't even pursue it.
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It kind of just like landed in your lap.
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It did.
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I never heard that story.
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And I I love hearing your background in meteorology.
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That's so cool.
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Yeah, no, I was fortunate.
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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.
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So I went back, and at the time, the United States Department of Agriculture had a graduate program for broadcast meteorology.
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And you could take the class, take the classes, and they were taught by meteorologists that worked for the National Weather Service.
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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.
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And it worked out that way.
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Just out of curiosity, when were you first on the air?
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I was first on the air in 2004.
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And I had been teaching for two years at that point.
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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.
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And the holidays and weekends when I'm not working teaching, they often needed someone to do the weather.
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So it worked out perfectly.
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And ever since then, I've been able to blend both of those together.
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So neat.
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Thanks for sharing that with us.
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I'm gonna switch it over to Kate now.
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Kate, would you mind explaining to us what a painter is and what they do?
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Sure.
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Yeah.
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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.
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You know, it's simple and yet I think a little challenging to define.
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Yeah, I mean, I would say in its simplest form, painting is applying pigment in a binder, in a medium, onto a substrate.
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So there are lots of different kinds of paint.
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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.
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And then of course, there's industrial paints, and then there's many different substrates that one can paint on.
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You can paint on paper, on canvas, wood, UPO is a plastic paper.
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Painting can encompass mural painting, also.
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That's pretty much what painting is, I would say.
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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.
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I 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.
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Yes.
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That just in my mind speaks to the emotion of so much.
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Oh, thank you.
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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.
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But yes, I do attempt to convey ideas and emotions through paint, but perhaps not all painters do.
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I mean, there are plenty of painters that are simply exploring the medium, for example.
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To be fair, I do think most painters are trying to convey some idea through their work.
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Yeah.
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Kate, do you mind briefly telling us about your work as a painter?
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Sure.
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I 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.
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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.
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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.
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So that's the kind of painting that I really enjoy the most.
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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.
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The sun going in and out, and of course, the sun is moving all the time.
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So I appreciate your mention in my intro of my awareness of the sun.
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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.
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So I was excited about this conversation with Ryan.
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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.
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Yeah, awesome.
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Thank you so much.
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Let's go back to Ryan.
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What would you say is unique about meteorology compared with other Earth sciences?
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The idea that it can change so quickly.
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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.
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It'll humble you quickly.
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It 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.
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That like beyond the two-day forecast, it's really like the percentage of accuracy is it drops off significantly.
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Is that true or am I imagining that?
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No, you aren't.
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It's now about 72 hours.
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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.
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But after about 72 hours, all bets are off.
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The atmosphere does behave in a certain way.
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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.
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Interesting.
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I'm glad to have an update on that.
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Every decade is just one more, you know, 24 hours.
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Okay.
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And then are there any commonalities that you all are starting to see that exist between your two fields?
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All the time.
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There's an art and a science to meteorology.
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The science obviously is understanding what our technology can do for us, tell us, interpret what it's saying.
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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.
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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.
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So that isn't science.
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That's just relying upon your past experiences and trying to blend them into some type of present-day work.
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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.
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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.
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There are reasons for that scientifically.
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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.
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Absolutely.
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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.
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And I assume that's because of whatever's happening in the atmosphere or its geographic location on the globe.
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But yeah, exactly what you're saying, Ryan.
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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.
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The sun is lower in the sky all day.
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So that's much more interesting for painting because nice long shadows are to me much more visually compelling.
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But of course, you've got a really short day to work with.
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I'm just a person who's pretty obsessed with light in general.
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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.
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Well, to have that south-facing part of the house.
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So important for mood and everything else.
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Absolutely.
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And so now I'm very inspired by our home.
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I'm getting ready to make a series of prints of the light coming in on the floor.
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Oh, cool.
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Yes.
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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.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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You know, five or six years ago, I was going through a pretty tough time in my life.
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But I do remember my uncle, who's an artist, saying, Have you ever considered painting?
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And using that to think about what's going on, try to untangle the, you know, the knots that are in your brain.
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And I found that to be the most effective therapy.
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Wow, that's lovely.
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And how cool that weather can improve the mood of an artist and painting can improve the mood of a meteorologist.
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Yeah.
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Oh, I love that.
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That reminds me of something that you said to me years ago, Kristen.
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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.
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Yeah.
00:18:29.039 --> 00:18:29.440
Yeah.
00:18:29.680 --> 00:18:35.759
But then there's some like deep level underlying thinking sometimes going on in the background.
00:18:36.240 --> 00:18:46.400
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.
00:18:46.799 --> 00:18:47.440
Right.
00:18:47.680 --> 00:18:48.319
Yeah.
00:18:49.200 --> 00:18:49.519
Okay.
00:18:50.240 --> 00:18:59.200
I was thinking about your project, Kate, the 50 states project, where you traveled to all 50 states and made paintings in each state.
00:18:59.519 --> 00:19:07.920
And I am just struck by the fact that you probably made paintings in all different types of weather.
00:19:08.079 --> 00:19:13.839
Like, do you remember some of the crazier weather situations that you've made a painting in?
00:19:14.160 --> 00:19:14.799
Oh, yeah.
00:19:15.039 --> 00:19:30.400
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.
00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:46.640
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.
00:19:46.880 --> 00:19:58.559
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.
00:19:58.799 --> 00:20:06.640
But yeah, I've painted in the blazing sun, I've painted in the snow, I've painted on really windy days.
00:20:06.720 --> 00:20:13.680
That's very hard with Plenair because a painting is basically a sail once the wind kicks up.
00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:18.160
During the 50 States project, I made about 200 paintings.
00:20:18.480 --> 00:20:24.960
So yeah, basically every type of weather you name it, I have pretty much painted in it.
00:20:25.839 --> 00:20:26.960
So cool.
00:20:27.200 --> 00:20:37.519
Okay, so Ryan, I was trying to think like what role does visual art and graphics play in the world of meteorology?
00:20:37.759 --> 00:20:49.599
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.
00:20:49.759 --> 00:20:50.000
Yeah.
00:20:50.240 --> 00:20:53.119
Yeah, if you don't mind telling us a bit about those graphics.
00:20:53.440 --> 00:21:09.039
Yeah, 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.
00:21:09.359 --> 00:21:16.160
There are newer technologies and newer visualization techniques that are allowing for a better interpretation of what's happening.
00:21:16.319 --> 00:21:29.920
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.
00:21:30.240 --> 00:21:31.920
Wow, that's blowing my mind right now.
00:21:32.079 --> 00:21:38.079
Of course, weather exists in three dimensions, but it did not occur to me until this exact moment.
00:21:38.480 --> 00:21:50.079
I am a big fan of your science for everyone segments, Ryan, where you explain some of the more complicated meteorological phenomena.
00:21:50.400 --> 00:21:51.519
Say that five times fast.
00:21:51.759 --> 00:21:59.440
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.
00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:09.920
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.
00:22:10.160 --> 00:22:17.119
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.
00:22:17.279 --> 00:22:18.720
That was kind of where it came from.
00:22:18.960 --> 00:22:20.240
Oh, that's so cool.
00:22:20.480 --> 00:22:24.000
Yeah, Kristen, I should have sent you some of the Science for Everyone segments.
00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:28.319
They're on Ryan's Instagram, which is where I see them because I don't actually have broadcast TV.
00:22:28.960 --> 00:22:29.759
A lot of people don't.
00:22:29.920 --> 00:22:31.920
The business is literally dying.
00:22:32.559 --> 00:22:36.799
A little while ago, I said how I grew up wanting to be a TV meteorologist.
00:22:37.039 --> 00:22:39.519
And that job still exists now.
00:22:39.599 --> 00:22:42.079
It does and it's great, but like it's changing.
00:22:42.160 --> 00:22:45.200
It's not like professional football is changing, it's not going away.
00:22:45.359 --> 00:22:50.880
But this really is in the sense of people aren't home at five o'clock or they're home at six o'clock.
00:22:50.960 --> 00:22:57.839
And the last thing they want to do is turn on the news and watch 90% of terribleness and 5% of the weather.
00:22:58.000 --> 00:23:08.319
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.
00:23:08.640 --> 00:23:13.440
That's very interesting and actually makes me think about an overlap between that and painting.
00:23:13.680 --> 00:23:19.440
So my partner is a photographer, and we talk a lot about the overlaps between photography and painting.
00:23:19.759 --> 00:23:30.160
And photography, especially documentary photography, is also dying because magazines and newspapers are dying out slowly.
00:23:30.400 --> 00:23:33.920
And that of course affects the industry for photographers.
00:23:34.079 --> 00:23:37.680
And as a painter, it's like my industry is dead already.
00:23:38.559 --> 00:23:47.440
It's like painting died a long time ago, you know, something that's been said for many, many decades, if not centuries.
00:23:47.519 --> 00:23:50.240
It's sort of a joke among painters at this point.
00:23:50.480 --> 00:23:54.319
So I would just say, welcome to the esteemed club of dead arts.
00:23:57.519 --> 00:23:58.559
Oh my god.
00:23:58.960 --> 00:24:00.799
What a sad commonality.
00:24:01.119 --> 00:24:03.599
No, no, but it's also sort of freeing, you know.
00:24:03.680 --> 00:24:08.960
It's like it's dead, but then it's not, you know, it's it's it gives you an excuse to evolve.
00:24:09.200 --> 00:24:09.680
Exactly.
00:24:09.839 --> 00:24:10.240
Exactly.
00:24:10.319 --> 00:24:23.519
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.
00:24:23.759 --> 00:24:25.279
So it's something else now.
00:24:25.359 --> 00:24:26.720
It's something else entirely.
00:24:26.880 --> 00:24:35.839
It's a means of expression purely, it's no longer a means solely of documentation, and that changed the whole system of patronage.
00:24:36.160 --> 00:24:37.920
I don't see it as all bad.
00:24:38.079 --> 00:24:46.720
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.
00:24:47.119 --> 00:24:54.960
But again, divorcing the making of paintings from the commercial product is not necessarily a bad thing.
00:24:55.279 --> 00:24:56.319
Yeah, right.
00:24:56.960 --> 00:25:07.519
Okay, I am wanting to turn us towards brainstorming some potential collaborative projects that a painter and a meteorologist could work on together.
00:25:07.759 --> 00:25:12.880
It can be a potential project between any painter and any meteorologist.
00:25:12.960 --> 00:25:18.319
It doesn't have to be specifically you two, it can be hypothetical meteorologists and painters.
00:25:18.559 --> 00:25:26.799
I always encourage all the ideas, even seemingly bad or silly ones, because we're just playing and having fun here.
00:25:27.200 --> 00:25:33.759
After we generate a bunch of ideas, I will also incorporate some audience suggested ones.
00:25:33.920 --> 00:25:43.599
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.
00:25:43.680 --> 00:25:46.480
You know, maybe each of us will pick a favorite idea.
00:25:46.799 --> 00:25:54.240
Then I'm gonna send off some of the ideas to an impartial judge and they'll select the winning idea for that episode.
00:25:54.559 --> 00:25:57.759
So now you all know what's to come.
00:25:58.160 --> 00:26:03.440
Do you have any thoughts on what this artist and this scientist could create together?
00:26:03.759 --> 00:26:10.240
Well, the first thing that came to my head is something that no one would ever fund because it's so niche.
00:26:10.400 --> 00:26:17.599
But I would love a weather app specifically for my usage as a painter.
00:26:19.119 --> 00:26:20.720
Okay, explain.
00:26:21.359 --> 00:26:33.119
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.
00:26:33.359 --> 00:26:37.279
One of the hardest things when working plan air is partial sun.
00:26:37.599 --> 00:26:40.160
So clouds and shadows going in and out.
00:26:40.319 --> 00:26:44.480
So when I'm painting in a light situation like that, I have to make a call.
00:26:44.640 --> 00:26:48.400
Are we making a shadow painting or are we making a sunshine painting?
00:26:48.559 --> 00:26:49.759
You know, can't do.
00:26:50.079 --> 00:26:54.079
I mean, you could do both at the same time, but the sense of light would not convey.
00:26:54.160 --> 00:26:57.039
And for me, it's that sense of light is really important.
00:26:57.440 --> 00:27:06.640
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.
00:27:06.799 --> 00:27:10.480
That would be ideal for me specifically.
00:27:10.799 --> 00:27:13.839
That's so cool, but you know, it's not just for you.
00:27:13.920 --> 00:27:15.519
I could see it being an app.
00:27:15.599 --> 00:27:22.880
I mean, it is a niche audience, but an app for any plan air artist or anyone like photographers, photographers.
00:27:23.279 --> 00:27:39.279
Yeah, 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.
00:27:39.359 --> 00:27:49.279
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?
00:27:49.440 --> 00:27:51.200
Which direction is the wind?
00:27:51.359 --> 00:27:53.039
You know, okay.
00:27:53.200 --> 00:27:56.319
Speaking of wind, this is just a wacky idea.
00:27:56.559 --> 00:28:00.079
Is there a way you can let the wind paint?
00:28:00.480 --> 00:28:03.279
Like, could you set up something?
00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:16.400
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.
00:28:16.480 --> 00:28:16.880
I don't know.
00:28:17.200 --> 00:28:20.799
Just use like a wind chime and put a permanent marker at the bottom.
00:28:21.359 --> 00:28:22.799
Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:28:22.880 --> 00:28:24.480
I was thinking something like that too.
00:28:24.799 --> 00:28:25.200
Interesting.
00:28:25.519 --> 00:28:29.680
Or like just strings at the bottom and they have some sort of pigment on them.
00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:30.640
Yeah.
00:28:30.880 --> 00:28:33.920
I like the idea of weather making paintings.
00:28:34.319 --> 00:28:45.119
Well, 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.
00:28:45.359 --> 00:28:49.039
Usually you would do like a piece of paper or sometimes like a big piece of fabric.
00:28:49.200 --> 00:28:56.079
So you cover it in this photosensitive coating, and then what you would usually do is cover it with some interesting shapes.
00:28:56.240 --> 00:29:08.079
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.
00:29:08.160 --> 00:29:15.920
So it's a way of making images, and then a friend of mine, Marie, she will make paintings on top of the cyanotypes.
00:29:16.160 --> 00:29:22.079
And actually, Emily Fussner is another artist that incorporates cyanotypes into her work a lot.
00:29:22.400 --> 00:29:23.200
Very cool.
00:29:23.359 --> 00:29:29.359
Yeah, I mean, I think those different mediums can totally be incorporated within painting.
00:29:29.599 --> 00:29:30.480
Absolutely.
00:29:30.799 --> 00:29:34.240
Another type of weather that could make a painting is a cloud.
00:29:34.480 --> 00:29:40.319
You could put dry pigments on a surface and then let a cloud pass over.
00:29:40.799 --> 00:29:42.240
Ooh, the fog.
00:29:42.720 --> 00:29:48.240
Yeah, I'm just thinking like, could there be a whole series of different ways the weather can make paintings?
00:29:48.400 --> 00:29:52.960
You know, the sun can make paintings, the wind can make paintings, the clouds can make paintings.
00:29:53.119 --> 00:29:53.519
Yeah.
00:29:53.839 --> 00:29:54.240
Rain?
00:29:54.720 --> 00:29:55.839
Yeah, the rain.
00:29:56.079 --> 00:29:58.559
Oh, yes, the rain, snow, certainly.
00:29:58.799 --> 00:30:03.119
Snow would be interesting if you could like spray some kind of aerosol where you can color the snow.
00:30:03.920 --> 00:30:07.279
Obviously, in a localized environment, but that'd be so cool.
00:30:07.519 --> 00:30:07.839
Yeah.
00:30:09.599 --> 00:30:15.680
Something else that came to my mind is that pigments are made from stuff from the earth.
00:30:15.920 --> 00:30:16.400
Right.
00:30:16.720 --> 00:30:17.119
Elements.
00:30:17.599 --> 00:30:28.799
From 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.
00:30:28.960 --> 00:30:31.440
You know, I could see some overlap there somewhere.
00:30:31.680 --> 00:30:32.960
Yeah, yeah.
00:30:33.440 --> 00:30:36.000
Weather made pigments or something.
00:30:36.160 --> 00:30:36.559
Yeah.
00:30:37.359 --> 00:30:37.680
Yeah.
00:30:37.839 --> 00:30:40.799
Well, also like wildfire is weather, right?
00:30:41.119 --> 00:30:41.440
Oh.
00:30:41.839 --> 00:30:44.960
And talk about the impacts to the atmosphere and to the light.
00:30:45.119 --> 00:30:51.839
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.
00:30:52.079 --> 00:30:53.039
Oh my gosh, yeah.
00:30:53.200 --> 00:30:58.640
Like wildfire smoke is obviously so terrible, but so visual.
00:30:58.799 --> 00:31:01.680
It's so interesting to work from.
00:31:01.839 --> 00:31:08.319
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.
00:31:08.480 --> 00:31:14.160
I was making a lot of paintings because that very like sepia-toned light is so interesting.
00:31:14.400 --> 00:31:14.720
Yeah.
00:31:14.880 --> 00:31:19.599
I mean, it's sort of post-apocalyptic, obviously, but it was for a few days.
00:31:19.839 --> 00:31:24.319
But where I was going with wildfire actually is carbon, which is pigment.
00:31:24.480 --> 00:31:25.599
It's black, right?
00:31:25.839 --> 00:31:38.000
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.
00:31:38.319 --> 00:31:41.039
Wow, that is powerful.
00:31:41.200 --> 00:31:44.799
Yeah, yeah, that would definitely be intense.
00:31:45.039 --> 00:31:52.559
I love the idea of using the material of a subject matter to depict that subject matter.
00:31:52.640 --> 00:31:54.400
It's very like full circle.
00:31:54.720 --> 00:31:56.160
Yes, yes.
00:31:57.279 --> 00:32:02.319
Does meteorology always deal with prediction?
00:32:02.799 --> 00:32:03.839
Uh actually, no.
00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:23.920
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.
00:32:24.480 --> 00:32:25.440
Interesting.
00:32:26.240 --> 00:32:43.119
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.
00:32:43.279 --> 00:32:43.759
Yes.
00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:51.839
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.
00:32:52.079 --> 00:32:54.799
You know, that science is so far beyond me.
00:32:54.880 --> 00:32:59.839
I am not a conservator, but you know, there are paintings conservators that work on those things.
00:33:00.079 --> 00:33:00.400
Right.
00:33:00.480 --> 00:33:13.839
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.
00:33:14.079 --> 00:33:17.440
Yes, like parts of the atmosphere, potentially.
00:33:17.680 --> 00:33:18.000
Yeah.
00:33:18.319 --> 00:33:19.839
And that's what they found with snow.
00:33:20.079 --> 00:33:28.240
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.
00:33:28.319 --> 00:33:34.319
You've got a perfectly preserved and cold snapshot of what the atmosphere was thousands of years ago.
00:33:34.720 --> 00:33:36.960
Oh, that's so cool.
00:33:37.279 --> 00:33:46.000
Which 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.
00:33:46.160 --> 00:33:53.359
We've got perfectly preserved atmospheric samples from 420,000 years ago, which is even predates humanity.
00:33:53.680 --> 00:34:01.039
Um, and you can look at exactly the composition of the atmosphere as it existed then versus now.
00:34:01.359 --> 00:34:02.160
That is amazing.
00:34:02.240 --> 00:34:07.920
I didn't know that that was a thing, that there were little pockets of atmosphere trapped in ice.
00:34:08.159 --> 00:34:08.559
Wow.
00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:10.960
That makes me think about an artist.
00:34:11.119 --> 00:34:19.360
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.
00:34:19.599 --> 00:34:31.679
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.
00:34:31.760 --> 00:34:34.800
And she's made paintings that are flotation devices.
00:34:34.960 --> 00:34:35.360
What?
00:34:35.519 --> 00:34:40.960
She's actually taken her paintings out into the Potomac River and floated on her paintings.
00:34:41.199 --> 00:34:41.599
What?
00:34:41.760 --> 00:34:44.000
It's performance and painting.
00:34:44.239 --> 00:34:49.360
The paintings are hung from a pulley system and they go up and down with the tides.
00:34:49.599 --> 00:34:50.559
Oh my god.
00:34:50.719 --> 00:34:56.800
As if sea level were to rise up to the level of a museum and then the tide is coming in and out.
00:34:56.960 --> 00:35:01.039
You can lift the paintings away from the rising sea.
00:35:01.280 --> 00:35:01.599
Wow.
00:35:01.760 --> 00:35:03.440
It's quite amazing work.
00:35:03.840 --> 00:35:05.679
That is so cool.
00:35:06.239 --> 00:35:09.519
Are any other ideas coming to mind?
00:35:10.079 --> 00:35:19.519
You know, I feel that there is such a need for people to divorce themselves from technology, whether it's their phones or whatever.
00:35:19.679 --> 00:35:31.119
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.
00:35:31.599 --> 00:35:38.320
Weather certainly can command the attention, and I think art can cross that dimension and gather attention too.
00:35:38.400 --> 00:35:40.079
So I think there's something there.
00:35:40.400 --> 00:35:40.719
Right.
00:35:40.880 --> 00:35:45.119
They both pull you out of the stupor that the phones induce.
00:35:45.360 --> 00:35:50.320
Yeah, it's like the anti-scrolling that is so needed in today's society.
00:35:50.559 --> 00:35:59.199
It'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.
00:35:59.280 --> 00:36:06.559
It's like, oh, this is what it feels like to be alive and like witness the drama of this world and our atmosphere.
00:36:07.119 --> 00:36:17.039
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.
00:36:17.280 --> 00:36:18.559
Yes, so true.
00:36:18.800 --> 00:36:24.000
And so many of the wonderful human beings I get a chance to teach, like they don't experience that.
00:36:24.159 --> 00:36:26.000
And Kristen, you just mentioned it.
00:36:26.239 --> 00:36:28.800
Things that make you feel alive, right?
00:36:29.280 --> 00:36:32.079
Like there's so many things that don't these days.
00:36:32.320 --> 00:36:34.000
I was challenging some of my students.
00:36:34.079 --> 00:36:35.519
I'm like, you should go.
00:36:35.760 --> 00:36:41.760
That one person that you've had a crush on that you like, that you just always just had a thing for.
00:36:41.920 --> 00:36:44.960
Like, if they're single and you're single, go ask them out.
00:36:45.199 --> 00:36:46.559
Take a risk.
00:36:46.880 --> 00:36:47.920
And you know what?
00:36:48.159 --> 00:36:53.920
It may go great and you feel alive, and it may not go great, and you may feel you're going to feel alive.
00:36:57.599 --> 00:36:59.119
That's so true.
00:36:59.920 --> 00:37:05.679
That's funny because you're just like so on the front lines of that too, Ryan, as a high school teacher.
00:37:05.920 --> 00:37:11.280
Like you just see it so up close and personal being around teens all day.
00:37:11.519 --> 00:37:15.440
Yeah, it's just, and there's just a lack of humanity in a lot of them.
00:37:15.599 --> 00:37:16.639
And I feel bad.
00:37:16.880 --> 00:37:17.280
I do.
00:37:17.360 --> 00:37:21.760
I just think, man, you could have it so much better if you just find a way.
00:37:22.000 --> 00:37:23.840
Touch grass, as they say, right?
00:37:24.800 --> 00:37:26.400
Literally and figuratively.
00:37:26.880 --> 00:37:28.800
I think I just aged myself.
00:37:30.639 --> 00:37:32.480
It's okay, I could always cut it out.
00:37:32.639 --> 00:37:45.039
But finally, but something else that comes to my mind is like, okay, so we have meteorological maps, visuals, right?
00:37:45.599 --> 00:37:53.360
Can those maps and those images be used to convey a completely different kind of information?
00:37:54.800 --> 00:38:00.320
Like, I don't know, just something completely divorced from the weather.
00:38:00.480 --> 00:38:05.519
Like I'm trying to think what would move in a pattern the same way.
00:38:05.920 --> 00:38:13.360
Maybe even like your emotions as they kind of like flow through the landscape that is you or something.
00:38:13.679 --> 00:38:14.639
Sure, sure.
00:38:15.519 --> 00:38:27.440
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?
00:38:27.599 --> 00:38:35.119
I mean, it could be like, okay, here's Kate, expert witness who really paints in this one spot a lot.
00:38:35.360 --> 00:38:37.199
She says it's gonna rain.
00:38:37.280 --> 00:38:37.920
She can feel it.
00:38:38.000 --> 00:38:39.920
That's kind of silly, but I like it.
00:38:41.519 --> 00:38:48.159
It could also just be like, hey, you want to make those maps look like really beautiful?
00:38:48.480 --> 00:38:52.400
You know, a painter could make the graphics that go on the news.
00:38:52.880 --> 00:38:58.400
Can you imagine if they didn't look like pixelated and not the most beautiful colors?
00:38:58.480 --> 00:39:04.719
Like, if you imagine letting a painter make those aesthetic decisions, that would be so cool.
00:39:05.199 --> 00:39:12.239
I mean, Ryan, imagine if there was an in-house painter at MBC4 who every day is just frantically cheering out paintings.
00:39:14.480 --> 00:39:20.960
Most stressful job in the uh I kind of love it though.
00:39:22.719 --> 00:39:27.360
There are painters who will listen to music and freestyle a painting.
00:39:27.440 --> 00:39:28.400
It's almost like that.
00:39:28.480 --> 00:39:31.679
You're freestyling with the weather data you're getting.
00:39:31.840 --> 00:39:32.079
Yeah.
00:39:32.320 --> 00:39:45.679
Well, 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.
00:39:45.920 --> 00:39:46.800
Yeah, that's true.
00:39:46.960 --> 00:39:48.000
That's true.
00:39:48.719 --> 00:40:01.519
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.
00:40:01.760 --> 00:40:04.480
Oh, they definitely need an artist there.
00:40:04.719 --> 00:40:05.119
Yeah.
00:40:05.360 --> 00:40:05.920
Wow.
00:40:06.159 --> 00:40:08.079
Let's bring back the old ways.
00:40:08.320 --> 00:40:09.840
Yes, exactly.
00:40:10.800 --> 00:40:17.280
At this point, I'm going to mention two audience suggested ideas because we don't have time for more than that.
00:40:17.679 --> 00:40:25.119
The first idea comes from John H, who said you could make the same painting in different types of weather or climates.
00:40:25.760 --> 00:40:30.320
Or you do it at the same same date, same time every year.
00:40:30.559 --> 00:40:31.440
Oh, yes.
00:40:31.599 --> 00:40:32.320
Oh, I love that.
00:40:33.199 --> 00:40:37.519
And can aggregate everything together to see how things have changed.
00:40:37.599 --> 00:40:48.159
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.
00:40:48.719 --> 00:40:49.840
Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.
00:40:51.199 --> 00:41:09.920
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.
00:41:10.239 --> 00:41:14.880
Then when that day arrives, they can paint the actual observed weather on top.
00:41:15.519 --> 00:41:17.360
That's pretty fascinating.
00:41:17.760 --> 00:41:23.920
Yeah, like a seven-day or a 10-day forecast, like the graphics you see on television.
00:41:24.239 --> 00:41:35.280
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.
00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:36.639
Oh my gosh.
00:41:36.800 --> 00:41:45.599
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.
00:41:45.679 --> 00:41:51.360
Like that one painting is just perpetually in progress, and it just gets like thicker and thicker and thicker with paint.
00:41:51.599 --> 00:41:51.760
Right.
00:41:51.840 --> 00:41:58.880
And maybe you don't have to completely cover the previous layers, you're letting things poke through.
00:41:59.119 --> 00:42:00.480
But yeah.
00:42:01.199 --> 00:42:08.400
So at this point, do you all have a favorite idea that you want to mention?
00:42:08.719 --> 00:42:11.360
Oh my gosh, I can't even remember all the things that we just said.
00:42:11.760 --> 00:42:12.159
I know.
00:42:12.320 --> 00:42:24.880
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.
00:42:25.039 --> 00:42:26.239
That's a neat one.
00:42:27.119 --> 00:42:27.920
I do like that.
00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:36.719
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.
00:42:37.119 --> 00:42:37.679
I just love it.
00:42:39.760 --> 00:42:42.400
Because you are you're keyed in, like you know.
00:42:42.800 --> 00:42:45.039
I feel like I really have a lot to contribute.
00:42:45.199 --> 00:42:48.960
Like I get that is really out there, you know.
00:42:49.280 --> 00:42:51.199
Get that lady on TV.
00:42:53.199 --> 00:42:54.320
That would be a good time.
00:42:54.480 --> 00:42:56.320
We could collab, Ryan.
00:42:56.559 --> 00:42:57.599
That would be a great time.
00:42:57.840 --> 00:42:58.480
Hey, why not?
00:42:58.559 --> 00:42:59.920
It's something different, we'll do it.
00:43:00.159 --> 00:43:00.719
Love it.
00:43:00.960 --> 00:43:01.840
Oh my gosh.
00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:05.840
If this episode inspires that, I would be so happy.
00:43:06.079 --> 00:43:09.760
We will, you know, site cross-pollinated and raise more.
00:43:10.079 --> 00:43:10.400
Please.
00:43:10.639 --> 00:43:12.000
Absolutely.
00:43:12.960 --> 00:43:22.159
I also really liked the idea that Sarah O submitted about continuously updating a painting based on new data.
00:43:22.320 --> 00:43:23.599
I thought that one was cool too.
00:43:23.840 --> 00:43:24.559
I like that too.
00:43:24.639 --> 00:43:30.159
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.
00:43:30.400 --> 00:43:31.119
Yeah, right.
00:43:31.360 --> 00:43:32.000
Absolutely.
00:43:32.239 --> 00:43:32.559
Cool.
00:43:32.719 --> 00:43:34.079
Do you have a favorite, Ryan?
00:43:34.400 --> 00:43:43.119
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.
00:43:44.000 --> 00:43:49.280
Look how it changes over time, just to see how their observations have changed.
00:43:49.519 --> 00:43:49.840
Right.
00:43:50.079 --> 00:43:58.800
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.
00:43:59.039 --> 00:43:59.280
Yeah.
00:44:00.559 --> 00:44:01.440
Yeah, right.
00:44:01.599 --> 00:44:03.679
And their eye, what they're noticing.
00:44:04.000 --> 00:44:05.519
Yes, I love that idea.
00:44:05.679 --> 00:44:07.039
And I love repetition.
00:44:07.199 --> 00:44:09.920
I love, you know, documenting the same place over and over again.
00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:12.000
It's something I've done a lot in my work.
00:44:12.079 --> 00:44:13.760
So I love that idea too.
00:44:14.079 --> 00:44:14.480
Wow.
00:44:14.639 --> 00:44:17.440
Well, I think we generated a lot of really amazing ideas.
00:44:17.519 --> 00:44:27.280
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.
00:44:27.440 --> 00:44:31.920
Thanks for yeah, being willing to do some weird brainstorming with me.
00:44:32.079 --> 00:44:33.119
It was really fun.
00:44:33.440 --> 00:44:33.840
Of course.
00:44:34.320 --> 00:44:35.519
Thank you so much for having us.
00:44:35.599 --> 00:44:36.559
This is such a treat.
00:44:36.719 --> 00:44:39.920
Truly, Ryan, I've mentioned you to Kristen so many times.
00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.320
And I hope that at some point we can all be together in person.
00:44:44.639 --> 00:44:45.280
That'd be great.
00:44:45.519 --> 00:44:46.719
Yeah, we'll have to do that.
00:44:46.960 --> 00:44:50.559
When summer hits, let's try that out at the uh at the studio.
00:44:50.639 --> 00:44:51.280
That'd be fun.
00:44:51.519 --> 00:44:53.119
Oh my gosh, that'd be so fun.
00:44:53.199 --> 00:44:54.239
Let's do it.
00:44:56.159 --> 00:44:57.760
Thank you both so much.
00:44:57.920 --> 00:44:59.360
It really was a pleasure.
00:44:59.599 --> 00:45:00.719
Oh, the pleasure was mine.
00:45:00.800 --> 00:45:01.920
Thank you guys for your time.
00:45:02.239 --> 00:45:03.039
Thanks so much.
00:45:03.280 --> 00:45:05.280
All right, I'll talk to you all later.
00:45:09.599 --> 00:45:17.599
After talking with Kate, the painter, and Ryan, the meteorologist, I went through everything we had discussed and pulled out six collaboration ideas.
00:45:17.840 --> 00:45:22.320
Here's a rundown of the ideas that I sent to our impartial judge.
00:45:22.639 --> 00:45:29.039
Idea number one: a weather app specifically designed for plenaire painters and artists.
00:45:29.199 --> 00:45:39.199
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.
00:45:39.599 --> 00:45:44.079
A key feature is that it tells you how long you have until conditions change.
00:45:44.480 --> 00:45:49.679
Idea number two: a series of paintings made by different types of weather.
00:45:49.920 --> 00:46:09.840
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.
00:46:10.159 --> 00:46:20.800
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.
00:46:21.039 --> 00:46:27.760
It investigates what we can learn by analyzing these tiny pockets of trapped air in these different materials.
00:46:28.400 --> 00:46:38.960
Idea number four, a special weather report where a painter is brought into the newsroom to create live paintings based on the weather forecast.
00:46:39.199 --> 00:46:44.559
These are then shown on the green screen, and a weatherman interprets them for the audience.
00:46:44.960 --> 00:46:50.239
For idea number five, I came up with one based on something Ryan had mentioned.
00:46:50.480 --> 00:46:56.719
So this one is a weather and painting event aimed at helping people feel alive.
00:46:57.039 --> 00:47:07.039
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.
00:47:07.280 --> 00:47:19.920
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.
00:47:20.159 --> 00:47:25.760
This would reference how meteorology is predictive and continuously updated based on new data.
00:47:26.079 --> 00:47:31.599
We have a new guest impartial judge for this episode, so let's see what they have to say.
00:47:35.519 --> 00:47:40.880
We're now here with Mallory Miles, our guest impartial judge for this episode.
00:47:41.119 --> 00:47:47.920
If you've listened to past episodes, you might remember her from the screenwriter and ornithologist episode.
00:47:48.079 --> 00:47:51.360
She was the bird scientist that I brought on for that one.
00:47:51.599 --> 00:47:59.840
Dick Woodruff is typically our impartial judge, but his preferences lean pretty heavily towards the artistic ideas.
00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:06.800
And I was interested in bringing on an impartial judge who was a little more balanced in their art and science views.
00:48:06.960 --> 00:48:13.039
I think Mallory is a great person for this because she's both a biologist and a creative writer.
00:48:13.280 --> 00:48:15.760
So I think she's going to have some great insight.
00:48:15.920 --> 00:48:17.599
Thanks so much for joining us, Mallory.
00:48:18.000 --> 00:48:19.119
Yeah, my pleasure.
00:48:19.440 --> 00:48:26.639
In a hypothetical world, if you had a few thousand dollars to grant to one of these ideas, which one would you pick and why?
00:48:27.039 --> 00:48:29.440
So there are several good ideas here.
00:48:29.599 --> 00:48:31.039
It's a hard choice.
00:48:31.280 --> 00:48:34.239
But I did have one that kind of mulling them over.
00:48:34.480 --> 00:48:40.719
It was the one that took me down the Google rabbit hole for the longest, like trying to find out more about this.
00:48:41.039 --> 00:48:46.960
So I am kind of interested in the study of air bubbles in paint and ice.
00:48:47.199 --> 00:48:58.800
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.
00:48:58.960 --> 00:49:02.559
Like I know a lot of them are coming from plants or animals.
00:49:02.800 --> 00:49:10.239
And I wonder how like different climate conditions affected what plants and animals were available for people to use as pigments.
00:49:10.400 --> 00:49:10.719
Right.
00:49:11.119 --> 00:49:14.079
And how that's reflected in the paint as well.
00:49:14.320 --> 00:49:19.760
So also interested in the air bubbles, but I think it could get it could be even bigger and more exciting.
00:49:20.079 --> 00:49:21.199
Well, that was my favorite.
00:49:21.840 --> 00:49:22.159
Okay.
00:49:22.239 --> 00:49:24.000
I think that's a really great one.
00:49:24.239 --> 00:49:39.920
It 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.
00:49:40.239 --> 00:49:42.960
It felt like a really good art science fusion.
00:49:43.199 --> 00:49:44.880
Yeah, yeah, I agree.
00:49:45.199 --> 00:49:45.519
Okay.
00:49:45.920 --> 00:49:48.639
So did you have a least favorite idea?
00:49:48.800 --> 00:49:51.199
You don't have to pick one if you don't want to.
00:49:51.599 --> 00:49:53.440
I did have a least favorite idea.
00:49:54.880 --> 00:50:09.599
Although, 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.
00:50:09.760 --> 00:50:13.360
Also, I feel like the weatherman could just make it awkward somehow.
00:50:15.599 --> 00:50:17.599
I have concerns about that.
00:50:19.199 --> 00:50:27.199
There was an aspect to that idea where you actually bring an artist on for a segment.
00:50:27.360 --> 00:50:35.679
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.
00:50:38.880 --> 00:50:41.440
It would be it would be funny, I'm sure.
00:50:41.679 --> 00:50:42.159
Yeah, yeah.
00:50:42.320 --> 00:50:44.719
But I'm not sure I'd give a thousand dollars for that.
00:50:46.000 --> 00:50:47.599
Okay, good to know.
00:50:49.039 --> 00:50:51.599
Well, I have one last question for you.
00:50:51.920 --> 00:51:09.039
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.
00:51:09.199 --> 00:51:11.119
I was just interested to hear what you think about it.
00:51:11.280 --> 00:51:17.519
Do you think there's some value in keeping this impartial judge element to the conversation?
00:51:17.760 --> 00:51:19.039
Oh, that's a good question.
00:51:19.280 --> 00:51:25.360
I don't think that it adds a ton, but it's kind of fun.
00:51:25.599 --> 00:51:25.760
Yeah.
00:51:26.719 --> 00:51:31.519
Having been someone who submitted an idea, you have a little bit of a dog in the fight.
00:51:33.440 --> 00:51:34.480
Choose mine.
00:51:37.360 --> 00:51:48.719
And I think there's some value in somewhat mimicking like the real world scenario of applying for grants and thinking through that process.
00:51:48.960 --> 00:51:52.800
Anyway, I'm interested in hearing people's opinions on this.
00:51:52.960 --> 00:51:53.760
So thank you.
00:51:54.079 --> 00:51:55.440
Thank you for sharing that.
00:51:55.760 --> 00:51:56.400
No problem.
00:51:56.639 --> 00:52:03.280
Maybe someone will actually give you a thousand dollars to give out to then, then it would be incredible.
00:52:04.559 --> 00:52:06.880
I think maybe that's actually the hope.
00:52:07.039 --> 00:52:08.320
Is that the pipe dream?
00:52:08.559 --> 00:52:10.639
I think that is the dream.
00:52:10.880 --> 00:52:13.360
I'll I'll have my fingers crossed for you.
00:52:14.559 --> 00:52:15.039
All right.
00:52:15.199 --> 00:52:16.559
Well, thank you so much.
00:52:16.639 --> 00:52:18.880
Uh, I think you picked a great winning idea.
00:52:19.119 --> 00:52:19.920
Oh, thank you.
00:52:20.079 --> 00:52:27.840
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.
00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:28.960
So well done.
00:52:29.199 --> 00:52:29.440
Yeah.
00:52:29.599 --> 00:52:36.000
And well, I also feel like that one really has maybe the best balance of art and science.
00:52:36.320 --> 00:52:38.880
They seemed the most intertwined to me.
00:52:39.119 --> 00:52:39.440
Yeah.
00:52:39.599 --> 00:52:41.119
But it could be biased too.
00:52:41.679 --> 00:52:43.440
Well, everyone's biased.
00:52:44.880 --> 00:52:49.840
But when it comes to art and science, you're probably one of the least biased people, I think.
00:52:50.079 --> 00:52:50.800
Oh, thank you.
00:52:50.960 --> 00:52:53.679
Well, thank you again, and I'm sure we'll talk to you soon.
00:52:53.920 --> 00:52:54.559
Sounds good.
00:52:54.639 --> 00:52:55.679
I'll talk to you later.
00:52:56.000 --> 00:52:56.639
Bye.