126. Science Illustration, AI Cardinals, and Frozen Asters w/ J. Spahr

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
What is up, plant people?
It's time once more for thePlanthropology Podcast, the show
where we dive into the lives andcareers of some very cool plant
people to figure out why they dowhat they do and what keeps them
coming back for more.
I'm Victor Imbaliga, your host,and your humble guide in this
journey through the sciences.
And as always, my friends, I'mso gosh darn ding dang excited
to be with you today.

(00:21):
I am finally getting to cover onthis show a topic that I've
wanted to have for a long time,and a guest that I've wanted to
have for a long time.
So if you know me and if youfollow me on social media, I am
not a great artist, right?
I have doodled a few doodles,and I have my students doodle
animal doodles every semester,and I can't judge them very hard

(00:42):
on it, because it is not not mything.
I am not creative in that way.
And if you know that I wrote achildren's book, Plants to the
Rescue, this is a shamelessplug, and I'm not sorry.
The process of getting thatillustration done, I obviously
didn't illustrate.
But I would talk ramblinglyabout, maybe like I'm doing

(01:02):
right now, what I wanted it tolook like.
And this illustrator would go inand just like blow my mind.
It'd be like, oh yeah, I tookyour abjectly uh uh chaotic
thoughts and translated theminto visual media.
My guest today is an absoluteexpert at that, at taking
complex scientific concepts andillustrating them and displaying

(01:26):
them visually.
So I got connected with Jay Sparum from Science Visuals a while
back on social media.
She has worked with somedifferent groups like the Native
Habitat Project and somedifferent things to develop
media and t-shirt designs andthings like that.
And I love her work.
Y'all I I I don't know how tolike properly describe how good
her work is.
And I'll link to her website andher portfolio in the in the show

(01:49):
notes, and you need to go lookat it.
But Jay and I started talkingabout having her on the show a
while back, and because of life,we're finally getting it done.
And y'all, she's so great.
She's so great.
You know, I I've talked aboutthis before, I think, but it is
such a wonderful thing to tofollow someone and admire what
someone does online and in theircareers, and then to get to talk

(02:12):
to them and find out thatthey're just as much of a
delight and much as much of awonderful human being as you
expected.
So Jay and I talked abouteverything from the impact of AI
on art communities and onscientific understanding and the
way we represent that throughart and through discussion.
We talked about the creativeprocess that goes into doing

(02:32):
science illustration, whetherthat be for a textbook or a
science center or for whateverelse we talked about, life and
curiosity, and so many things.
And y'all, you are going to lovethis episode.
And I would also encourage youto make sure you stay around
till the end, because there islike a bonus little thing at the
end that we almost forgot about,and I'm glad we got to throw in
there.
So you'll you'll see.
You'll see.

(02:53):
So now I'm gonna stop blabberingand I'm gonna encourage you to
go grab a pencil and somewatercolors and to doodle while
you listen to this episode andto learn all of the amazing
things that go into scienceillustration with J Spar.

(03:40):
I would love to give you thechance to introduce yourself a
little bit.
We were talking before we got onabout how that's an interesting
experience, especially if you dothis a bunch, like introducing
yourself over and over again.
But I'm gonna make you introduceyourself one more time.
So tell us about you.
What's your background?
What did you study?
What are you into?
You know, you have aninteresting, really, I think,
diverse resume.
And I think that it'll be superinteresting for our listeners to

(04:02):
hear.
So I'll turn it over and tell usall about Jay.

SPEAKER_02 (04:05):
Yeah, it is a broad spectrum of interests, I guess,
from my career to how I startedthe with the to become a
scientific illustrator.
So I'm a professional scientificillustrator.
I work full-time freelance, Iwork for science centers, I work
for publishers, I work forresearch facilities,

(04:25):
universities, and I doillustrations kind of in two
separate veins.
It's either scientificillustrations for public
outreach, or it's scientificillustrations for research
that's sharing research withusually other researchers
through journals, but sometimesalso we're hoping that will be
public outreach information too.

(04:47):
So when I was little, I wasalways playing outside, being a
curious New Englander who hadaccess to trees right behind my
house and miles of trails andstuff.
And then I went to college and Igot a degree in art history

(05:07):
because my dad told me theywould only help me pay for
college if I didn't get a studioart degree.
So it was an agreement.

SPEAKER_01 (05:15):
Okay.

SPEAKER_02 (05:16):
And so, and if I and he said if I ever wanted to work
in a museum, that would be morebeneficial.
And then at the same time, I gota degree in global environmental
studies.
And so those two things, when Iwas in college, people were sort
of like, this is kind of aweird, like in two different,
completely different directions.

(05:37):
And then when I finishedcollege, I was completely lost.
I had absolutely no idea what Iwanted to do.
I started working full-time asthe assistant for a sculpture
working for her.
And meanwhile, I was feelingreally not very fulfilled.
I was spending all of my timewhen I wasn't working, making my

(05:58):
own stencils and printing themof endangered species and
designs like that online.
And then one day I was at mytown garbage dump, believe it or
not, because in New England youstill have to bring your trash
to the dump every week.

(06:18):
Yeah.
So I was at the dump, and therewas an anatomy and physiology
textbook that was in a pile oftrash.
And I picked it up and startedflipping through it.
And obviously, I had takenbiology classes and stuff
before, but something clicked inmy mind that made me think, oh,

(06:40):
is this actually a potentialcareer to be the person who
makes the illustrations in this?
And I went home, I startedcreating a big kind of
illustration of my own brainwith all different anatomical
structures in it.
And fast forward two years, Igot a master's degree in

(07:01):
scientific illustration in theNetherlands.
I chose that programspecifically because it wasn't
all medical illustration.
We all got to do botanicalillustrations and we got to do
lots of animal anatomy and humananatomy all together.
And then I got back to the USand started working freelance

(07:21):
for the clients that I was kindof explaining at the beginning.
And the rest is somewhat historyand somewhat successful.

SPEAKER_00 (07:32):
Wow.
So I have so many questions.
So I have to say, first of all,I think you're the first guest.
I've been doing this for sixyears.
I think you're the first guestthat's come in and said, I found
a textbook at the dump and itchanged my life.
And I cannot tell you how much Ilove that.
Like I love that so much.
That's awesome.
Because I think I don't know.

(07:54):
I where there's so much pressureas maybe just people, but
especially as you know, uhacademics and creatives and
stuff like that, to figurethings out.
Like you have to know and youhave to do this and you have to
do that.
When sometimes it's like a tinylittle thing, like a like a
little moment of inspiration,something serendipitous though.

SPEAKER_02 (08:13):
I was just about to say serendipity.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (08:15):
It pushes us in a whole new direction.
And that's such a cool story.

SPEAKER_02 (08:18):
It was it was definitely life-changing and not
expected.
And it definitely just made merealize that I wasn't just
fascinated in the natural worldto appreciate it, but maybe I
wanted to be more inquisitive oneven a cellular level into the
things that I was passionateabout.

SPEAKER_00 (08:40):
That's really cool.
So and that also brings up in mymind, you know, you say you
lived in the Netherlands for acouple of years.
And one, I want to know whatthat was like, because that's at
least to me, the, you know, guywho's never been in the
Netherlands but would love togo.
It sounds wonderful.
But two, in that program, isthere I'm trying to think of how

(09:00):
the right way to ask thequestion.
So I feel like sometimes in ourinstitutions, there's like a big
divide between like art is overhere and science is over here,
right?
They're like separate things.
But you found a really coolprogram that marries those two,
right?
Is that something that you feellike is more accepted over
there?
Is that part of like a culturalthing, or is it just that

(09:24):
institution happened to have areally cool program?

SPEAKER_02 (09:27):
I think that's a really great question, and
actually one that nobody hasever asked me before.
I would say it's a little bit ofboth.
I think there's a huge historyof scientific illustration,
medical illustration, andbotanical illustration,
specifically in Europe, and manydifferent artists.
That is, that was their realm ofwork.

(09:48):
And the research that was sharedin Europe from pre-Renaissance
onward was shared asillustrations, and that was work
that was being done in Europeand being shared via images that
were being created.
And that visual language hasdefinitely always been
historically a huge part ofEuropean research culture, more

(10:12):
than here necessarily.
But that's also, I mean, westarted the US started its
whole, I mean that's a wholeother colonial art is
horrifying.
The anatomical inaccuracies incolonial art is really deeply
disturbing to me.
So I it's kind of an interest.
I mean, but those were alsopeople who weren't training for
that necessarily.

(10:32):
They were coming over fromEurope or had group grown up in
the US, weren't classicallytrained.
There was a huge history of theclassical training of artists
and working with andside-by-side scientists in
Europe way more than there washere early in the US.

SPEAKER_00 (10:51):
That's so fascinating to me because like
there's a lot of emphasissometimes on STEM education.
And that's great.
Obviously, I'm that guy.
Like I enjoy, that's my thing.
And then it's evolved in someways into STEAM, you know, to
add arts into it.
And I think that's so important.
But I feel like for whateverreason, and there's a lot of

(11:11):
reasons, but the adoption ofthat sometimes here in the US is
not great.
Like it's not great.
I think that we make a nod tothe humanities, to arts, to a
lot of the other things that arein should be integral parts of
our scientific pursuits.
Like the it protects against somany terrible things that can be
done in the name of science insome ways.

(11:32):
And like I love that's thedirection you've chosen.
I think it's such a great way totell the story of all the things
that you tell the stories of.

SPEAKER_02 (11:42):
Well, that's and that's really what I talk about
mostly is even though I callmyself a scientific illustrator,
I don't call myself an artist.
I also would call myself astoryteller, maybe, or a
communicator sooner than I wouldcall myself an artist, because I
feel that it's my job to helpfacilitate sharing knowledge

(12:04):
with people.
I don't, I'm not, people arealways asking me, like, oh,
what's your favorite thing todraw?
Well, that's kind of a mootpoint.
I draw what people ask me todraw, what I draw research, I
draw information text panels forscience centers.
And my goal is to create reallydigestible content, no matter
who the audience is supposed tobe, even if it isn't supposed to

(12:26):
be general audiences, I want ageneral audience for the most
part to be able to look atsomething that I've created and
understand it at least to alevel where they can develop
curiosity about it.
I'm fostering curiosity is thebiggest part of my life.
All I want in my life is to makepeople curious about the natural

(12:49):
world and about what is going onaround them, what research is
going on around them, even ifthat means, you know, maybe
they're gonna give money to likethis is a grant proposal or
something.
It goes in all differentdirections from people wanting
to donate to a science center towanting to donate to a research
project to just finding thatspark of curiosity about

(13:11):
something because they'vevisually discovered something.

SPEAKER_00 (13:15):
Yeah, that's really cool.
And that's a great goal.
You know, my wife spent yearsand still works a little bit in
a science center.
And, you know, she comes at itsometimes from you know, the
more demonstration side, thehands-on, like she's gonna, you
know, for it's for Halloween,she'll blow up a pumpkin and
talk about combustion reaction,things like that.
But the way I hear you talkabout it in so many ways is

(13:38):
reminiscent of the way that sheand her colleagues and people in
the like not, I mean, I don'twant to say informal science
education, because that's notexactly right, but maybe the
non-institutional kind ofscience education of like the
job's not to teach everything oreven to tell the whole story

(13:58):
sometimes, but just to be thatlittle spark, that little like
instigation of discovery.
Because what's more excitingthan that, right?
Like we we lose that likechildhood wonder where
everything is magical.
And I think sometimes throughart and through illustration,
that we can capture a little bitof that.
And looking at your website, andI you know I've followed your

(14:19):
work for a while.
I actually discovered you orconnected with you through some
illustration you were doing forthe native habitat project and
some t-shirts you had designedand things like that, and I
loved all of that, but like yourwork is really good.
Like it's really good.

SPEAKER_02 (14:35):
Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 (14:36):
And uh so this is maybe a dumb question as a not
art guy.

SPEAKER_02 (14:41):
But like Noah's a dumb question.

SPEAKER_00 (14:44):
Well, then I'm just gonna swing at it, right?
I'm just gonna go for it.
Like, what medium do you gowith?
Is it digital art?
Are you like drawing on a sheetof paper?
Is it some of both?
Like, how do you come about thisbeautiful work that you do?

SPEAKER_02 (14:57):
So, in the same way that a lot of my work is works
in two different directions,whether it's research based or
public outreach, I also kind ofhave three different styles that
I work in.
So I work in your right to beconfused, I think, is what is
basically what I mean.
So I work in either watercolor,which means that's a lot of my

(15:19):
more botanical stuff.
I think that more classicalapproach lends itself really
well to botanical illustrationsand to some animal
illustrations.
Most of my clients for that arescience centers want me to be
doing kind of hyper-realistic uhPhotoshop illustrations.
So basically I paint onPhotoshop.

(15:40):
I make every single creaturethat I make is a separate file,
and every single creature that Imake is made up of like 15
different layers of, you know,feathers and background
painting.
So I treat it very much like itwould be an oil painting where
I'm working from the back up tomake layers to create a

(16:00):
three-dimensional lookingcreature or plant.
And then the last thing that Ido, which you can also see on my
website, is research stuff,which is very two-dimensional
often.
So more line drawings and simplecolors graphics that better in
research settings.
So it's a little bit of amismash, mishmish, mismash?

(16:24):
Yeah.
And I feel like I must have saidthat out loud before, but now
suddenly none of it soundsright.
I wish that more of my clientswanted me to work in watercolor
because that I find the most umfulfilling to work in.
How freaking cool is it to thatthe human mind is capable of
looking at an object and lookingat a bunch of different colors

(16:48):
on a palette and knowing howmuch of each of those colors to
mix together to recreatesomething.
I think I like obviously at thispoint I do it subconsciously.
I'm not even aware of how thatworks.
Right.
But I don't understand how thatcan happen.
Like, how does I still don'tunderstand how that can happen.
That's mind-blowing to me that Ican like look at a leaf and say,

(17:08):
well, I think it's gonna be alittle bit of burnt number, but
then mostly like this, and thenit has like a little bit of
black in it.
That's so wild to me.
I don't understand how you cando that.
And digitally it's so mucheasier because maybe I have 25
reference photos, and if I want,I can use the color picker to
find something.
And that's the only likecheating that I would say that I
do, because everything else islike very much I'm treating the

(17:31):
medium like it's like it's aregular painting, but I do have
the power to use the colorpicker, and I feel like that
takes a lot of the joy out ofcreating something.

SPEAKER_00 (17:41):
Huh.
And that's such an interestingperspective.
So I actually really get that,like really understand that.
I'm not creative in this wayspecifically.
Like I like to draw and I'vetried to paint a little bit, and
the thing that you're describingof mixing the colors, like my
mind just it doesn't like I cansee it and I know what I want it
to look like.

(18:02):
And then I'm like, this is notthat.
But I do woodwork.
And like it's the difference forme sometimes between like hand
carving something or handturning something and you know,
plugging into my computer andletting my CNC machine like
carve it out.
Like it's still in some ways thesame, but you're right, there's
that tactile like joy ofcreation and discovery and

(18:26):
exploration in some ways part ofit that they kind of I don't
know, it gets pulled out alittle bit sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 (18:34):
Yeah, and it keeps your brain a little bit more
active, too, I think, which isreally good.

SPEAKER_00 (18:39):
So I think you know, I again I've looked through a
lot of your illustrations overthe past couple days, just
preparing for this.
And you know, I like I said,I've followed you for a while.
I have to tell you, lookingthrough these, I love the the
infographics that you do.
I think they're so cool.
I think it's a great wayeducationally to approach
science education because youcan cram so much into a single

(19:03):
image, right?
Um no, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 (19:06):
No, and that's the benefit when people are talking,
you know, before the advent ofAI, when people were asking me
why or what why is what you aredoing better than photographs?
Well, for exactly that reason,right?
Like a photograph maybe canencapsulate a couple of
different species, maybe a lotof endemic plant species to an
area all in one image, butyou're not gonna have the

(19:28):
animals that browse on it, theanimals that bury the nuts to
the plants in the same, they'redoing something during the fall,
this is happening during thesummer.
We're gonna show the blossoms atthe same time so that people can
ID it outside during everysingle season.
You have so many possibilities,so much information you can
distill into one image.
And I think that a part ofgrowing as a scientific

(19:52):
illustrator is learning betterhow to work with my clients and
figuring out what's too muchinformation, what's too much
text, what's a digestible amountof species to include in a
graphic and all of that kind ofworking together so that we can
share as many plant species andanimal species at the same time

(20:12):
without really overwhelming theviewer.

SPEAKER_00 (20:16):
Yeah, no, for sure.
And so I'm looking at the meadowecosystem infographic you have
up there, and it shows like anice pasture and prairie and a
fence line and a littlebirdhouse and tractor and all
kinds of things.
But I think it's such aninteresting way, again, to
approach it because you can seeall the different layers.
And I know for those of youlistening and not, you know, uh

(20:39):
looking at us as we do this, butlike there's so many different
things.
You see wildflowers, you see afox going after a rodent, you
see a quail and bumblebees andall of these different things
that you know, again, build outand fill out an ecosystem uh in
these cool little vignettes.
And I love it.
And I'll post a link to thisspecific picture and everything

(21:01):
else, but in the show notes.
So if you want to look at thisas we're you know talking, you
can.
But when you start to, I'mcurious a little bit about the
creative process that goes intothis.
You know, I I know a lot oftimes you're asked for a very
specific sort of uh you know, uhdeliverable, right?
Whatever it is they're trying toget across.
But what does your process looklike?

(21:21):
How do you decide what all goesinto a picture like this or an
infographic like this, and thenhow to build it from there?

SPEAKER_02 (21:30):
So it starts obviously with a big
conversation with my clients.
So for example, I just workedwith Florida Fish and Wildlife
to make an infographic for themabout native wetlands aquatic
plants.
So we were talking about howmany species we thought total
they wanted to include, whatthey wanted the focus to be on.

(21:52):
And then from there, we chose agroup of species that were going
to represent each depth of waterfor the species, and that
included for the animals andplants that we did.
And then I come back with areally hideous sketch that I
hope that my client is going tostill trust me after seeing,

(22:12):
because there is no benefit forthem having to pay me or for my
time in me making like anextremely realistic tiny little
thumbnail recreation of what thegraphic is gonna look like.
So, I mean, the plants lookpretty similar to the animals in
the drawing.
It's all little like squigglesof stuff.

(22:34):
When people tell me they're badat drawing, I'm like, yeah,
well, me too, sometimes.
So I make very small thumbnailsketches showing the location
kind of of each animal or plant.
And before I do that, I like todo kind of a research process
where I sit down and look up howmany of these different animals'
life cycles are interconnectedwith plants and are

(22:57):
interconnected with each other.
And that helps determine theplacement of each of those
plants in the graphic and theplacement of each of the animals
in the graphic.
So I usually make like a diagramwhere I put plants on one side
and animals on the other, andthen I draw arrows to each of
which species are related toeach other.

(23:17):
And then from there, I'm tryingto work on creating a couple of
thumbnails that do show each ofthose species kind of
interacting with each other inthe way that they would
naturally.
And then within that, you know,if there are different ecotones
that have different species inthem within the graphic, trying
to make sure that like the areathat in my mind is sandy soil

(23:39):
doesn't have any of the wrongspecies in it or something.
So trying to work on the layoutof that.
Meanwhile, in the background,usually my client is writing the
text.
So I don't usually do the text.
I occasionally have offered todo text.
It's not my preference.
Um, and I usually tell them howmany words they can have.
I have a like a word count foreach bubble.

(24:00):
I'll try to plan in how manydifferent text bubbles I want.
And usually I'll give them atitle for each text bubble, and
then they just determine whatthey want each text bubble to
say.
And then I start individuallypainting every single different
element.
So every single plant that yousee is a different file, every
single animal that you see is adifferent file, the background
is a different file, and then Iput them all together and kind

(24:24):
of start shading them to makesure that they look like they're
all in the similar environs.
And then I like to think thatI'm done.
And then suddenly somebody elsejoins the project who had never
spoken before, and it's thescientist researcher who isn't
in the education department, andthey were supposed to be on the

(24:45):
project the entire time, buthere they are hopping on at the
11th hour.
The project's due in 24 hours.
And did you notice that thenumber of scales on this
particular drawing?
Now I know that it's a correctnumber of scales, but from the
graphic, we can't quite tell.
It's covered, it's covered bythis leaf.
Could you move the leaf?
And it's like, I've alreadyflattened this image to be one

(25:08):
thing, but yes, I canindividually paint out that leaf
so that we can count the numberof skeutes on this species, and
then usually I'm done.
And so it's a whole process.

SPEAKER_00 (25:19):
Was that all, right?
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (25:21):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (25:22):
So that I think that's such a good description.
For one, it's incredible to me,like the layers and layers that
go into this.
But uh the amount of thought andplanning and research and
everything that goes into likecreative work, especially in
this vein, but I'm gonna saycreative work just in general.

(25:43):
I don't think people realizethat.
I don't think most folks justlooking at an image in a
textbook or seeing somethingonline realize the time and the
effort and the forethought andall the stuff that goes into it,
especially like the clientrelation thing that you're
talking about at the end of, oh,by the way, you know, his eyes
just a little bit too high.

(26:04):
Like, oh my god, like yep.
So that's I mean, that's reallycool.
And I enjoy hearing you talkabout this because uh so I I
wrote a children's book and Iwould give these probably, I
don't know if I was a very goodlike client on the like on my

(26:24):
side of it, because I wouldprobably give these like really
wordy, uh maybe incredibly vaguedescriptions to the publisher
and illustrator, and they wouldcome back with these, you know,
like you're saying, kind ofbubble diagrams and like you
know, rough sketches, and I'd belike, Yeah, blah, blah, blah.
And I would just like throwwords at them.
But then when it came back, itwas always like, this is exactly
what was in my head.

(26:46):
And the ability to take like thejumbled thoughts of a scientist
or writer or someone and put itinto a visual form, I think it's
almost like a superpower.
I think that's incredible.

SPEAKER_02 (26:56):
What's even better than that is being able to
translate scientists' really baddrawings.
They're like, this is thedrawing that I've been showing
during all of my presentations,and I'm like, oh my God, how did
people even know what speciesyou were talking about?
And being able to translatethose drawings is also pretty
funny.
And but a lot of scientists havea really good sense of humor
about it.

(27:17):
So it can be prettyentertaining.
I want to do a section of mywebsite that's like what the
scientist was using versus likewhat they have now, because I it
it certainly helps withcommunication so much.
I mean, that's my like I said,that's my whole shtick.

SPEAKER_00 (27:33):
Yeah, at the very least, that would make a great
video.
So let's take a quick break.
I think that's a good point toplug in a quick break, and then
when we come back, I actuallywant to talk about the kind of
public communication side ofwhat you do and some of the
outreach stuff that you do.
So we'll come right back.
Well, hello, and welcome to themid-roll.
I hope you're enjoying thisholiday season so far, or if

(27:54):
you're listening to it like inthe middle of June.
I don't know.
Enjoy whatever time you're inand whatever time you have.
That sounded like a threat.
It wasn't supposed to be.
It's really supposed to be mytime to thank you for listening
to Planthropology and for beinga part of what we do here.
If you'd like to support theshow, there's a lot of ways to
do that.
You can go to Spotify or ApplePodcasts or Podchaser anywhere

(28:16):
that reviews live and leave arating and review for the show.
You can email me atplanthropologypod at gmail.com
and let me know what you think.
If you've got ideas for guests,if you want to be a guest, if
you have feedback in general, Iwould love to hear it.
You can reach out on socialmedia through Planthropology or
through my personal personal'smaybe not quite right, but my

(28:38):
other social media at theplantprof.
And you can find me on all theplatforms, YouTube, uh,
Instagram, Facebook,unfortunately, TikTok, whatever,
anywhere and everywhere.
I unfortunately, for better orworse, am probably there.
If you'd like to financiallysupport the show, you can go to
planthropologypodcast.com andsnag some merch.
You can find old episodes thereas well.
Or you can go to buy me acoffee.com slash planthropology.

(29:01):
And for the price of a cup ofcoffee, you can buy me a cup of
coffee.
But also pay for hosting feesand things like that.
I would very much appreciateyour support.
Um what else?
What other things are there?
Oh, there's so many things.
I don't know.
I'll probably think of themlater, and I can cut them in if

(29:21):
I have to.
But if not, that's fine too.
It's time for more with Jay, andI'm gonna stop talking in five,
four, three, two, one.
Okay, so before the break, wewere talking about the process
that goes into yourillustrations and goes into the
drawings and the work that youdo and how complex that is.
And you mentioned earlier in theconversation that uh what you do

(29:45):
is storytelling, right?
That's such a big part of it.
And uh I actually think that inscience communication in
general, whether we're writing aresearch paper or uh doing this
or you know, whatever, thatwe're trying to tell a good
story.
That's the point of it.
And I think again, I discoveredyou on social media and I love
what you do on social media, butcan we talk a little bit about

(30:06):
that?
Because I actually think whatyou were discussing before the
break of here's what thescientist gave me and here's my
final project would be so good.
How did you decide to sort ofventure into like the social
media videos and posting and allof that from what you do?
Is it like this would be greatmarketing or I need a creative

(30:27):
outlet that's not this?
Like what got you into that?

SPEAKER_02 (30:30):
I feel like it's been such kind of like a tangled
path of when I first so I had anInstagram years ago when I was
making stencils and creatingstuff, and that was to me to be
marketing, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 (30:45):
Sure.

SPEAKER_02 (30:45):
And then I started making videos, and no, I didn't
start making videos.
That's not true.
I started making posts firstbecause Instagram hadn't become
obsessed with videos yet, right?
So I started making posts of myillustrations, and I had very
few followers, maybe like 2,000or something.

(31:06):
And I was putting a ton ofeffort into, you know, I would
show a picture of a turkeyvulture and then I'd write like
five paragraphs of descriptionof what is incredible about the
adaptations of a turkey vulture,and 100 people would see it.
Right.
And so then I was like, this iskind of not fulfilling, and I
kind of stepped away from it,and then I started sharing more

(31:29):
stuff of what I was seeingoutside.
So my experiences in nature andexploring, and that was when
reels started becoming morepopular.
And I had a couple reels thatdid okay.
And then, I mean, you mentionedNative Habitat Project.
I think that my account reallytook off when I started doing

(31:53):
some stuff with Kyle Liebargerfrom Native Habitat Project.
Um, obviously, he's got a hugefollowing, and if you don't know
him, go check out the work thathe does.
We're about to launch, we'reactually dropping a new project
this Thursday.

SPEAKER_00 (32:06):
Oh, very cool.

SPEAKER_02 (32:07):
So working with Kyle brought a lot of clients
directly to me because he's gota huge sort of research, but
also science center peoplefollowing him.
And a couple of people startedreaching out to me.
I was already doing someillustrations for different
science centers, but I startedgetting more clients through

(32:31):
Instagram and realized thatmaybe that was a good avenue of
advertising.
I don't do any out likeoutreach, I don't email cold
email.
When I when my career firststarted, I tried doing cold
emailing of science centers andresearch facilities and stuff.
And it was so demoralizing andkind of embarrassing because

(32:54):
basically nothing came of any ofit.
And so between Kyle, the workwith Native Habitat Project, and
then I also did a piece for NewHampshire Public Radio, which is
makes no sense because radio isnot visual.
People are like, wait, you didan illustration for radio?

SPEAKER_01 (33:16):
Oh, that's funny.

SPEAKER_02 (33:17):
But I actually ended up working with these two guys
who have a program on NewHampshire Public Radio, and they
wanted to talk about the lifecycle of the spotted salamander.
And I had become had gotten incontact with one of them, one of
the scientists, because I had aquestion about discovering a
salamander in the snow in themiddle of winter near where I

(33:40):
lived in New Hampshire at thetime.
And that turned into aconversation and another, you
know, serendipitous thing,right?
Where I found a salamander inthe snow, and then suddenly I
had an infographic on NewHampshire Public Radio about
salamanders.
So at the end of the piece on anNHPR, they said, go check out
our website where we have aninfographic by scientific

(34:02):
illustrator Juliana Smarr,whatever.
So between that and peopleseeing that graphic, because
it's one of the first representlike representations of the
salamander life cycle, includingtalking about the importance of
the algae that they are thatthey need for their development,
that ended up really taking offas well.

(34:23):
So those things kind of got meto to where I am and figuring
out that maybe being morevisible on social media was
useful.
But I mean, I feel like you'rederiving a lot of enjoyment out
of the stuff that you make forInstagram.
I could be wrong.
I would say that I'm derivingnegative 200% enjoyment out of

(34:48):
the things that I do onInstagram.
It is so, for me, soul sucking.
All I don't want to be filmingmyself making stuff because it
takes up time, creative time,moving the camera around to show
different angles of how I'mpainting, because nobody just
wants to see a video of theentire process of me painting
for 50 hours.

(35:09):
All of that, and then I'm socamera shy, making 25 takes of
myself saying the exact samesentence over and over and
determining that none of themare worthy of posting online.
All of that is so soul crushingin combination with then
spending hours editing somethingthat is ultimately under 20
seconds long.
And then fortunately, by the endof it, I'm so pissed off by the

(35:33):
whole process that I never carehow it actually does.
Like in my mind, I want anythingto go viral, right?
But the second I post it, I'mlike, well, like it's just
gonna, it's gonna be whatever itis, and it's either gonna do
okay or it's not, and I'm justassuming it's gonna be a flop.
So whatever.

SPEAKER_00 (35:52):
That that's all of that is so relatable, Jay.
Like and I do.
I have fun doing it, and I knowI could get more views leaning
into some different parts of itand try.
But like it's a it's for me atleast, it's a fun creative
outlet, and I get to get onthere and yell about bananas and
whatever.
It's fine for me.

(36:12):
But you're right, it's so muchwork.
You know, you know, and youmentioned like drawing for 50.
Is that how long it took some ofthese take you?

SPEAKER_02 (36:20):
Like oh, more than that.

SPEAKER_00 (36:21):
Yeah, it has to, right?
So, you know, it's another partof the process.
You said something that Ithought was really funny of you
know, having to have take aftertake of yourself saying the same
sentence.
I was clearing out, like I'llnotice my phone was full or
almost full, and I was like, oh,that's weird.
So for one, I had forgotten toturn off the auto download thing

(36:42):
on my podcast app.
So I had like 40 gigabytes ofpodcast download.
But then it was just likehundreds of videos of my own
face that I had to like that'shorrible.

SPEAKER_02 (36:52):
Yeah, no, it is horrible.
It really is horrible, and it'sespecially because I live near
an Air Force base and an areawhere they are cutting down all
of the trees despite myprotestations, and there's an
unbelievable amount of leafblowers.
Half of the videos are just melike this.
The video is running, and I'mwaiting for whatever the sound

(37:14):
is to go away, and then I canstart speaking again.
And then, of course, when Ifinally start speaking again, I
completely forget the name ofthe thing that I wanted to say
or whatever it was.
So yeah, my whole camera role isjust my face over and over again
saying, and this is, and yeah,it's such a weird thing.

SPEAKER_00 (37:32):
It's and and this thing we do, I think of science
communication in general, issuch a an interesting business,
a field, I don't know what tocall it, whatever it is.
Like it's so strange in someways, but it's so important.
Have you seen, and you know,maybe this is a big question.
I don't know sometimes even howto answer it for myself, but

(37:54):
like when you think about theimpact of your work, when you
think about like, you know, youput these things out there into
science centers and textbooksand all those things.
Like sometimes it's hard tomeasure impact, at least for me,
of the work I do.
Have you been able to have likesome of those glimpses of like,
here's what my work has done,here's how it's contributed?

(38:15):
Did like do you get thatfeedback ever?

SPEAKER_02 (38:18):
So that's I feel like a funny question to to
follow up the other questionwith, because I would say that I
have been, you know, in thedoldrums about feeling like I
don't really know what if whatI'm doing has an impact.
But I will say that socialmedia, since my account has had

(38:39):
some success lately with somevideos that I actually care
about, talking about that Idon't use, you know, AI in my
own illustrations and that typeof thing, that those videos have
like 1 million, 2 million views.

SPEAKER_01 (38:54):
Wow.

SPEAKER_02 (38:54):
That that and like 60,000, 70,000 shares, that
actually makes me feel more likeI have a voice than I do in my
actual career.
So there is this like, is socialmedia maybe not a terrible,
horrible thing that I hate?
Maybe a tiny bit, but alsomostly it is.

(39:14):
But I can see how it in the pastsix months, since my account has
gotten more popular, I have beenless depressed about the impact
that I feel like I'm having.
Whereas I'm watching the worldcrumbling around me and you
know, just crying all the timeabout what's happening.

(39:37):
But I feel like the fact that Ikind of feel like I tiny bit
have a voice now through socialmedia is more feels like more of
an impact than I feel like the75 visitors per week to a small
science center may have, or the200 readers of a research paper.

(40:00):
Sure.
Um, whether or not the researchpaper is really important, yes,
of course, it could be supercutting edge, and I'm so proud
that I got to illustrate it.
There I've had a couple ofreally cool ones lately that I'm
super excited about, but theimpact of that is invisible to
me.

SPEAKER_01 (40:16):
Sure.

SPEAKER_02 (40:17):
And I enjoy talking about it.
I enjoy talking about theresearch that I get to
illustrate, but I think thesocial media part actually maybe
does make me feel more like Ihave a little bit of a voice and
some agency that I didn't feellike I had before, which is
cool.

SPEAKER_00 (40:35):
Yeah, no, it is, and I I completely agree with you,
and I understand that feeling onboth sides of it.
Like it feels like I don't know,screaming into the void
sometimes, or putting thingsjust out there into you know,
whatever.
And like some the work mattersfor the work, right?
And I have to say, if it'sencouraging at all, I really

(40:55):
genuinely enjoy what you do.
Like I love your work, yourillustrations are wonderful, and
I'm glad that I got to discoveryou through again through social
media.
But like I see being someone whois, you know, in at least a
small part of this field, thisthe scientific storytelling
field.
Like I see the work that you do,and I see the I don't know, care

(41:16):
and effort and heart that goesinto it.
And at least to me, that means alot.
Like I think that has an impacton me as a scientist and as an
educator to know there arepeople that are putting so much
of themselves into their work.
And like, so I appreciate thatfor whatever it's worth.

SPEAKER_02 (41:32):
Your appreciation matters to me, really, truly.

SPEAKER_00 (41:36):
So I I think it's super cool.
And I, you know, I'm now I'mpaying attention to you, but I'm
also reading about salamandersas we're talking.
So like that's super cool.
So you mentioned something, andI don't want to drive us too far
down this road, but you know,maybe it's somewhere we need to
go.
Talking about AI.
I know.
I'm sorry to make you talk aboutit.

(41:57):
I uh it's okay.

SPEAKER_02 (41:58):
I mean, you're right.
I think it's the most, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (42:01):
Yeah, go ahead.
It's a pressing issue, right?
Like, and it's one of thosethings that I think people maybe
don't understand the wholepicture of why it's a problem.
So as an artist, as anillustrator, as someone who does
this professionally, can youjust talk briefly about the
challenges that presents to you?

SPEAKER_02 (42:21):
Sure.
Well, for one, finding work.
AI is taking my job becausepeople can easily type in, you
know, image of an ex doing X andget an image generated right
away.
But I would say for me, tryingto convince scientists and the
general public that the value ofa scientific illustrator or even

(42:43):
a photograph has more value isAI has no filter to check for
accuracy.
This is something that everybodytalks about constantly.
But for example, if I was goingto illustrate a bear skeleton, I
know already that there are manyillustrations done by humans

(43:05):
online that are inaccurate.
I wrote my master's thesis onthe Scandinavian brown bear.
I've done a lot of research withthe articulation of their
skeleton.
I know how it works.
I know that the majority of theillustrations online are already
inaccurate.
And you know what AI is derivingtheir illustrations from?
All of that stuff.
So AI can't even check the waythat I can check for accuracy.

(43:31):
And so they're cobbling togetherall of these different
inaccuracies and distilling itdown into perhaps an even more
inaccurate image in the end.
And that may not seem importantin this particular field, but
there's also anatomicalillustrations of humans that I
have seen that are inaccurate.
There are illustrations ofsurgeries that I have seen that

(43:54):
are inaccurate.
There are illustrations of, youknow, the anatomy of plants, all
different stuff that'sinaccurate.
And yeah, you're not going to begoing into surgery on a plant
anytime soon that's going to,you know, screw, screw something
up if you're using an AI image.
But there's potentialimplications for actual serious
harm if we're utilizing imagesthat AI has no way of

(44:20):
fact-checking, essentially.
And so I would rather push forphotography over AI images any
day of the week, because atleast that I mean it's a really
challenging thing right now frommy work because it AI is good at

(44:40):
doing what I do, which is takingtons of images and combining
them all together and sharingthem all at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 (44:48):
Right.

SPEAKER_02 (44:48):
And I talk about in my job the benefit of, you know,
if you if somebody hires me todraw a male cardinal, that I am
going to be going out andlooking at 200 images of male
cardinals to make sure that I amcreating the platonic ideal of
male cardinal to share withpeople so they can use it to ID

(45:11):
a bird.
And a photo obviously is onephoto of one single individual.
It's not representative of thespecies as the whole.
And AI also is better at kind ofmixing together all those things
into one image, but it can'tlook and say, even necessarily,

(45:35):
that's a female cardinal orthat's a male cardinal or
anything.
And obviously, there are manydifferent applications and stuff
that you can use that that arebetter, and you can obviously
filter it for your own accuracyon top of that.
But it's just, it's I know thatthere will reach a point where
it's undetectable, and there aremany things that it is

(45:56):
undetectable in already.
But for illustration, I feellike I am so hyper-aware, and it
takes the joy out of it too,right?
I don't know if you feel thatway where you see stuff and
you're like, wow, this is reallycool.
And then you can tell that it'snot made by a human, and you're
like, oh well, I no longer findthis remotely interesting.
And I hope, I hope that peoplecontinue to have that visceral

(46:19):
like yick reaction to AI stuffbecause it's it lacks soul,
right?

SPEAKER_00 (46:26):
It's just it's very like uncanny valley a lot of
times.
And you know, there's somethingyou said that I had never
thought of in this contextbefore, but you know, looking at
hundreds of pictures of acardinal, right?
Whatever bird or plant or animalor whatever it is, and
distilling it into like whatyour mind thinks of or what the

(46:49):
you know, what a common personor someone might think of as a
cardinal.
And that that just jumps out atme as like a different type of
data analysis, you know, adifferent data interpretation
where you're taking all of thisinformation, all these data
points of different birds andyou know anatomical differences
and distilling it into a productthat is the interpretation of

(47:12):
those data.
And there is a again, astorytelling like heart behind
some of that.
Then when we interpret data, youknow, as a scientific writer,
which I don't love, I do it, butI don't love it.
You know what I mean?
We have to do it.
And you can read a paper thathas very like uh clinical

(47:33):
analytical uh conclusions basedon data, uh or some that really
mean something.
You know what I mean?
Like it's you feel that this hasimpact and importance.
And I I kind of feel through theway you talk about this the same
way.
Like, yes, you can distill awhole bunch of pictures into an
image using an AI, you know,generative program.

(47:55):
It lacks that I don't know thatthe impactful part of the story
that this is the way we perceivereality as humans.
This is the way we tell storiesabout our the nature around us
and the world around us and theway we interact it.
So I you know, for me, I feelthe same way as you that I look
at an AI image and I'm like, oh,oh, come on.

(48:16):
Like that sucks.
Like that's really upsetting me.

SPEAKER_02 (48:19):
Yes.
Well, I'm glad that people havethat reaction.
I know that for the most part,the people that I hold dear to
me feel that way, but I knowthat there are many people who
enjoy it, create it.
Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (48:34):
So But I also think that on you know, what you were
talking about is you're able totell the story of why it
matters.
Like through our conversationhere, through the social media
work you do, like that piece ofit matters too.
I think so many of the issues weface are at the root educational
issues, right?
AI is a tool that has just beenthrown at people that maybe they

(48:57):
don't completely understand.
I don't completely understandit.
There's so much there, right?

SPEAKER_02 (49:02):
Like And we do use it.
It's not, I mean, I'm notclaiming it there are ways that
we don't even realize that weare utilizing it.
Every it's all around usalready.
It already was before we startedtalking about it as a problem
graphically, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (49:17):
100%.
But understanding a little bitmore about it through listening
to a podcast discussion orwatching a video with a couple
hundred views or a couplemillion views or whatever, like
that stuff from where I sitmatters too.
And part of the educationalexperience is the background
knowledge necessary there.
And so, you know, I think you'refighting the fight in a lot of

(49:38):
ways, and I think that's cool.

SPEAKER_02 (49:41):
Trying my best.

SPEAKER_00 (49:43):
So a couple of questions here as we sort of get
towards the end.
You asked, you mentioned earlierthat people like to ask you, and
I feel like I'm gonna be sort ofa douchebag and ask you the same
question, but like you say, likepeople like to ask you, like,
what's your favorite thing todraw?
Let me ask that a little bitdifferently.
Is there a favorite maybe youmentioned you really enjoy

(50:05):
watercolor, right?
Would you say that's like yourfavorite way to approach this?
Do you have like, do you preferthe infographics?
Do you prefer some of theanatomical stuff?
What do you like, what reallygets you happy about this?

SPEAKER_02 (50:16):
This is actually a really tough question because
there's I feel like there's acouple of different answers.
I have to say that I don't likethe end result in terms of like
wanting to share it with thewith my followers or whatever on
Instagram.
But I love illustrating researchprojects because that is for me,
I'm going from zero to 60 on theunderstanding of something.

(50:37):
I go from picking up the phonefor a call, somebody telling me
they want me to illustrate thefirst ever research on whether
or not it's effective to providelidocaine in fish tagging and
go.
And I go from not knowinganything about that to watching
hundreds of videos of bluefintuna being caught and tagged and

(51:00):
having like a lidocaine shot putin for the first time in history
that they're trying to use painmedications on fish.
This is like unheard of in thenon-mammalian aquatic research
world.
And that one, the just theexcitement of getting to to
illustrate research like that isawesome, but it's so cool to go

(51:21):
from knowing like, what do Iknow about tuna?
I know about like the can.
And I'm I'm like, I know that Ihave had it as sushi.
I know generally what thestructure of a tuna looks like.
I've walked through a Japanesefish market and seen what a
giant bluefin tuna looks like.
That's kind of where myknowledge ends.

(51:42):
And then by the end of theproject, I know what their
entire internal anatomy lookslike.
I know what color they look likewhen they've been pulled out of
the water versus what color theyare when they're not stressed in
the water.
Didn't know that was even athing that they changed color
that much between when they'reunderwater and when they're
above water, that stress canhave that much of a change on

(52:03):
the way that their skin appears.
All of these things is just togo from zero to 60 on something
like that is so exciting.

SPEAKER_01 (52:12):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (52:13):
And then for like an infographic, that's awesome.
And the research that goes intothat is so cool too, but it's a
different excitement.

SPEAKER_00 (52:22):
Yeah, that's really interesting.
I and I love that of the yeah,kind of that you get to have
that joy of discovery over andover.
And that's yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 (52:30):
And that's part of why I wanted to be a scientific
illustrator and not a scientist,because I was afraid of like I
had friends who were out, they'dbeen studying the same species
of bee for 15 years, and Icouldn't picture feeling like I
had an impact if I was trappedstudying species for the next 35

(52:50):
years of my life or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 (52:52):
Yeah, no, I get that for sure.

SPEAKER_02 (52:53):
And then the other question I ask all my guests is
if there is a piece of advice,whatever that is, it can be just
life advice, it can be aboutscience, it can be about art, it
can be your favorite cookierecipe, whatever it is, that you
would like to leave with ourlisteners, if there's like a
thing that they should take homewith them, what that would what
would that be I think we touchedabout on it already, but I would

(53:15):
say that not losing yourcuriosity and appreciating the
fact that humans as a speciesare the only species capable of
wonder and appreciation of thenatural in as intellectual a way
as we are, and celebrating thatin your life, I think is the

(53:42):
most important part of life, andthat's why I do what I do, and I
want all other humans to realizethat that you guys can all do
that too, and it's the best.

SPEAKER_00 (53:56):
That's super cool.
Love that.
Well, Jay, this has beenwonderful.
I have had so much fun talkingto you.
An hour goes quick, I think,sometimes, and I have learned a
lot, and I really enjoy andappreciate your take on so much
of this stuff.
And I hope you keep doing whatyou do because I really enjoy
it.
Where all can we find you?
Plug your stuff real quick.

SPEAKER_02 (54:15):
Please follow me on Instagram, science underscore
visuals, and check out mywebsite, scivisuals.com, S-C-I.
And that's the only places youcan find me.

SPEAKER_00 (54:29):
That that actually, I'm not gonna lie, that actually
sounds really nice.
There's only two places to befound.
I may need to look into that alittle bit.
But thanks so much for being on.
You're just a delight to talk toyou, and I really enjoyed that.

SPEAKER_02 (54:40):
My pleasure, absolutely.
Anytime.

SPEAKER_00 (54:42):
Wait, hold on, please don't go anywhere yet.
Uh so Jay and I had talkedbefore this episode, uh, before
we recorded, about her actuallywanting to ask me a question,
and that was fun because I amalways throwing questions at
people and they're answeringthem, and it's fun to get some
back sometimes.
And uh I totally forgot duringthe recording of this episode,
and after we were done, I waslike, is there anything else?
And she was like, Well,remember, I wanted to ask you a
question, and then I didremember.

(55:04):
So we actually recorded that,and I want you to hear it
because it's fun and it's aboutum freeze protection and plants,
and it's a sciencey little bonusthing.
So that's now.
Here we go.

SPEAKER_02 (55:15):
So I was at home in New Hampshire, and I mean, uh
obviously this is something thatI've thought about before, but
because I thought that I wasgonna be talking to you the week
that I was home, I was thinkingabout we were getting ready for
our first really hard frost, andall of the asters there was a

(55:36):
hard frost, all the asterslooked incredible.
Their whole, their flowers, theinflorescence all looked exactly
the same, all the leaves lookedexactly the same, and the
zinnias that look, you know,anatomically pretty similar were
totally screwed.
They looked absolutelydisgusting after one night of
freeze.
And I would like to verysuccinctly understand how that

(56:02):
can be.
Is it just like a naturalantifreeze that the cells have?

SPEAKER_00 (56:07):
That's a really good question.
Because you're right, they're inthe same family, right?
They're both composites, theyboth have sort of some same,
some of the same anatomical, Idon't want to say constraints,
but features and rhythms in theway they build, so to speak, the
way they build petals, the waythey build structures, seeds,
those kinds of things.
But it's a huge plant family andit's really diverse.

(56:29):
You know, artichokes are in thesame family.
Lettuce isn't like it's thishuge, weird plant family.
But yeah, you're basically rightthat uh freeze tolerance really
comes down to differentsubstances in the cellular
matrix, right?
So plant cells have a centralvacuole or a couple of central
vacuoles that they fill up withwater.

(56:51):
It's like a yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 (56:53):
I was worried, I was worried I was gonna be quizzed,
so I can't prepare.

SPEAKER_00 (56:57):
Like, you know, like a water balloon inside the cell
that gives it structure.
It's like if you put a big waterballoon inside a box, fill it up
with water, it puts pressure onthe outsides of that box, like
the cell walls, and you can givestructure to a plant.
It's also a place where itstores waste products, etc.,
right?
All kinds of things.
Some plants can producedifferent chemicals, whether

(57:17):
those are there's there's a widevariety, right?
In our, like our pine trees, alot of the saps, the
turpentines, some of thosethings that are in them work as
freeze protectants because theseare trees that are growing up in
the Arctic Circle and they haveto not freeze solid.
So these chemicals let the cellsnot rupture.
So it's like when you add saltor sugar or something to water,

(57:39):
it depresses the freezing point.
So they just pump thesechemicals into there because
essentially what happens is youknow, water expands as it
freezes and it makes crystals.
So when uh your little waterballoon is full of water and it
freezes, it punctures the cell,uh ruptures the cell.
But some plants essentiallythicken the water, add different

(58:00):
things in there to keep it fromfreezing, the viscosity goes up.
There's a lot of differentthings.
But yeah, so a lot of our warmerseason plants, you mentioned
zinnias, those are very much asummer, like they it can be a
thousand degrees, and they'relike, they don't care.
Yeah, but they they get a whiffof pumpkin spice in the fall and
they're done.
You know, they're done.

(58:20):
So yeah, a lot of those purpleand blue asters, especially.
I've seen the same thing.
We've had a real light frosthere.
They look great.
They're wonderful.
Yeah, they're so happy.
Um so some of those later seasonflowers, and you it's
interesting because you do see alot of the blues and purples in
some of our cool season plants.
They just they have morechemicals in the cells that will

(58:41):
let them not freeze solid.

SPEAKER_02 (58:44):
Well, thank you.
I appreciate your very efficientand clear description.

SPEAKER_00 (58:49):
I hope that was efficient.
I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 (58:51):
Sometimes I just are the type of things, like that's
the type of thing that willstick in my mind, right?
Like the reason I think I wantedto be a scientific illustrator
and everything was from all ofthose little like factoids that
you learn when you're a kid, andsuddenly you're like, my brain
is filled with all of thesethings.
Like an ocelot can do this, andlike this animal can only run to

(59:13):
this speed, but this can dothis.
I love all of those little,like, you can just store that
away somewhere.
And I think that's reallyawesome.
That's I my mind is just filledwith potentially useless plant
and animal facts.

SPEAKER_00 (59:26):
Yeah, but that's fun, right?

SPEAKER_02 (59:27):
I think it's exactly, exactly.
I mean, that's what I want mybrain to be filled with.

SPEAKER_00 (59:31):
You ever get to go to like nature trivia night,
you're ready to go.

SPEAKER_02 (59:34):
Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 (59:37):
So at the end of the day, as you've listened to the
show, hopefully for the past 126episodes, if I have filled your
brain, and my guests have filledyour brain with the information
necessary for a successfulnature trivia night, I think
we've done our jobs.
Y'all wasn't Jay great.
Um, I love the way she thinksabout art and science and
storytelling, and I and I hopeyou do too.
And I hope you go follow her atScience Visuals and check out

(59:59):
her website.
Website and just look at thebeautiful work she does.
And if you ever need botanicalillustration or scientific
illustration, I hope you thinkof her.
Thanks so much to you forlistening and again for being a
part of Planthropology.
It's because of you that I getto do what I do.
And uh I appreciate yoursupport.
I appreciate the feedback andjust the friendship over the
past six or so years.

(01:00:19):
Thanks so much to Rui for ourmid-roll music.
Go check out his rad lo-fi dadbeats and thanks so much to the
award-winning composer NickScout for our intro and outro
music.
Planthropology is written,recorded, all the things by
yours truly, Vikram Beliga.
And uh I just I enjoy doing it.
I'm glad I get to do it for you.

(01:00:40):
So y'all know I love you.
Keep being kind to one another.
If you have not to date beenkind to the people around you,
do do the thing.
Go do the thing.
Please, please.
Um thanks for being you.
Be kind, be safe, and keep beingreally cool plant people.

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