Women of Science bringing Science to the Public on Twitter

#SciArt Linocut cloud classification http://t.co/sxJ1Xhz92b Diagrams themselves make larger cloud shape #meteorology pic.twitter.com/YC7BqSNn8Z
— Ele Willoughby (@minouette) March 4, 2015

I was really flattered to be included in the io9 article by geophysicist and science writer Mika McKinnon's round up of all sorts of scientific women who are actively communicating science, in all sorts of ways, on twitter! She mentioned my science and history of science linocuts (including the tweet above), and listed roughly 40 others, both well-known and not. Just recently, I was asked by a couple of my mother's friends about twitter: why would one be interested and how can it take up one's time. It was one of those, "Why would you want to read, 'I ate a sandwich for lunch!'?" type questions. I gave a fairly standard reply that if that is in fact the only sort of thing a person tweets, you simply don't follow them; instead, you can follow @NASA. This round-up is a better answer; you can follow - and actively engage with - some of the most creative, knowledgeable and interesting, entertaining people out there. You can stay abreast of your own interests and follow those who work in radically different areas and are excited about topics which you might not even have known existed. If you're looking for great people to follow, and kick-ass women in STEM to boot, this is a good place to start, as well as the other lists she links to.

The #SciArt tweetstorm did put my work in front of new eyeballs and I'm also flattered to have gained new followers. Thank you to all 1258 twitter followers, 667 FB fanpage followers, 960 Etsy followers, 2700 Etsy ♥, 3861 Pinterest followers, and 83 Instagram followers. I had to correct the numbers in the previous sentence twice, in the time it took me to type it (and I type quickly). It was quite amazing to find my work spreading so quickly and get so much feedback that I could barely keep up. If I failed to reply to you, my apologies; please try again. I usually do reply promptly and don't usually feel that popular. ;)

#SciArt Tweetstorm

 

A lot of the artwork I make is directly informed and inspired by science, and this is the week for art about science or #SciArt on twitter. Local Scientific American blogger Glendon Mellow (aka @FlyingTrilobite), part of the trio behind the Symbiartic blog (@Symbiartic) about the intersection of art and science, declared a #SciArt tweetstorm. He suggested that those of us who care about scientific illustration and art inspired by science should:

• tweet at least 3 artworks a day (March 1 through 7) tagged #SciArt
• retweet at least 5 #SciArt tweets daily
• or more...

#sciart Twitter NodeXL SNA Map and Report for
Monday, 02 March 2015 at 18:50 UTC from Marc Smith

The resulting storm is in fact raging. #SciArt is trending on twitter and has been for days. In fact, Symbiartic has posted some statistics. Marc Smith of Connected Action produced this figure showing how the 4000 odd tweets and twitter accounts posting #SciArt are interconnected. As you can imagine, I'm all over this, and am in fact the 5th vertice of 2,227 users, ranked by centrality within the first 24 hours. Read more and see the figure in full detail here or by clicking on it.

You can follow some of the other blogs write-ups of the tweetstorm via Symbiartic and find  Nature's post here.

But what you really should do is simply go check the #SciArt hashtag right now! There are some truly wonderful things being shared from that fertile intersection of art and science. There is everything from scientific visualizations, to art quilts inspired by neurology, to microscopic photographs, to science comics, to fine art on scientific themes, to a cupcake periodic table. Do not miss out. It's inspiring!

Local TESTy Valentines

Lovely, funny and yummy food puns by Gotamago

One of the lovely and talented local artists I know, Lichia of Gotamago, tagged things from secret minouette places to point out I'd gotten some press. It's one of the great things about being part of TEST or the One of a Kind, is that you get to know your fellow makers. So when BlogTO does a round-up of fun Valentines by local artists to let you "bypass Hallmark cheese [...] by making dorky puns, poking fun at the awkward side of relationships, or making artwork so beautiful and intricate it'll melt even the coldest, Grinchiest heart," there are several great picks from teammates. They included my thermochromic Valentine amongst their 10 favorites. Half of them are TESTy people, of course, cause our team is so awesome. ;)

minouette's thermochromic Valentine for the nerd in your heart

simple and sweet I Heart You by HeyRube

Gorgeous, customizable, hand-cut Valentines by Light&Paper

For true love, even first thing from Sea&Lake

Hilarious puns like "I love you a waffle lot" from new TEST member Queeniescards

(more or less x-posted to the TEST blog)

Etsy Team Captains Summit

I spent Monday and Tuesday at the Etsy Summit here in Toronto. Along with some of my fellow team captains and leaders from across the country, Etsy staff and guests, we've been planning the (anxiously awaited) follow-up to our amazing Etsy: Made in Canada show! It was such an astonishing success, we're going to try to make it a yearly event. Saturday, September 26th, the Toronto Etsy Street Team and 416Hustlers are planning to do it again, at MaRS. There will also be many more simultaneous shows from coast to coast to coast!

Besides meeting like-minded makers, sellers and leaders, we had a chance to really learn from everyone else's experience. We started with a bit of fun. The icebreaker challenged each table of participants to represent Canada using a bag of random craft items and items our peers had brought with them from their various home. Our diorama was the only one with an actual electrical circuit.... how could I resist? We had a PEI potato, wire, pliers and tape. In case you can't tell the first photo is supposed to be Celine (as wonder woman with balloons) and Cirque de Soleil acrobats (and former Olympians) preforming on a stage. It's a conceptual piece. Other hilarious and creative contributions included everything from maps of provinces, woodland and winter scenes, jewellery from artifacts, Niagara Falls, to wearable hats!




Some of the highlights included talks from our peers. The tireless powerhouse from WEST (the Winnipeg Etsy Street Team), Ruth Schulz Smith shared her Event Management expertise and enthusiasm. It's no coincidence she won the only award, having been nominated by her peers. Jessika Hepburn, one of the Halifax leaders and creator of Oh My Handmade! gave an amazing talk about community building and working with partners big and small. I don't want to sound corny, but it was really inspiring. One of my neighbours said she felt her mind so teeming with ideas that she couldn't sleep. As a group, we are consciously coming from the vantage of the handmade movement; we all want to grow our small businesses, but we are also fostering an economy that values the artists, designers, the handmade, the local, the eco-friendly, the repurposed or vintage treasures over the mass produced.  All of the captains and leaders volunteer their time for their teams, and are working to make things easier for all of these handmakers and vintage sellers to run their businesses and maybe even make a life from what they love. Maybe it isn't surprising that they had such interesting things to say about community, partnerships and creative businesses working to improve their corners of the world.

Ruth with rapt audience

Jessika talks about getting involved

We also heard from Etsy. We had some fun PR role playing with the lovely Etsy PR folks as well as their publicists. There was a great talk from their guest colleague Moishe Lettvin, an engineering manager for Seller Growth. He started his talk with images of his mother's pysanky (Ukrainian style) eggs to explain how he'd grown up surrounded by handmade items. While his creative outlet is writing code, he explained that finding a job at Etsy, after Microsoft and Google, felt like coming home. I enjoyed a peek at the technical stuff about the back end of Etsy, but it was also great to hear his enthusiasm for the things we do, and making it easier to run our businesses. Lastly, we got a chance to ask some questions about what the future may hold! I think people left reinvigorated, full of new ideas and happy, which is wonderful.

Happy Groundhog Day!

Thermochromic Groundhog Day linocut, with and without shadow

May the weather prognosticating rodents be kind to you!

Love, art and cinnamon hearts

Finding just the right Valentine's gift can be a challenge. I know I'm always trying to invent something new every year.

If you're seeking a one of a kind, hand-printed, colour-changing, thermochromic Valentine, or the chemistry of attraction in linocut form, or art for dog and cat lovers and more, I can help with that.

Apart from cinnamon hearts, I would definitely love a $500 Etsy shopping spree. Check out the #etsymatch question here, answer on twitter with the #etsymatch tag for a chance to win a $500 Etsy gift card.

And remember, I'm not kidding about the cinnamon hearts. You can send all you unwanted cinnamon hearts to me!

Time for some weather prognosticating rodents

Since we're catching the tail end of a blizzard here, it seemed nice to contemplate the end of winter.* We might imagine that the end of winter is in sight, and the celebrity weather-prognosticating rodents may not see their shadows next Monday, hahaha! Anyhow, I printed a new batch of thermochromic Groundhog Day linocuts, with disappearing shadows.

I'll be busy on Groundhog Day, myself. Etsy Canada is hosting another Summit, here in Toronto, for team Captains and Leaders from coast to coast. I ought to get cracking on my presentation.

*Apparently, we'll avoid getting really dumped with snow (unlike our neighbours to the south) because it's too cold and windy here. Um... I guess we're lucky?

p.s. Good luck to those of you who aren't lucky and are expecting almost a metre of snow.