Science-Art Communication Specialist - it's now a thing

Changed my LinkedIn profile to read "Science-Art Communication Specialist". I've decided that's now a thing.



Although painting and illustrating are my first choice in career and I'm busier than ever with commissions, when I consider my blog writing at Symbiartic on Scientific American, the growing number of talks, podcasts and interviews and my new volunteer Board Member position with Science Art-Nature this seems like a more apt description. I find myself doing a lot of networking for and with other artists engaged in science, and slowly starting to hear from scientists looking for artists. I've been seriously considering turning it into a consulting business. 


I've developed a standard email I send out to artists contacting me about their science-art and asking for advice since it's happening more and more often. (And I don't mind at all!

Keep 'em coming.)

Here's what it typically says.

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I've added your blog to the Science Artists Feed (It's in the 2nd list that feeds into the first one...the first one filled up fast).  So when you have a show or update the bloggy portion in any way, it will appear on the Feed to subscribers, and on scienceblogging.org which is a huge aggregator site many science bloggers turn to to follow the many science blogging networks. 


I don't know if it will help traffic or eyeballs in any way, but it also helps me to stay on top of people's work, which I irregularly compile interesting links from and put in posts I call Scumbles. They used to be on my personal blog The Flying Trilobite, and I've moved them to Symbiartic since Scientific American asked me on board. 


So far the biggest impact the Science Artists Feed and Scumble posts have had is drawing together the disparate scattered science-inspired artists into a tighter community.  I've shared a Circle on G+of them in the past and more are talking on Twitter. I just finished up at my 4th trip to ScienceOnline this year, in North Carolina. Usually I've been one of 2 or 3 science-artists or illustrators out of a few hundred researchers and science journalists.  This year, there were about a dozen of us in attendance which had an impact. If you're on Twitter, an easy way into the community there is to use the #scienceart hashtag. 

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(For the interactive version of the image above, head over to Symbiartic and explore the image!) 

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
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Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the new Scientific American Blog Network!