👋 Hey-ho to 2,625 climate buddies 🌳
Climate is not a technology problem but a story problem.
Delphi Zero is a consultancy and newsletter about the narrative potential of climate.
It’s been a few days since I posted my second annual review for Delphi Zero.
In it, I promised you the following:
✅ More Experimentation - Last week, I recorded the first audio interview. It’s a wide-ranging conversation with climate artist Nicole Kelner. I’m curious how you’ll like this format.
Today is the day. In this interview we discussed:
How participating in Shark Tank kickstarted her entrepreneurial journey 🦈
Why messy art media like charcoal are good for the Inner Child in us ⬛️
What climate tech companies can learn from an accomplished climate artist 🎨
Below, you’ll find a few of my notes from this conversation 👇
I hope you’ll enjoy this inspiring conversation as much as I did.
Making the Climate Revolution Irresistible
By Art Lapinsch (illustrations by Nicole Kelner)
Quitting a Climate Job, Four Months After Picking Up a Paint Brush
Nicole burnt out while working an Ops job.
At the same time, one of her best friends did a 100-day challenge where she would record a daily TikTok video for 100 days straight. Her friend went viral and this inspired Nicole to do a 100-day challenge on her own.
Every day after work, she would do a watercolor drawing and post it online. Around day 10 of the challenge, one of her drawings caught the attention of climate Twitter.
She got a lot of engagement and decided to lean into drawing climate tech solutions. Requests for custom commissions followed.
At the end of the 100-day challenge she quit her job to focus full time on watercolor.
Happy Accidents
“My best art comes out of my biggest mistakes.”
- Nicole Kelner
This was a fascinating statement and reminded me of star chef Massimo Bottura who turned a mistakenly dropped lemon tart into his signature dish “Ooops! I Dropped the Lemon Tart”
Watch this video to understand the inherent poetry in everyday life:
Nicole’s Portfolio
Nicole has a very structured approach to creative projects.
Every year, she wants to focus on a different endeavor:
[2023] Coloring Book about Clean Energy → Started out as a technical coloring book but eventually found a market as a children’s coloring book.
[2024] Climate Art 101 → A 30-day course for people who want to get into climate art. A major pillar of it is the Creative 30 Challenge (30mins per day for 30 days to work on climate art)
[2025] Next year, Nicole is planning to create a children’s book.
Follow her progress on her Substack:
How Climate Data Gives Me the Feels
Her piece “How Climate Data Gives Me the Feels” is a must read.
It shows how experiencing something “first hand” - via drawing it out - can make you realize the full gravitas of something.
The Role of the Artist
We discussed Nicole’s favorite quote:
“The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.”
- Toni Cade Bambara
I asked her three questions about this quote. I quoted her replies.
#1: Why the Artist and Not Someone Else?
I think artists have this special superpower to help imagine and visualize anything that we could do, and then I think by envisioning this and helping other people see that world they're trying to visualize, you can bring people into that fantasy and then make it a reality in some capacity.
So it's kind of these like vision holders and yeah, like finding action steps to then reverse engineer towards that future.
#2: Why Focus on the Revolution and not on the Mundane?
It is a word that I never would have picked or used on my own.
I think that's part of why I like this quote. It's so bold and represents massive change. And that really is what we need right now. To me that word evokes positive thoughts. It is Sparking change and igniting a movement and I think that it really ties in all of those aspects.
#3: Why Making it Irresistible?
Like every part of the sentence is something I couldn't have thought of myself. I think that's why I love it so much.
Irresistible to me is this idea that it's so good we can't not want to live in that. We can see it. We can think about it. We can breathe it.Like it is so beautiful.
Painting Windmills
There are painted stones in the desert. And it attracts people.
Nicole asks: Why not use a similar approach to make windmills more attractive?
Also, there is Norwegian research that painted wind turbines could reduce bird collisions.
Simple Communication Is Really Valuable
Climate companies listen up:
I think simple communication is valuable.
A lot of the times, we're trying to overcomplicate things. A lot of my clients, like the work I do is just helping them get more specific and simplify their messaging. I do communications consulting for websites and help people optimize their messaging to help it be more clear.
You don't have to explain everything in one image or one website page.
Think small and chunk away the information.
Where to Find Nicole
Cool stuff by Nicole:
[GSheet] So you want to work in climate… // her most viral output so far
[article] So you want to be an artist…
And of course this bad boy 👇
Climate stripes by Nicole Kelner.
🙏 Thanks, Nicole for taking time to hat about art and climate.
I’d love to hear from you, please get in touch and tell me whom I should interview next or which topics you’d like to see covered ✌️
Making the Climate Revolution Irresistible