We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nicole Kelner a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Nicole, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

Painting my warming stripes piece has been the most meaningful project I’ve created. It represents global temperature change from 1850-2018 and is a color progression from blue to red. I have turned that piece into a dress, painted my nails in the pattern, and turned it into a Twitter header which has gone viral. When I wear that dress or people see the header, it sparks a casual conversation about climate change in a way that isn’t intimidating. I think the playfulness of my art breaks down the intensity of the issues to allow people to consume climate content in a bite-sized way.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m currently working at the intersection of art, climate, and technology. I use watercolors to communicate complex, systematic challenges in climate and present them in a beautiful and accessible way. This all started very recently, just 5 months ago in January 2022, I decided to paint a watercolor a day for 100 days. On the 10th day, I created a painting about kelp and carbon sequestration and it took off on Twitter. From then on, I focused all my paintings on climate. At the time I was working full time as Head of Operations at Dashboard.Earth. I quickly started getting commissions from climate VCs, startups, institutions, and nonprofits to help them communicate their messages. I fell in love with making art and decided to take a leap of faith and pursue it full time. Now, I am currently an Artist-in-Resident at My Climate Journey.
Before pivoting into working in climate, I was a co-founder and COO at The Coding Space, an after school program to teach kids how to code. I helped lead the company to acquisition in 2019. I didn’t come from a formal art background or formal climate background, so it feels incredibly exciting to be in a learning constantly and collaborating with so many mission-driven people.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My goal is to use art to inspire climate action. I believe that art can be a powerful tool to communicate the climate crisis in a way that the general public can consume. I try to focus on painting climate solutions as much as possible to lean toward inspiration rather than doomsday content. I believe this approach will be more effective in driving action in the long-term.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I previously worked in EdTech, running an after-school program to teach kids how to code. In January 2017 I challenged myself to live zero waste for 1 month. This was my wake-up call to the climate crisis. I educated myself as much as possible to prepare for that month and got supplies I needed to cut my waste down as much as possible. Needless to say, it was not easy. After that month, I decided I wanted to devote my career to making an impact in the climate crisis. Since then I’ve fully pivoted my career into climate. It took me several years to self-educate enough to do so. I slowly transitioned by first getting a part time job, as Chief of Staff at Climate Finance Solutions, and then a full time job, at Dashboard.Earth.
Now I am focusing on climate in an entirely different aspect than I could ever have dreamed, and I feel more aligned than ever. I am incredibly grateful I get to combine my passions for climate, education, and art in a way that can have a meaningful impact in this space.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.nicolekelner.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/mindfulnicole
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolekelner/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/NicoleKelner

Image Credits
Nicole Kelner