{"id":4403,"date":"2011-11-10T19:57:46","date_gmt":"2011-11-10T19:57:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/?p=4403"},"modified":"2011-11-10T19:57:46","modified_gmt":"2011-11-10T19:57:46","slug":"cardiff-character-julia-thomas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/2011\/11\/10\/cardiff-character-julia-thomas\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardiff character: Julia Thomas"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Julia Thomas has changed career from scientific to artistic, and now the two go hand in hand.<\/h2>\n<div id=\"attachment_4408\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 480px\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/jtaction.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4408\" title=\"jtaction\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/jtaction.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/jtaction.jpg 480w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/jtaction-300x138.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4408\" title=\"jtaction\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/jtaction.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/jtaction.jpg 480w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/jtaction-300x138.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Julia&#039;s current work will involve thousands of tiny red wire figures<\/p><\/div>\n<p>For some people science and art may go together like chalk and cheese, but for Julia Thomas, 42, they are a perfect marriage. Since she decided that her career in science alone was not enough she has been using it to inform her artwork and her interactions with the public, to interesting effect.<\/p>\n<p>At school in Yorkshire, Julia had to choose between her two passions. \u201cThey\u2019d said if you\u2019re good at science you should do science, even if you like art, because there\u2019ll be more opportunities. So I went down the science route, and said I would always do art as a hobby. But I was actually quite gutted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As for where she gets her passions from, it seems to be a case of it being in the genes; she describes her father as very logical, very scientific, and her mother as the creative one.<\/p>\n<p>Science took Julia to Swansea University to study genetics and statistics. \u201cI was very happy then, because I\u2019d always wanted to be fairly interdisciplinary, and even though there wasn\u2019t art in there I think the combination of having genetics and statistics grabbed me. I\u2019ve always been in awe of how complex but beautiful genetics is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A scientific job then took her to Oxfordshire, and then Cardiff. After almost ten years she returned to art as a hobby, but found herself unable to devote enough time to both. \u201cOnce I started I realised how much I\u2019d missed it, because once I\u2019d had kids I just didn\u2019t have time anymore. I tend to throw myself into things and it was either one thing or the other so I gave the job up, much to everyone\u2019s surprise.\u201d There was no going back.<\/p>\n<p>The change certainly seems to have been the right move. \u201cI\u2019m in my element now. When people ask me about how I\u2019ve got where I am I always think I\u2019m like a squash ball that\u2019s bounced around the court a lot and tried different things, and now I feel like I\u2019ve finally got that really nice shot that lands in the back corner.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Julia\u2019s work is driven by the desire to stimulate conversation between art, science and the public. Talking about it, her enthusiasm increases and she speaks with a focus intended to ensure her opinions are understood. \u201cIt\u2019s not about the aesthetics of it, and some of the work isn\u2019t necessarily aesthetically pleasing either. Someone sent me an email about my work and said that it was \u2018stunning, interesting, and challenging.\u2019 I can\u2019t ask for more than that, can I?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of reactions to her work, she\u2019s also had less cheerful comments. In response to one work- a recording of a disjointed, unfocussed story, ending with a child\u2019s voice whispering \u201cquiet mummy\u201d- she was told that it was about marital abuse, infanticide and suicide, and that it had kept somebody up all night through fear. In fact no details at all were given; the piece was created while pondering how what we put out into the world about ourselves can often be just a tiny picture. \u201cIt was never intended to be nice,\u201d she laughs, \u201cit was intended to be challenging and to make you think.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Julia has ambitious plans concerning art, science and their combined ability to help people express things. She runs \u201ccreative genetics workshops\u201d with children aged three to sixteen who have chronic granulomatous disorder, which she would like to see employed with other groups who have genetic conditions. She describes working with one boy who was very quiet and lacked the confidence to express himself, but who by the end was thoroughly excited by it. \u201cTo see someone go from being really introverted and not wanting to be involved- you can see how proud they are of what they\u2019ve done, it\u2019s fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Such highs must come with lows as well. She has worked with a lot of ill children, and one particularly enthusiastic one sticks in her mind as the \u201cI can do that kid\u201d. In a sombre change of mood she describes seeing him go from being lively to tired and unwell, and then passing away a few weeks later. She struggles to find words to describe her feelings over this, before saying, \u201cThe other kids see all that and they realise that their condition is really serious.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Looking to the future, Julia plans to continue her current work, made up of a thousand tiny red wire figures representing patients lost in \u2018big science\u2019. She also has plans to draw together scientists and artists with corresponding passions; communication is the core of her work. \u201cIt\u2019s not about putting a piece of work on the wall, walking away and going \u2018look at me, I\u2019m an artist.\u2019 It was always going to be about talking to people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Julia Thomas has changed career from scientific to artistic, and now the two go hand in hand. For some people science and art may go together like chalk and cheese, but for Julia Thomas, 42, they are a perfect marriage. Since she decided that her career in science alone was not enough she has been using it to inform her artwork and her interactions with the public, to interesting effect. At school in Yorkshire, Julia had to choose between her [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":252,"featured_media":4407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,10],"tags":[722,1020,1021,732],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-4403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-uncategorized","tag-artist","tag-exhibition","tag-julia-thomas","tag-science"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cardiff character: Julia Thomas - alt.cardiff<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/2011\/11\/10\/cardiff-character-julia-thomas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cardiff character: Julia Thomas - alt.cardiff\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Julia Thomas has changed career from scientific to artistic, and now the two go hand in hand. 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