Today’s episode is extra special to me because I got to talk to Mary Jo Hoffman, someone I have followed online and admired for more than 10 years! Mary Jo is an artist whose art form is taking photographs of found nature on black or white backgrounds. As an avid nature collector myself, I absolutely loved her beautiful art and became a fan instantly. 

Mary Jo is a rocket scientist turned artist, blogger, and now author of the book, Still, the Art of Noticing. She married to a James Beard award winning food writer, a mom to 2 kids, and she lives in St. Paul Minnesota. 

Mary Jo’s art has made her into a “noticer”. Collecting pieces of nature and photographing them daily has made her slow down and really notice all the beauty there is in the natural world, no matter the season. We have a great discussion about her art and her book and the ways we can help our kids become noticers too, even though they are growing up in a world that doesn’t really celebrate slowing down. I know you’ll come away inspired by this episode. And maybe you and your kids can start a habit of noticing nature and loving the beauty of nature, just like Mary Jo has.  

Some links for you from this episode: 

To see the art of Lisa Congdon, the artist who was an inspiration for Mary Jo, go here 

To learn more about the 72 micro seasons in Japan, go here 

Find the Beatrix Potter book here 

Find Mary Jo’s book here 

Read Mary Jo’s blog here 

Follow Mary Jo on Instagram here 

Some favorite quotes from this episode:  

*“The natural world drew me in first not as a source of beauty to observe, but as an expression of mathematics, and physics: I loved natural shapes for the trial-and-error perfection of their function; I loved seed pods for the ingenuity of their dispersal mechanisms; I loved the algorithms of spirals, saw toothed leaf tips, and the shapes of trees that imitated the shapes of rivers and their tributaries.” Mary Jo Hoffman 

* “We don’t value slowing down very much as a culture and we miss out as a result.” Greta Eskridge  

*”As the project progressed, so too my definition of seasonality was redefined. I noticed not big sweeping changes in temperature and light, but daily changes. I noticed the exact day the sap began to run. The day the first catkins exploded. The day the lilacs opened. And the day the first orange maple leaf appeared. And I captured it all, one high-resolution image at a time, for ten years. The attentiveness required to make an image a day led to a depth of understanding I had not expected. The more narrow and deep I went, the more my world expanded.” Mary Jo Hoffman 

*” Kids don’t know the names of anything in nature anymore. How do we grow tomorrow’s stewards of the environment if the kids don’t have an attachment to it?” Mary Jo Hoffman 

*” Learning names of things in nature makes you care about them more. Because then you have a relationship and connection beyond, that’s a pretty flower.” Greta Eskridge 

*”How do you raise creative kids? You model it every day.” Mary Jo Hoffman 

*”Give your kids space and time for creativity.” Greta Eskridge 

*” Part of being a noticer is having childlike wonder.” Mary Jo Hoffman 

*” Owning the responsibilities of sharing the awe and wonder of the natural world is one of the duties of being a parent.” Mary Jo Hoffman 

*” Look for micro joys in your life!” Mary Jo Hoffman 

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I love you guys! 

Greta