Meeting Professor Stoddart

At high school I was always top-of-the-class in Art and it didn't seem to require any effort. Science was more of a challenge and that's what I chose to study at college. Physics was definitely a challenge. However, I continued to paint and draw and eventually returned to art, now full-time.

In 2007, Professor Stoddart bought some of my seascapes and the next year bought some more. The gallery owner told me that Stoddart had been looking for an artist who might also understand his scientific work. So in November of 2008, we met and he explained his work. Prof Stoddart does not correspond to the media image of a scientist - of course script writers usually know little of science and maybe have never actually met a scientist. Professor Stoddart appears as a person you might meet on a Scottish farm and furthermore would be happy working the farm rather than being the Laird.

He introduced me to his work. Molecules are akin to a child's construction set. In his view, a new chemical is to be created much in the way sculpture is created as an artifact conceived first in the imagination afterward constructed through ingenuity and puzzle solving.