After paleontologist and painter’s date, love was no longer extinct

He has written nine books, four of which are for a mass-market audience, including “Tracking the Golden Isles: The Natural and Human Histories of the Georgia Coast” and “Life Sculpted: Tales of the Animals, Plants, and Fungi That Drill, Break, and Scrape to Shape the Earth.” Replete with whimsy, puns and groan-inducing “dad jokes,” they aim to make science fun, funny and accessible.

Martin is also a visual artist, and sometimes he illustrates his work.

He is married to Ruth Schowalter, a visionary artist, communications educator and creativity coach — and his occasional collaborator. She cofounded InterPlay Sustaining International Sisters, which fosters communication using the “whole” person — body, mind, heart and soul, she says. In her interactive InterPlay workshops, she integrates improvisation, physical movement and other enlivening forms of expression to help participants make meaningful conversations and give memorable presentations.

Once called a “sophisticated primitive” artist, her colorful figurative paintings and drawings express her inner world, both from dreams and psychological meanderings. She illustrated Ron Shaklee’s children’s story, “The Misadventures of Maria the Hutia,” a conservation-minded tale about the endangered wildlife on San Salvador and other islands in the Bahamas.

Q: What was your “meet-cute?”

Martin: We first connected through the online dating site Match.com in 2001, back when the Internet was more like two cans connected with string. Ruth contacted me with a message, and I looked at her profile and thought, “She looks interesting.” So I gave her my phone number and asked her to call me, because I didn’t want to be just a “pen pal.” She called me, we had a nice chat, then met in person at Emory Village a few days later and talked for hours. The next week, we did a hike and picnic at Stone Mountain, and we’ve been together ever since.

Schowalter: So, unmarried and single at the age of 42, I was threatened by my friends that I couldn’t complain about not meeting a guy that I would like to date if I didn’t try online dating. The algorithms worked for me. I asked for someone living within a 6-mile radius, an outdoorsy guy with a Ph.D., a well-traveled Democrat who knew a few languages and liked Shirley Temple movies. I succeeded in every way! Tony Martin, who lived 3 miles away, was “geoguy” and I was “Ophelia.” He wrote extended descriptive paragraphs to every question, and I fell in love on-site! Real live experience confirmed everything he said about himself to be true. He was perfect — except for the way he dressed and his punning tendency.

Q: What qualities attracted you?

Martin: I loved how Ruth looked, like she was a “Colorado girl” with an outdoorsy and physical vibe. I was also attracted to Ruth’s literary background, her artistic and creative talents, her interests in international cultures and love of travel and the outdoors. I also liked that she was taller than me and didn’t mind being with a shorter man; she’s 5-foot-10 and I’m 5-foot-6. I mean, that’s the one thing I couldn’t change, so I’m grateful she stuck with me.

Schowalter: Drinking dark beer and talking for hours about everything and anything. We met at Emory Village on the Wednesday afternoon of the first day of classes in the fall. Six hours later and one Guinness pitcher of beer quaffed, we were “in” to getting to know each other. For 20-plus years, we’ve repeated this tradition on the first day of classes at Emory in the fall — even reenacting the walking down the street and asking each other’s names. Beer is generally involved in these celebrations. What interested me? Tony’s keen intelligence, exuberance and, yes, willingness to please! He’s a happy-go-lucky kind of guy. He was well-traveled, just like me, and wanted to travel more! Yay.

Credit: Photo courtesy of Ruth Schowalter and Tony Martin

Credit: Photo courtesy of Ruth Schowalter and Tony Martin

Q: Tell us about your collaborations

Schowalter: One of our earliest creative collaborations was the Paleontologist Barbie interviews. Tony had been yearning for his own Paleontologist Barbie doll to use for scale in geological photos during his field research and explorations. After receiving Paleontologist Barbie for a Christmas gift in 2010, Tony began creating Facebook posts using her as a fun educational tool. After hearing him speak in PB’s voice explaining things, I got the idea to bring Tony to a pub, give him a beer and have him embody PB! We have a series of interviews I published on my blog, Coffee with Hallelujah. We received an enormous positive response from our Paleontologist Barbie Rocks FB group and wherever we traveled in the world. That doll has been with us on trips to Argentina, Australia, the Bahamas, Canada, the United Kingdom and lots of other places where we pose her doing field work or museum tours. In other words, she’s not a doll — she’s an action figure!

Martin: Another collaboration of ours was for a 2011 art exhibit hosted by Fernbank Museum of Natural History, where local scientists and science-adjacent artists created works inspired by the scientific ideas of Charles Darwin. Ruth and I had our own solo pieces, but we also codesigned and coworked on several works based on paleontological projects I had done.

Credit: Photo courtesy of Ruth Schowalter and Tony Martin

Credit: Photo courtesy of Ruth Schowalter and Tony Martin

Schowalter: I was honored that my painting, “Mother Earth, Mother Dinosaur,” was the first piece displayed in the “Selections” art exhibit at Fernbank Museum of Natural History in 2011. Although I painted this work, I consider it one of our best collaborations. The image depicts an adult dinosaur with two juveniles in a burrow from about 95 million years ago. Tony’s research in 2007 on the first known burrowing dinosaur, Oryctodromeus from Montana, demonstrated that dinosaurs didn’t just lay eggs and abandon the nests but stayed around to do some parenting.

Q: Is there a “dream project” you would like to do?

Martin: We’ve talked about doing a joint art project with its main theme on the art and creativity of field notebooks. Part of my scientific documentation of animal traces or trace fossils involves drawing them, whether in the field or in museum collections, and sometimes those drawings lead to creative ideas that expand on those observations. We would also like to do more science-communication workshops, seeing that a public understanding and appreciation of science is so important now.

Schowalter: An artist friend of ours and a colleague of Tony’s, Linda Armstrong, suggested that we should combine our work based on our time together out in the field. I love photographing Tony and the environment he’s working in, whether in Australia, on the Georgia Coast, out West or wherever, so I have a ton of interesting photographs. And I have made some visual art expressing these field trips. I think using his field notebooks with notes and illustrations, along with my photos and art, would be pretty interesting and a great way to draw people into the fascinating world of science and art combined. Hooray for Mother Earth!

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Candice Dyer’s work has appeared in magazines including Atlanta, Garden & Gun, Men’s Journal and Country Living. She is the author of “Street Singers, Soul Shakers, Rebels with a Cause: Music from Macon.”

Credit: ArtsATL

Credit: ArtsATL

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