Nicole Small has planted her garden of dreams.
Now she’s waiting for you to come.
More than a hundred vivid-orange, life-size statues of women in STEM-related careers grace the lawn of NorthPark Center’s central courtyard. Fourteen more of these radiant acrylic sculptures made by 3D technology stand resolute in a wing under the movie theater that leads out to the garden.
This collection of 121 statues represents a rainbow coalition of women who use science to create couture, tag sharks, save apes, help society’s vulnerable, study asteroids, produce flicks, explore oceans, fight superbugs, keep Spotify tuned in, create smudgeless lipsticks, monitor earthquakes, search for extraterrestrial life and much more.
Small, the 48-year-old CEO of Lyda Hill Philanthropies, hasn’t been this exuberant about anything since she opened the Perot Museum of Nature and Science as its CEO in 2006.
“This is wonderful on so many levels,” Small said. “Having the opening after the 14 months that we’ve been through, and being able to highlight these amazing women when the world knows how important science is, feels like we’re reentering the world with just the perfect subject matter.
“I’m just jittery with excitement.”
#IfThenSheCan – The Exhibit, which is free and runs through October, is the centerpiece of the If/Then Initiative that Small and the Hill nonprofit launched three years ago.
It’s all designed to show young girls the wondrous array of careers open to them if they’d just give STEM a chance.
As for the name, if/then is a basic coding term that also fits the initiative’s mantra: “If she can see it, then she can be it.”
Two years ago, Small and her team came up with the crazy idea of making a legion of digitally generated sculptures of women who use science, technology, engineering and math to change the planet.
Large-scale 3D technology was just beginning to take root. No one knew whether statues could be created en masse and in life-size dimensions.
But Small — like her billionaire boss, philanthropist and entrepreneur Lyda Hill — believes in going big or staying home.
“Our office has the privilege of working for Lyda. Your idea needs to be reasonable and thoughtful, but she’s always open to audacious ideas,” Small said.
Small hit up Dan Kohl and Andy Anway, who were instrumental in helping her design the Perot.
“They said, ‘Give us a little time to figure this out. No one’s ever 3D-scanned 120 women in a weekend. But we’re on it,’” Small said.
Kohl and Anway say they’ve learned to never immediately dismiss Small’s ideas.
“I’m technically retired,” said Kohl, who left the Perot as vice president for creativity and innovation two years ago. “But when she calls me about something she thinks I might be helpful with, I don’t even have to think twice. I jump at the chance to work with her.”
Anway, founder of Amaze Design Inc. in Boston, agrees.
“We kinda reverse-engineer from whatever the crazy idea is back into, ‘OK, how can we make this real? How can we fit it into our schedules and budgets and still create something that’s compelling, interesting and unique?’” he said.
“With Nicole, it’s just so wonderful to push the envelope. What I loved about this project is we truly had to test everyone’s ability to pull off something like this. The manufacturer was like, ‘You want to do what?’”
Together, they did.
Handling the curves
The exhibition is being heralded as the largest collection of female statues ever assembled in one place. But a 2016 study found that only a handful of statues of any sort depicting real women were being displayed in outdoor public spaces in the nation’s 12 largest cities.
“It was one of those things that you can’t unsee,” Small said. “We were like, ‘Holy cow! There really aren’t a lot of women statues.’ And there were no women scientists anywhere.”
By the way, Dallas didn’t have any. There are now — at least for the time being.
Where the statues go after their NorthPark gig is still up in the air.
The featured ambassadors were selected in partnership with the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Some of the women honored in the exhibit are in the twilight of their careers. Others are just making names for themselves. Two are wheelchair riders. One is a trained ballerina and rocket scientist. One is a blue-haired molecular biologist who designs fashions. Another is one of only 150 Black women in the country with a Ph.D. in physics.
Each statue has a QR code that links to that ambassador’s electronic profile site of bios, photos and personal stories.
The grand debut was supposed to be last May at NorthPark until COVID-19 dropped the curtain on life as we knew it.
Most of the statues have been stashed in the manufacturer’s warehouse in Indiana, although some had temporary homes at NorthPark, the Central Park Zoo in New York and Dallas Love Field.
Nancy Nasher, owner of NorthPark, is elated that the statues are homesteading at her mall.
“I truly believe that the impact of this exhibition will be felt across generations and will help pave the way for millions of women, young and old, to pursue their passions and follow their dreams,” she said. “NorthPark is more than just a shopping center. We are a community space that aims to welcome all visitors and inspire them with our art, landscape and architecture. #IfThenSheCan – The Exhibit aligns with our mission, and we are so grateful for the opportunity.”
Selling eggs in carpool
Small’s father, Charles Ginsburg, is vice provost and senior associate dean at UT Southwestern Medical Center. So she grew up with science in her life.
Her late mother, Judy, was “an uber volunteer in the community.” So she has the heart of a civic servant.
Her parents always encouraged Nicole to be whatever she wanted to be as long as it was something she loved — advice she’s passed on to her daughters, who are 15 and 12.
Small got her first taste of entrepreneurship at the Lamplighter School, where fourth graders raise chickens in the school’s barn and set up a business to sell eggs during carpool.
“It’s the coolest thing,” Small said. “Everybody in the grade has to be part of the company. You learn about stock and running a business. You get your first dose of what it takes to be an entrepreneur and run a company.”
‘We kinda think alike’
In 2014, Hill hired Small to run her philanthropic foundation and her business enterprise, LH Capital Inc., having gotten to know Small when she was at the Perot.
“I knew that Nicole could solve things. We kinda think a lot alike, which is very handy,” the 78-year-old said. “She got the Perot opened a month early, under budget and fully paid for. Who’s ever done that? That speaks for itself. I was delighted that we could work out a way that we could work together.”
Small says she couldn’t ask for a more fulfilling career path.
“I fundamentally believe that you can do the most good when you align your purpose with your profits,” Small said. “We were able to do that during my years at the Perot.
“With Lyda, half of my job is helping her make money. Half of my job is helping her give it away.”
Curing cancer is a big deal to Hill and Small, who are both survivors. Unfortunately, Small’s mother wasn’t.
“The women we’re highlighting should be celebrated as heroes for the work they’re doing — whether it’s in the laboratory or in the field,” Small said. “We want little girls to be inspired so that no one else will lose their mother to cancer.”
A billion TikToks
Small wants to reach girls in ways beyond the traditional paths of schools and Girl Scouts. If/Then is partnering with the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team and did a challenge using STEM with Bravo’s Project Runway.
It fits in with another piece of paternal advice that she’s taken to heart: “Don’t be a sheep.”
“If you really want to move the needle, you don’t want to do it the way everyone else has always done it,” Small said. “There are great ideas that you should build from, but you should also walk your own path.”
Small, Hill and actor/activist Geena Davis are executive producers of Mission Unstoppable, the first STEM-centric television series created and funded by, for and about women.
The program is now being filmed for its third season as part of the CBS Saturday morning lineup. It highlights female innovators, including numerous If/Then ambassadors.
The TikTok hashtag #STEMLife associated with the program has received more than a billion views.
The NorthPark statues are at eye level so that they are more relatable than the huge statues of men on pedestals looking down on us.
“We thought, ‘These women are part of our world. They live down the street from us. Wouldn’t it be nice to engage with them eye to eye?’” Kohl said. “We still recognize that they’re heroes and heroic. But this is a better connection to them as humans.”
Small says it’s impossible to calculate how much each statue cost, even if she wanted to, which she doesn’t. She calls them priceless. Hill bristles at the question, saying people should stop thinking about the zeroes and think about the mission.
The sculptures are made of lightweight, cream-colored acrylic and weigh between 15 and 20 pounds without the flat base.
And they are very, very orange.
The creators had to come up with a universal color. Skin tones were out. Pink was nixed. Green would fade into greenery. The Blue Man Group had dibs on that color.
“When you look up the meaning of orange, it conveys a lot of positivity,” Small said. “It also just happens to be Lyda’s favorite color, so we surprised her with it.”
Ready for their closeups
The ambassadors were immortalized during If/Then’s three-day inaugural summit at the Perot in October 2019.
Two basement classrooms were converted into production zones.
“They dolled us all up with hair styling and makeup,” said Jenn Makins, director of STEM education at the Parish Episcopal School. “They had us crammed into two classrooms at about a dozen a go, each with a different hair and makeup person. That was all kinds of fun.”
The ambassadors were asked to bring an artifact that represents their work.
One came in a wetsuit and snorkel gear. An athlete and engineer who designs extreme ski equipment came in a parka.
Makins spends much of her time tinkering with machines or coaching the NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge Team. That’s why she chose a Makita drill and a tape measure as her props.
“Tools are kinda my gig,” said Makins, whose statue is wearing jeans and cowboy boots as she does most days at school. “I chose the drill because it fits in with my If/Then tagline: ‘If you teach a young girl to use a drill, she has the power to build her future.’”
Like the others, Makins, who is 5-foot-10, stepped into the 7-foot scanning booth where 89 cameras, 25 projectors and 16 LED light strips zapped thousands of photos of every inch of her body in a matter of seconds.
“Getting scanned definitely had a little Star Trek, ‘Beam me up, Scotty’ feel,” she said.
The real Jenn met “orange Jenn” at a media unveiling a week ago.
“It’s hard to put into words what it’s like when you see yourself as a life-size statue,” Makins said. “That’s usually an honor bestowed on someone who’s passed away. To have people believe in what you’re doing and want to elevate STEM fields for everybody to see, is humbling and exciting.”
AT A GLANCE: Nicole Small
Title: President and CEO, LH Capital Inc. and Lyda Hill Philanthropies
Age: 48
Resides: Dallas
Education: The Lamplighter School, followed by The Hockaday School, 1991; bachelor of arts in political science and marketing, University of Pennsylvania, 1995; MBA in finance, Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management, 1999
Personal: Married to Justin for 21 years. They have two daughters, 15 and 12.
SOURCE: Nicole Small
