Sci-Art was an idea whose time had come; it helped to kickstart a new way of discovery that has had a lasting impact on scientific method and art practice. The fortuitous set of circumstances that secured the Wellcome Trust's longterm sponsorship of the idea (1997–2006) is related here by Terry Trickett. In responding to a leading question from New York's Cynthia Pannucci, he describes the early years of sci-art, when artists succeeded in penetrating the realm of science and scientists discovered a new creative impetus through art.