As a painter, I look constantly at the work of other painters. I’m especially drawn to semi-realistic paintings with an open, unfinished quality, a kind of withheld resolution: marks that draw attention to their materiality and energy, distilled or unresolved areas, a sense of

I’m fortunate to live close to one of the 41 theaters worldwide that are able to project an IMAX 70 mm print, the painstaking format Christopher Nolan chose for his new version of The Odyssey. As I wait for my reserved ticket date, I’ve been thinking back to my undergraduate reading of Homer’s poem. And I

Octavia Butler said science fiction was “a handful of earth and a handful of sky and everything around and between.” In Lynell George’s book of the same title, which explores Butler’s archives and life, that

Organizations are always conveying messages, including some that are not intentional. In my 30 years working in strategic communications, I’ve seen how the stories organizations tell, or simply allow to persist, function as operating instructions for what is possible. Some of these stories aren’t given much thought, and the unexamined ones can be

Kelsey Pfendler is on track to become the first American woman to row solo and unsupported across the mid-Pacific Ocean from California to Hawaii. She may also become the fastest rower ever to make the

Charlotta Bass’s husband would sometimes warn her that she was going to get him killed. She would remind him it would be for a good cause. In her memoir she mentions a night when eight members of the Ku Klux Klan attempted to enter the locked door of her office at the California Eagle, then

Whether in the studio or en plein air, painting has taught me how to look more closely at the world. I paint from life, meaning I look at the thing itself, but I also paint from photos, memories, imagination, or some cobbled-together combination, which is really just another way of painting from life.

Plein air painting is more demanding than it