Art
We’re in the very near future, on a quiet beach, with seven young interns from the Third Annual Slime Crisis Conference. In many ways, this conference is like any other; there are misunderstandings, arguments, and moments of insight. There’s some weird food, and some sleeping around. This conference, though, isn’t just for humans. It’s for […]
“It’s like Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, but on dinner plates,” I told my nine-year-old daughter during a recent trip to London. She wasn’t entirely convinced, but she agreed to go with me and a friend to see the long-lost Famous Women Dinner Service, a set of 50 plates painted by the artists Vanessa […]
Last time I was in my hometown of Seattle, I walked by the movie theater I worked at for many years in the 1990s and 2000s and found it permanently closed. Being sad and angry about changes in Seattle is kind of a thing, but I wasn’t just upset about a piece of the city–and […]
Once upon a time there was a fossil seller and paleontologist named Mary Anning. In the early 19th century, she and her brother found the first complete ichthyosaur skeleton. In the early 21st century, we immortalized her in marshmallow form. Presenting Mary Anning, Paleontolopeep: A diorama by Joanna Church, Helen Fields and Kate Ramsayer. Mary […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about Ursula Le Guin since her death on January 22. Here in the Pacific Northwest, she was not only a beloved author but a beloved public figure, active in the Portland community until the very end of her long life. I’ll miss hearing her voice, and I’ll miss her sharp […]
I’m writing this from a traffic jam on I-95. When we were choosing days on the schedule for Eclipse Week, nobody wanted the responsibility of writing a post the day of the eclipse. Because I have an overactive sense of duty, I signed up for this post, then joked that I’d be writing it on […]
It’s not obvious how to draw a snake. Here, let Isabel Cooper tell you about it, in a 1924 article she wrote for The Atlantic Monthly. For instance, there’s no such thing as a school of snake artists, so when the problem of making a portrait of a snake presented itself I had to think […]