All posts by Elizabeth Howard

New Dream Works by Dimithry Victor


 

    Dimithry Victor, a junior at South Plantation High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, continues to create original and intriguing images, now inspired by personal dreams and Pop art. He draws with pen and ink and digital tools, combining them with media sources.   “Recently,” says Victor, “I have been exploring collages and Pop art from images I see in my dreams. I usually write down what I see in my dream, then I cut out figures from magazines, and get digital backgrounds online, or any source I can find, to recreate the dream … Continue reading New Dream Works by Dimithry Victor

Telling the Story: Photos by Stephanie Gross

Stephanie Gross photography
 

  Stephanie Gross was intrigued early by pictures and their stories. “I spent a lot of time as a kid looking at pictures,” she says. ”My mom was a docent at the National Gallery and she used to walk me through the West Wing. We’d look at paintings and she’d talk about their composition, how your eye moves around the frame, and about the stories they were telling. For me, it was like this giant picture book that we could walk through. I think a lot of that has stuck with me.” While first fascinated … Continue reading Telling the Story: Photos by Stephanie Gross

Listening to Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Hilary Holladay


 

    Donald Trump said he would make America great again if he became president. Now, as his inauguration approaches, each news cycle brings further proof that if he succeeds on his own terms, the moral core of the nation will rot. What can we do besides cry foul or capitulate in cynical silence? As a spur to meaningful action, I recommend the saving words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran minister imprisoned in Germany in 1943 and executed by the Nazis in 1945. In his posthumously published Letters and Papers from Prison, Bonhoeffer writes eloquently about … Continue reading Listening to Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Hilary Holladay

The Deep North

Clouds over mountains and water
 

  About a dozen years ago, I was in Wexford, Ireland, to meet the artist Bridget Flannery for lunch. We exchanged gifts. Hers was a handsome print of a recent painting, which now hangs in the foyer of my house. Mine was a signed copy of my book. Oh, Katherine, she laughed, I’ve bought a dozen copies of this book and given them to friends. Then we went around the corner to see her new exhibition. The centerpiece was a large abstract, from her series Pause.     I was drawn to it immediately. She … Continue reading The Deep North

In Our Various Guises: The Art of Lawrence Anthony

Circe mixed media
 

  The human figure—mothering, meditating, slinging a spear or dancing the salsa—step center stage in Lawrence Anthony’s inventive imagination. He depicts his original cast of characters in various guises and mediums—from stone, bronze, wood, to plastics, polychromed or natural. “My life’s work in drawing, painting and sculpture has drawn from the human figure as its main source and has dealt with the relationship between figures through the physical, spiritual, and emotional ties that bind us together,” says Anthony, a resident of Summerland, Florida. “Using the figure, I was always interested in the relationship between the … Continue reading In Our Various Guises: The Art of Lawrence Anthony

Facts and Fiction by Robbie Shell

bees on honeycomb
 

It’s hard to describe the feeling of freedom I felt when I left my job as editor of an online business research and analysis site, and started to write a middle-grade novel on honeybees, pollination and Colony Collapse Disorder (the still mysterious syndrome that is killing millions of honeybees around the globe). I had been a business journalist for more than three decades in Washington, Boston, and Philadelphia, where I now live. All of a sudden, with the decision to write a work of fiction, I could make up names, make up quotes, make up … Continue reading Facts and Fiction by Robbie Shell

Angel Wings & Other Aspirations: The Art of Dimithry Victor


 

  Dimithry Victor, a self-taught 16-year-old artist from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, admits to having “many aspirations and goals, the most important ones to make people think and change the world through art.” No small ambition. “I know art can be used to express emotion, and get people to pay attention to a certain topic or even make them feel emotions. That is what I plan to do with my art.” Dimithry’s interest in art came by way of comics and cartoons. “When I was a kid I used to copy and learn from comic book … Continue reading Angel Wings & Other Aspirations: The Art of Dimithry Victor

Ebb and Flow: Paintings by Annie Wildey


 

  “I’m not a high summer, beach-going dweller,” says artist Annie Wildey, a native of Britain who grew up far from the sea. “But I love the beach on the quieter days, the days when people wouldn’t think of going to the beach – when it’s foggy, just before or after a storm or when it’s snowing, “I identify with the ocean when a storm is brewing or passing, when the surf is up, when flurries form, when the fog looms or is lifting, when the horizon is obscured or the sky begins to clear. There’s a … Continue reading Ebb and Flow: Paintings by Annie Wildey

Looking for the Light: Fax Ayres’ Photographs

Camera on top of books by Ansel Adams
 

    My mother gave me her old Nikkormat camera when I was 13 years old. She’d spotted my interest in books of photographs by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston and set me on an evolving path. I used the Nikkormat as a photographer and Editor-in-Chief of our weekly paper at the Taft School and again at Northwestern University’s newspaper. My Nikkormat was in hand during six years in Alaska, including three years in Gustavus at the mouth of Glacier Bay National Park where I basked in views of icy straits and was lucky enough to have a … Continue reading Looking for the Light: Fax Ayres’ Photographs

Look3 Festival of the Photograph


 

      See who’s in focus at this year’s Look3 Festival of the Photograph, June 13 through 19 in Charlottesville. One of 11 featured artists, National Geographic photographer Frans Lanting launches the week with his natural history images hanging from the TREES on the downtown mall. Showing the world through animals’ eyes, Lanting says his mission is to use photography to help create leverage for conservation efforts from local initiatives to global campaigns. He’ll discuss his mission at 7:30-9 p.m. Wednesday June 15 at the Paramount Theater. “No one turns animals into art more completely than Frans … Continue reading Look3 Festival of the Photograph