I Turn Science Into Art

My Textbook Illustrations Help Educate the Next Generation of Biologists, Doctors, and Physicists

| Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

I graduated from art school in a muddle. All I’d ever really wanted to do was draw, and I had done so on every sheet of paper that came within range of my pencil. But suddenly, it all felt very self-indulgent. I felt I should do something meaningful with my art and somehow give something back. I sincerely believe in the intellectual value of art in our culture, but I was looking for something more concrete. What could I do with my art to really make the world a better …

by Nigel Orme | December 12, 2022

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The Hmong Dolls We Lost, and the Story I Found

I Couldn’t Save These Hand-Sewn Heirlooms From a Fire, But I Could Preserve Their History—And Maybe Even Part of My Heritage

by Jer Xiong | December 8, 2022

The dolls were a seemingly trivial loss in the larger scheme of what went up in smoke when a fire burned through my neighborhood in the summer of 2020.

My family …

A Fragile Livelihood in Yemen

Photojournalist Asmaa Waguih Captures a Nation at War, at Work, at Rest

by Solomon Moore | June 1, 2022

Cairo-based photojournalist Asmaa Waguih has always felt a close connection to Yemen, her Red Sea neighbor. Her father was an Egyptian military officer who fought in the country for many …

Nobuko Miyamoto and the 120,000 Stories of Japanese America

Melding Art, Culture, and Politics, the Feminist Troubadour Helps a New Generation Reimagine Itself

by Ana Iwataki | May 26, 2022

Since the 1970s, Japanese Americans have observed the Day of Remembrance on February 19, the anniversary of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 9066 that authorized the forced removal …

Can a Historic L.A. Bar’s Queer History Still Demand Justice?

Photographs from the Black Cat Tell the Tale of a Movement’s Muddled Origins—And Where It Might Go

by Talib Jabbar | February 27, 2022

The round face of a cartoon cat—big eyes, earnest smile—still hangs off the front façade of the Black Cat in Silver Lake.

Today, it peers out from above the kind of …

My Brother, the Acclaimed Artist from the East L.A. Barrio

A Very Personal Chronicle of Painter Salomón Huerta’s Journey to the Whitney Biennial and Beyond

by Álvaro Huerta | February 23, 2022

My brother, Salomón Huerta, is an internationally recognized visual artist. When I think about his rise in the art world, I can’t help but reflect on how far he came, …

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