Flowering Fish

Zhiyu You is an illustrator and visual artist born in China and based in New York. Combining painting techniques and digital drawing, You’s artistic vocabulary is developed from her Chinese heritage. Her work depicts the unequal situations of women and minorities, also the relationships between humans, animals and machines.

For her Zócalo Sketchbook, You offers us a psychedelic aquarium of fish that expand and reveal themselves to symbolize her name. “In Chinese, Zhi means wildflower, Yu means fish. So I combined and expanded these two symbols to create this series,” she tells …

Why I’m Teaching Myself to Eat Baitfish

My Small Town's Alewives Are the Fish of the Future

My town has a fish. Or maybe the fish has us. It’s a herring known as an alewife—about nine inches long, with a forked tail and a belly that shines …

Killing Time with the Fishermen of Santa Monica Pier

Photos of the Anglers Who Hang Out Beneath the Ferris Wheel, Take in the Ocean Breeze, and Wait for a Bite

On the lower deck of the Santa Monica Pier—below the Pacific Park solar-powered Ferris wheel, Inkie’s Pirate Ship ride, and oceanfront West Coaster—there’s a quiet community of fishermen and women.

Many …

Fear and Magic

Night Kayaking the Hudson River

The river at night belongs to me. Me, and my sturgeon kin, my heron pals, the moon, the frantic bugs that prick my face and arms. Those bugs force me …