I’ve just finished reading an illustrated autobiography that I’ll write more about later.
But it has me thinking. There are many people and places I’d like to know more about. Many times this kind of cultural learning and exchange happens through art. But where is the exchange when people aren’t allowed to express [...]

In the late ’80s, Czechoslovakia became a democratic state, and in 1993 peacefully separated into two countries – the Czech Republic and Slovakia. With democracy came capitalism and advertising, and with capitalism and advertising came The Hypermarket. Hypermarkets are the world’s superstores, selling shoes and spinach, pipe wrenches and pumpkins, all you would [...]

I’ve been trying to learn Japanese this year. I’m making progress but it’s definitely slow. While I took Spanish in high school, my brain didn’t shift the way it is now. As I started to write and learn these brand new characters, I started noticing all the things I take for granted, [...]

I used to flip through the Artist’s Market when I was in middle school. Back then, the prices paid for illustrations from books and magazines seemed extravagant. I didn’t understand until later how little artists get paid for their time and skill.
How about $.69 per hour?
Mechanical Turk is an Amazon project which hands [...]

International art collectors are warming up to a new breed of daring Japanese artists that are no longer beholden to Western styles.
Mentioned in the article is a Contemporary Arts Fund. I’m not sure how well known this is, but there are funds (like mutual funds) created by financial organizations that own artwork instead of [...]

Any decent rockstar by nature is sexual and rebellious in one way or another. By nature this flies in the face of people who, for example, own tv or internet companies, or are heads of government big and small, and want to keep things nice and normal and non-rebellious. There is a history [...]

For the past few months, 12 7-Elevens in the United States were converted to real life Kwik-E-Marts, the very 7-Eleven-like stores featured in The Simpsons. The 12 stores have outsides changed to Kwik-E-Mart logos and colors, staff inside wears Kwik-E-Mart shirts, and the store sells Squishees, Buzz Cola, Krusty-O’s and pink doughnuts.
Before this actually [...]

Right now, within a 10 block radius of my apartment, there are about 15 condo projects going up. The average price for a condo is about $350,000, double what the average person in the city could afford. Yet they keep rising from the ground, many times taking down or absorbing perfectly good apartment [...]