Following a Different Drummer?

Tim Stedman came to Knox College from Los Angeles for what he calls a traditional education. In doing so, he walked away from fat paychecks and hobnobbing with celebrities as a vice president/creative director with the world's largest record studio. Even so, he spent this past summer working or Lyle Lovett.

The Color of Light

In the middle of a dreary winter afternoon in Princeton, N.J., Marilyn Chandler McEntyre found herself moved by a print of Vermeer’s "The Lacemaker." The Westmont College professor wrote a poem for the painting, and subsequently traveled the world to seek out works by Dutch artists and author three books in which she responds to them.

Embedded Memories of War

Soldiers home from the Iraq war are memorializing their slain buddies with tattoos, sometimes covering an entire torso. The images serve to honor and remember the dead, but also mark the bearers’ trauma and loss. Occidental College Assistant Professor of Art Mary Beth Heffernan took her camera to the tattoo parlors near the largest Marine base in the United States to document this trend. The result is a riveting photographic exhibition entitled "The Soldier's Skin: An Endless Edition."

A Digital-Age "Safe House" for Mexican Immigrants

At first glance, the Casa Segura (The Safe House) may appear to function more like a miniature, digitalized Red Cross station than a work of art. The small solar-powered structures are being placed on properties across the Sonoran desert and are stocked with basic essentials such as water, medical supplies, and nutritional items. But Robert Ransick, a digital arts faculty member at Bennington College, has also equipped the structures with a dynamic bilingual web space that allows Mexican immigrants to share stories via an embedded touch screen interface.

Museum Reopens Its Treasures

The Bowdoin College Museum of Art reopens its doors Oct. 14 after an extensive renovation and expansion. Its more than 15,000 objects span the world of the ancient Assyrians through the 21st century.