Chris Becker

Without a doubt, "In Praise of Shadows" is the most provocative and historically acute exhibition the MFAH has hosted since the controversial 2022 retrospective, Philip Guston Now.

Cover story for the February 2017 issue of Acoustic Guitar. My profile of guitarist Eric Johnson.

The variety and sheer number of works on display by El Franco at HMAAC speaks to the richness of Southern life and culture, and all of its crazy, grim and beautiful contradictions, as painting after painting venerates individuals who might not otherwise appear on canvas in a museum.

“If you want to know why a patient has a surgical site infection, look no further than the time a nurse couldn’t vocalize that something got contaminated,” said Danielle Quintana, clinical assistant professor at the Gessner College of Nursing. “Until these numbers are zero, there’s more work to do.”

“My target audience for this work is Black people,” says Francis, 39, who grew up Alief. “That’s not to say my only audience is Black people. If you are open, you can figuratively see yourself in a person who looks nothing like you but has characteristics
that mirror some of your own.”

FOR THE AMERICAN artist Philip Guston, born Phillip Goldstein in 1913 to Jewish parents who fled the pogroms in the Ukraine for the relative safety of Canada and later settled in Los Angeles, abstraction was one of many visual languages he pulled from over the course of a lifetime of creating his intensely autobiographical, and often socially conscious art. That lifetime of work is beautifully presented in Philip Guston Now, which opened Sunday at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and is on view through Jan. 15, 2023. It’s the first retrospective of Guston’s work in more than 20 years.

I was delighted to discover Ming Smith grew up in my hometown of Columbus, OH. I got to talk to her about her childhood, her time at Howard University, and eventual move to New York where she realized her creative calling.

This was most definitely one of the most interesting and enjoyable interviews I've done for Houston CityBook: Fashion designer, writer, and cabaret singer Isaac Mizrahi

POLISH-BORN HOUSTON violinist Dominika Dancewicz is on a mission. A highly respected instrumentalist, educator, and founding member of the Axiom Quartet, Dancewicz is also a strong advocate for the culture of her native country. “It’s not just sausage and kolaches,” says Dancewicz.

A behind-the-scenes look at Meta-Four, Houston's premier poetry slam competition team.

It was an honor to speak to Dr. Ricardo Nuila about his new book "The People's Hospital," which recounts the journey of five desperately ill uninsured or underinsured patients he met as a physician at Ben Taub hospital.

My interview with Gary Numan, a true pioneer in the genre of electronic, New Wave, and industrial music. One of my favorite pieces I've written.

". . . with a head of gray hair pulled back with a bandana, Modine exudes the confidence of a man unafraid to show his feelings — and willing to stand tall in the face of adversity, including mankind’s propensity for violence, something that was very much on his mind when he received the script for Full Metal Jacket."

Life as an artist can feel like a juggling act, requiring the ability to stretch and bend to the demands of making art while maintaining one’s physical and mental health. It’s a challenge Houston-born and -raised soprano Julia Fox knows well. A married mom to a three-year-old boy, the classical singer strives for a holistic approach to her career, and believes it’s best to let her work speak for itself.

One of the many famous musical moments in The Rite of Spring is the opening bassoon melody, based on a Lithuanian wedding song, and one of the hardest solos ever written for the instrument. “It’s a very simple beginning to a very long, complicated piece,” says principal bassoonist Rian Craypo. “We bassoonists spend years learning how to play it, and play it well, and it’s literally over in fifteen seconds!”