Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is gearing up for the start of a new term at the Supreme Court, which kicks off next week in Washington and may or may not promise a lot of thrills and chills. 

But far from the court’s marble corridors, in Los Angeles, Ginsburg’s life and times will come alive in the form of a new exhibit around Notorious RBG, a best-selling book that traces the justice’s legacy on and off the bench ― and the young, cult-like internet following she has amassed in recent years.

Together with the book’s authors, the Skirball Cultural Center and its curators have begun to patch together the pieces and artifacts that will be on display at an exhibit of the same name beginning in 2018 ― a project they expect will give visitors an “experiential” dose of the memes, tattoo art and cartoons that have lit up the Tumblr page that came before the book.

And yes, the plans come with the blessing of Ginsburg herself.

“I have heard many good things about the Skirball and would be pleased to see Notorious RBG adapted into an exhibition,” the justice said in a letter to the center’s curators, who had asked for her permission prior to moving forward.

Cate Thurston, one of the curators who reached out to Ginsburg, told The Huffington Post that the exhibition stands out from others she’s curated in that it’s an outgrowth of something Ginsburg’s millennial fans started.

“One of the many things I love about the concept being born out of a meme is that in a contemporary sense it is truly history from the bottom up,” she said. “This is a show that’s been created by the public and we are fleshing it out.” 

Irin Carmon, an NBC News reporter who co-authored Notorious RBG with attorney Shana Knizhnik, said that Skirball’s “civically minded” culture jibed well with what the book sought to accomplish: placing Ginsburg’s life and struggles in the context of her battle for gender equality and civil rights. The tale is told with no shortage of fan art and illustrations, and with enough archival material and legal commentary to win over skeptics.

Folks at Skirball really liked the combination of all these pieces, and so before they pitched the idea to Ginsburg, they asked Carmon and Knizhnik for their thoughts and then they all ran with it.

“This book brought in all the elements, and the fact that this book was already a multimedia project really appealed to them,” Carmon said.

Though the details are still being hashed out, Carmon said she hopes the exhibit is a “walking experience” of sorts ― a mix of judicial biography and civics with sights, sounds and even things visitors can touch.

For some idea of what that might look like, one may look to the Tumblr page that begat the book, which Knizhnik created in 2013 as a frustrated law student after the Supreme Court invalidated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In that case, Ginsburg was on the losing side. But as the senior justice in the minority, she assigned the dissenting opinion to herself ― and her screed was so forceful that she decided to read a version of it from the bench.

“The Voting Rights Act became one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our Nation’s history,” Ginsburg wrote at the time. “Thanks to the Voting Rights Act, progress once the subject of a dream has been achieved and continues to be made.”

These and other dissents serve as a kind of thematic thread for both the book and online versions of Notorious RBG, and one of Thurston’s challenges will be to make the words on the page ― and Ginsburg’s life story ― come alive in three dimensions.

“We want for there to be historic artifacts and we want for visitors to engage and play and touch and create,” Thurston said. “We’re still playing with those ideas but we will definitely want to have many elements in the gallery where visitors can create or perhaps lend their voice to something.” 

Thurston said it would be an “honor” if the show travels to other cities. “The exciting part of public history is that you can tell this story and share it widely and listen to how our visitors react to that,” she said. 

Until then, the curators have plenty of material to work with and expect to get a hold of more items. Carmon said her “dream” would be to feature in the exhibit one of Ginsburg’s courtroom jabots ― the neckwear she dons when she’s announcing an opinion from the bench.

And if it’s the special one she wore when she dissented in the voting rights decision, even better. “The sky is the limit,” Carmon said.

Notorious RBG, the exhibit, will open to the public sometime in 2018. In the interim, Ginsburg’s admirers might want to catch her in action when the Supreme Court returns to the bench on Tuesday. That day also happens to be the release date of My Own Words (Simon & Schuster), Ginsburg’s first book, a compilation of writings and essays.

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Elena Ferrante is a brilliant writer whose art rested on keeping her personal and professional lives separate. The author of the Neapolitan novels and a slew of similarly feminist-leaning books, she catalyzed Ferrante Fever, a worldwide obsession with her singular approach to storytelling.

The name “Elena Ferrante” is a pseudonym; the author prefers to be anonymous for reasons both personal and artistic that she has laid out in several interviews. But on Sunday, the New York Review of Books ran an article by journalist Claudio Gatti claiming to reveal the books’ true author. The evidence he presents ― paychecks she received from the publisher, increasing in amounts that correlate with the Neapolitan novels’ spike in popularity ― is convincing, but yet to be confirmed. You’ll have to read that article to learn about what he claims to be Ferrante’s true identity; we prefer to respect her wish to remain unknown. 

In case you haven’t read the books, here’s a super-brief summary that should not deter you from going out and reading them, experiencing their magic yourself. Two woman born in Naples ― Lenu and Lina ― follow different but parallel trajectories as they come of age. Lina marries young, but employs her smarts in a series of jobs before seeking independence later in life by working on computers. 

Lenu takes the educational track, becoming one of the first women to leave her crime-ridden neighborhood to attend university. She goes on to be a writer, but struggles to assert the value of her own feminine approach to making art. Namely, she writes about the domestic sphere; the apolitical. But her relative fame comes at a cost, as she’s unable to separate storytelling from the pressure she feels to save her community through her words.

For the heroine of the story, namelessness would’ve allowed her greater artistic freedom. The author of the novels believes this, too.

“I’m still very interested in testifying against the self-promotion obsessively imposed by the media,” Ferrante said in an interview with The Paris Review, which was conducted through her publisher. “The demand for self-promotion diminishes the actual work of art, whatever that art may be, and it has become universal.”

But Gatti, in the piece that reveals the author’s name and personal information, argued, “by announcing that she would lie on occasion, Ferrante has in a way relinquished her right to disappear behind her books and let them live and grow while their author remained unknown. Indeed, she and her publisher seemed to have fed public interest in her true identity.” 

This is in response to something Ferrante said in a 2003 interview, in which she references a sentiment she shared with fellow Italian author Italo Calvino. “Ask me what you want to know, but I won’t tell you the truth, of that you can be sure,” Calvino says, and Ferrante said she’s made the quote a mantra of sorts. But both authors are talking about the value of emotional honesty over factual honesty ― a distinction Ferrante makes both in interviews and in her novels.

Gatti’s argument is basically arrogant gibberish for, “we became interested in her identity, so we deserved to know it.” Which, aside from being a total logical fallacy, is the writer’s way of explaining away the fact that what he did was self-serving. It seems that he revealed Ferrante’s identity simply because he was able to; certainly, he disregarded her wishes, and the wishes of her readers, who voiced their dismay about the news on Twitter. You’ll notice also that Gatti has no issue with self-promotion; his own name sits smugly at the top of his report.

Ferrante has implied ― in the same interview with the Paris Review ― that being outed would deter her from continuing to write. If she follows through, Gatti’s act is a huge loss for those of us who love to read. We can only hope that she’ll craft up a new pseudonym soon.

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Warning: This article contains nudity, prepare your innocent eyes. 

There is a very practical, historical reason why so many women have been drawn to the genre of self-portraiture.

Artists with sizable ambitions have long been expected to master rendering the nude human form with accuracy and style. As such, it was customary, if not essential, for budding artists to train by drawing and painting nude models. However, until 1863, women ― or “lady” students, as they were called ― were not admitted to life drawing courses at institutions like the Royal Academy in London. Even when they were later admitted, the models that sat for women had to be at least “partially draped.” 

And so, publicly barred from illustrating the bodies of others, women artists began to depict themselves. Judith Leyster’s 17th-century “Self-Portrait,” one of the earliest self-portraits by an established woman artist, features the artist looking up from her easel mid-artwork, a meta glimpse at a painting within a painting. Artemisia Gentileschi’s 1639 “Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting” is another key example, featuring the Baroque painter with brushes in one hand, palette in the other. The fact that she is both subject and object, creator and muse, is written plainly in paint. 

We’ve come a long way since the days of Leyster and Gentileschi, and yet, for women artists, self-portraits remain a lasting source of intrigue and inspiration.

A new exhibition titled “Self Reflection” features 21 contemporary women artists whose subject matter is the self. Curated by Indira Cesarine and Coco Dolle, the show at Untitled Space in New York City spans disciplines, styles, and themes to examine the ways a woman sees and depicts her own image, often in ways the Academy might not describe as “ladylike.” 

“I felt it was really important to emphasize women that are working in self-portraiture in a conceptual way, the alternative to the selfie,” Cesarine explained to The Huffington Post. “There has been so much attention paid to the selfie. But there are so many contemporary female artists that have worked from political and social points of view that go far deeper.”

The show features work from artist Leah Schrager, who, after working as a ballet dancer and model, pursued art as a way to pull her own image from the grips of men. Using a nude portrait as a canvas, Schrager digitally paints over her form, toying with the way women’s images are shared, judged and digested in the art world, online and beyond. 

Carol-Anne McFarlane takes a more abstract approach, transforming her physical silhouette into a black-and-white target, alluding to the daily harassment women endure simply for existing. “My work addresses the male gaze in a way that I may not be able to do with my body,” she said in a statement. 

Also on view is Sarah Maple, whose artworks often explore her identity as a Muslim woman and a feminist. “I think today there are many women using self-portraiture because we are tired of being told by the media, society and religion, etc., who we should be or what we should look like,” the artist said in a statement. “I think by photographing ourselves we are reclaiming our image and finally controlling how we want to be seen in the world.”

The exhibit comes in a fall art season jam-packed with women-centric exhibitions, part of an effort to address the serious gender inequality plaguing the art world eversince the Leyster and Gentileschi days. Although many of the images on view depict bodies that adhere to conventional beauty norms, Cesarine stressed the fact that, as a Mexican-American woman herself, “it’s really important to promote intersectionality.” 

Cesarine, herself an artist as well as a curator and gallerist, has “devoted her life” to supporting and promoting art made by women. Her May show “In the Raw: The Female Gaze on the Nude,” also focused on art by women, of women, with emphasis on depictions of the body. “My initiative from the beginning,” Cesarine said, “was to launch a gallery focusing on women and art, to keep the conversation going, and get work out there, particularly around subjects that are particularly sinful.” 

“Self Reflection” will run at Untitled Space in New York until Oct. 8, 2016.  

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This article originally appeared on artnet News.

A painting discovered in a stately home by the Scottish National Trust and valued at £20 ($26) is now thought to be a Madonna by Renaissance master Raphael, potentially increasing its worth to a cool £20 million ($26 million).

The work, attributed to minor Renaissance artist Innocenzo Francucci da Imola, was initially spotted by Dr Bendor Grosvenor during the making of the BBC TV series “Britain’s Lost Masterpieces.”

Gorsvenor was visiting Haddo House to view some other works for the series when he spotted the Madonna composition which, although not in the best condition, caught his expert eye.

“I thought, crikey, it looks like a Raphael,” Grosvenor told The Guardian. “It was very dirty under old varnish, which goes yellow ... Being an anorak, I go round houses like this with binoculars and torches. If I hadn’t done that, I’d probably have walked past it.”

It later transpired that the painting was been purchased as a Raphael in the early 1800s and was exhibited, in 1841, alongside other paintings attributed to him. The work was later re-accredited to being by Francucci da Imola “after Raphael.”

In 1899, the painting ― which has been dated to between 1505 and 1510 ― was valued at £20 as a copy, about £2,000 ($2,600) in present-day prices.

After some research, Grosvenor saw that the under-drawing matched that of Raphael, as did the profile of the Madonna featured in the paintings. Despite all these indicators, the series’ production timeline made it impossible to verify the work, which would have required speaking to as many Raphael experts as possible. The work is still formally credited to Francucci da Imola on the Art UK database of public works in Britain.

“We had to turn this series round in very quick order,” Grosvenor told The Guardian. “We didn’t have time or resources to take it on a European tour of Raphael scholars,” he explained, adding that “all the evidence seems to point in the right direction ... It would be Scotland’s only publicly owned Raphael.”

In the program, Grosvenor speaks to Sir Nicholas Penny, former director of the National Gallery, who, although doesn’t confirm the work, drops some heavy hints. According to The Guardian he says: “I’m between probably and by. I just want a bit more time and courage.”

This episode of “Britain’s Lost Masterpieces” will premier on October 5 on BBC Four.

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Along with the standard pigments and paintbrushes, artist Hula, aka Sean Yoro, requires an unorthodox piece of equipment for his particular brand of mural making: a paddleboard.

The Hawaiian muralist, balanced atop the buoyant platform, depicts indigenous women from various sites across the world, whose homelands are often threatened by the effects of global warming. 

For his most recent project, titled “What If You Fly,” Hula travelled to Baffin Island, off the coast of Nunavut, Canada, to paint a portrait of local Inuit woman Jesse Mike, who lives there with her daughter.

In a short film chronicling the artist’s process, Mike explains her frustrating prior experiences working with filmmakers who reported on the dire circumstances plaguing her endangered landscape. “For most people, it’s about the polar bears, it’s not about the people,” she said. “Well, let’s make it about the people.” 

Hula and his team spent 14 hours searching for the perfect iceberg canvas, knowing all the while that the ice itself, and any image created atop it, would soon melt away into nothing. 

“It’s a little ambitious to do this larger-than-life ice mural in the Arctic, and somehow, at the same time, make a connection to the human culture,” climber and filmmaker Renan Ozturk said of the project. 

When Hula found his ideal slab of ice, he rendered a profile portrait of Jesse he snapped earlier on his camera. Working against the powers of time and Mother Nature, the artist aimed to finish as much of Jesse’s portrait as he could before the iceberg collapsed.

The massive image, Hula’s most remote and technically challenging piece yet, communicates a haunting reality ― that the consequences of climate change, first and foremost, affect people. 

See the entire journey, in a short film directed by Ozturk and Taylor Rees, below.

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Common is hailed for lyricizing his commitment to social justice, and his new album certainly isn’t straying from that script. The rapper sat down with The Huffington Post to give us some insight into his latest work “Black America Again.” 

The artist, actor and activist spoke with HuffPost’s Jacques Morel last week to talk about the album’s inspiration and the integral role unity plays in the progression of black communities.

The album’s title comes from the idea of a “new narrative” for black people, he said.

“We write our own story, black America again,” he said alluding to the title of the album which is scheduled to be released on Nov. 4. 

While watching footage of the L.A. riots during “Straight Outta Compton,” Common drew parallels between the plights of past and present black America. The video for the album’s first single “Black America Again” highlights the collective exasperation the black community feels as a result of the numerous incidents of police brutality.  

“I was looking at what’s been going on in our country,” he said. “And I was thinking ― with black people specifically ― and thinking how the history, our history has been that story of brutality of oppression and breaking up the black family. [There’s] really lack a of value for black life and that thought came to me.”

Common finds camaraderie crucial in times of healing; he illustrated the importance of connecting with one another by recalling the 2003 Northeast blackout. 

“One of the most sad things I felt, was I didn’t know who my neighbor was. This was the first time I went over and spoke to my neighbor,” he said.  

The rapper thinks that unity can start in the simplest of ways such as “knowing what your neighbor needs.” From there, community can develop.  

“When we form that bond and that unity and that relationship, when things are not going right, we still have that community...I don’t want us to be just judging our own and not embracing our community,” he emphasized. 

Watch the full conversation with Common below:  

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A pioneering, Maine-bred artist is being honored with a career-spanning exhibition in his native state.

“Unbound,” which opened Sept. 16 at the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine, showcases the work of Tim Rollins, who is best known for his artist collective, the Kids of Survival, or K.O.S. Born and raised in Pittsfield, Maine, Rollins moved to New York in the late 1970s, eventually becoming an art teacher in the Bronx.

In New York, Rollins was asked to create a curriculum that melded art with reading and writing skills for students who were designated as being academically or emotionally “at risk,” including many youth of color who were living close to, or below, the poverty line. Hence, the work of the K.O.S. takes elements of classic literature, with nods to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mark Twain and others, and “reinterprets” them in a modern, allegorical way, addressing issues of race, sexuality and class.

“I love the idea of education as a medium,” Rollins, who is openly gay, recalled in a museum podcast, which can be heard below. “We didn’t make art to be cute. We didn’t make art to win awards … we made art to survive.”

The exhibit coincides with the museum’s acquisition of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” a dazzling, 13-by-34 foot installation inspired by the Shakespeare comedy that will become a part of the permanent collection in Portland.

Museum officials see Rollins’ work, which can also be found at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and London’s Tate Gallery, as having the “spirit of radical inclusiveness” that speaks to audiences from all walks of life, including the LGBT community.   

“The sense of possibility and belonging absolutely reverberates through the story of K.O.S. as well as the art that they have made. This is a group of young people—mostly of color, mostly poor—who were told they simply didn’t belong, that art and culture were not for them, that they had limited prospects in American culture and society,” Jessica May, who is the Portland Museum of Art’s Curator of Contemporary and Modern Art, told The Huffington Post.

Ultimately, Rollins and the K.O.S. “made a family,” May added. 

“To me, that radical inclusiveness—which encompasses human relationships, a very broad and open notion of family, and also art and literature—that is fundamentally appealing to me as a lesbian, as well as a curator, an art historian, a mom, a friend, all the rest of it,” she said. 

“Unbound: Tim Rollins and K.O.S.” runs at the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine through Dec. 31. Head here for more information. 

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After enduring six miscarriages, an expectant mother celebrated her rainbow baby with a breathtaking maternity photo.

In August, Kevin Mahoney asked photographer JoAnn Marrero to take pictures of his wife, Jessica, who was pregnant with the couple’s second child. The Connecticut parents struggled with fertility issues after having their first child, a son named Corbin.

When they tried to have another baby, the mom suffered six miscarriages. After so much loss, this rainbow baby represents a glimmer of hope for the family.

When Kevin tapped JoAnn for his wife’s maternity shoot, the photographer knew she had to do something “extra special” for the family. She and Jessica emailed back and forth and ultimately decided to celebrate this happy time with a fun photo shoot.

Working with her mentor Mary Maloney, JoAnn organized an outdoor shoot that would incorporate a literal rainbow, formed with colored smoke bombs.

“It was quite the explosive surprise and really funny!” JoAnn told HuffPost. “One by one each smoke bomb was set (and not without some duds too), with each burst of color we watched this portrait coming to life.”

Admittedly, the photo shoot was also quite messy ― with lots of coughing, stained clothes and colorful residue in everyone’s hair and nostrils, the photographer added. 

But, she said, it was all worth it. “Through it all, Jess stood with composure and her pregnancy glow came shining through, along with a whole lot of laughter,” she recalled. “This was definitely her moment ― such a proud mother-to-be for the second time.”

JoAnn and Mary shared the epic smoke bomb photo on their Facebook pages, From Labor to Love and Pebbles and Polka Dots Photography. The positive response was so overwhelming that the popular Facebook page, Birth Without Fear, reposted the image as well.

JoAnn said she and Mary were “proud and honored” to work on this photo shoot for a “very deserving” family.

“It was both exciting and insane to see this lovely portrait go viral and not just for Mary and I, but for the family who had felt so many losses prior to this pregnancy,” she said. 

“The response has been overwhelming,” she added. “I’m so happy with the end result for numerous reasons, both personal and professional. Jess also happens to be my friend and neighbor, and I am so proud of her for never giving up hope and Corbin will finally get to be a big brother!”

The photographer said she hopes the photo brings “light, inspiration and hope” to others struggling through similar experiences. 

As for Jessica, she beautifully summed up her wishes in a photo caption she shared with JoAnn.

“Six babies lost to have the honor to carry this rainbow baby,” the mom wrote. “I hope my story helps someone else to know they are not alone, as the journey of loss and infertility is dark and lonely.”

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, and HuffPost Parents is committed to helping to end the silence around miscarriage, stillbirth, SIDs and other infant loss. If you’d like to share your story, email parents@huffingtonpost.com 

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Some people look at the dust bunnies in their home and see a mess.

Suzanne Proulx sees the makings of a masterpiece.

The Erie, Pennsylvania-based artist has made a name for herself by creating works of art using dust, dirt and lint. 

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These cats are livin’ large. 

Photographer Pete Thorne, who’s based in Toronto, recently released a variety of photos featuring some lovably plump felines as part of a series called “Fat Cats: Large And In Charge.”  

And we really cannot deal with their tubby little faces! 

Thorne has created a Kickstarter campaign to turn the series into a coffee table book. So far, donors have contributed more than $2,800 of the fundraiser’s $17,533 goal. 

Thorne explained that he felt that portly kitties deserve some lovin’ too. 

“I realized that there were all these chubby cats out there, and yet a lot of the images I saw online tended to be mocking or making fun of fat cats,” he told The Huffington Post in an email. “So I decided that I would try to photograph them in the most positive light.  

The series shows all types of cats, many of which were referred to Thorne by a vet, against vibrant backgrounds. Thorne, who shot the portraits over the course of a year and a half, mentioned that taking photos of fat cats isn’t as easy as you’d think. 

“Any cat owner (or photographer) knows its tough to photograph a cat. They are pretty much in charge of the situation,” he said. “They are going to do what they want. You would think that because they are heftier they would be slower. Nope.”

While the cats are cute in their own right, Thorne says he also hopes the photos will also encourage pet owners to keep their cats healthy and take them to the vet. In fact, several of the cat models are currently on diets themselves. 

We could also use this as an educational opportunity, encourage owners to talk to their vets, and get their cats on a diet, and encourage play and activity for weight loss.

“I am definitely not condoning poor dietary practice, nor am I going to shame the owners or mock the cats,” Thorne explained to HuffPost. “That being said we could also use this as an educational opportunity, encourage owners to talk to their vets, and get their cats on a diet, and encourage play and activity for weight loss. 

Indeed, it’s important for overweight cats to get on a healthier track. Being overweight could put felines at risk for diabetes, Erin Wilson, medical director of the ASPCA Adoption Center, told HuffPost. The extra pounds can put strain on their joints and also make it difficult for some cats to groom themselves. Wilson suggests keeping a veterinarian involved with the overweight cat’s weight loss to develop a proper plan. 

“The next best option is to decrease the amount fed at each meal very, very, slowly over several weeks,” she said. “Cats tend to take a long time to lose weight, too. A weight loss of 1-2 pounds over the course of a year is actually considered a great success!”

Though we want our furry friends to be healthy as possible, we’ll love these guys ― and basically all other felines ― no matter what size they are. 

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When Hillary Clinton’s campaign invited Drue Kataoka to attend the Democratic National Convention this past July, the artist wasn’t sure what to expect.

Based in Silicon Valley, Kataoka had recently begun distributing a poster titled “Now Is The Time,” a simple tribute to the fact that Clinton could become the first-ever woman president of the United States. Kataoka originally created the poster as a gift to Clinton volunteers in the Bay area; she handed them out to the individuals “working in the trenches” as canvassers or phone bank callers. Through word of mouth, Clinton’s campaign caught onto the image.

Fast forward to the DNC, where two seven-foot tall prints of Kataoka’s poster greeted Democrats as they waded through the convention arena. The image consists of an hourglass filled with historic female “firsts,” including the first American woman to earn a bachelor’s degree and the first woman police chief of a major city. The words “First Woman President of the United States of America 2017” sit near the top.

“Hundreds of people came by each day to take selfies,” Kataoka explained to The Huffington Post. “And it was amazing that many, many women, after interacting with the image, would pause, and say: ‘My mom was a first.’ ‘I was a first.’ Or, ‘My grandmother, you know, she was a first too.’”

One woman explained that her grandmother was the first postmistress in a small town called Liberal, Missouri. Another woman recalled how her great aunt became the first woman psychologist west of the Mississippi. Yet another admitted that she was on the cusp of a first ― her name is Tawana Cadien, and she is currently running for the 10th Congressional District of Texas. If she wins, she’ll be the first woman to claim that seat.

Kataoka sold every single one of her “Now Is The Time” posters and T-shirts at the DNC, returning home to California with a waitlist scribbled on a piece of scrap paper. She was overwhelmed by the ways women connected with her work ― a poster that celebrates Hillary Clinton and various other iconic figures without ever mentioning their names.

“When I returned to Silicon Valley, I wanted to find a way to capture all of these stories of firsts,” she added. “One of the original goals of the image was to make U.S. women’s history more visible, so I wanted to highlight historic firsts, everyday firsts and anywhere in between. To do that, I built an online app.”

The app allows women to add their own “first” to the poster, no matter how small, amounting to a personalized image they can download and share across social media. We checked in with Kataoka to learn more about her poster, the app and how Hillary Clinton herself has responded to the art.

First, can you tell me a little bit about your background as an artist?

I’m an artist based in Silicon Valley. My works merge art and technology for social impact. I work in a variety of disciplines: more traditional ones like mirror-polished steel sculpture and Japanese ink painting, often integrated with newer techniques such as virtual reality, brainwaves, time dilation and digital image processing. My work was featured at the first art exhibit in zero gravity at the International Space Station.

The “Now Is the Time” poster was initially given out to Hillary campaign volunteers in the Bay Area.  How did this come about?

Originally, I was printing out “Now Is The Time” posters and giving them away to Hillary campaign volunteers working in the trenches. I wanted to do something for the people who are tirelessly and quietly toiling (the majority of them women). They are phone-banking and canvassing door-to-door-to-door. They never stop. They’ve put their lives on hold to get out the vote, and to campaign for Hillary. I think “Now Is The Time” struck a chord and began to spread quickly through the grassroots, via word of mouth, within this passionate and interconnected group. Soon after, I began selling the prints and donating 100 percent of the proceeds to the campaign.

And how did the poster make its way to the DNC?

Tech leaders like Marc Benioff began tweeting about it. People like Jamie Lee Curtis saw it and she proclaimed “Now Is The Time” gave her goosebumps (I thought that was cool, given she is the best scream queen of all time). Soon people from outside of California were finding me on the internet, contacting me and asking me how they could order a poster. The campaign saw a “Now Is The Time” poster and invited me to bring the image to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. 

Has Hillary Clinton seen the poster? Has the poster been officially endorsed by her campaign?

This is not a project that originated from the campaign nor was endorsed by it.   That said, two people in her campaign told me that Hillary “loved” the empowering message. And on two different occasions, she signed “Now Is the Time” prints for me. Last week, I was honored to have “Now Is The Time” featured in an Evening of Art for Hillary, an official fundraiser event for the Hillary Victory Fund in NYC.

Design-wise, why did you choose the hourglass as the primary symbol on the poster?

I was driving through the forest near my home in Northern California and I came up with the idea for the hourglass. I was thinking about the urgency of now, juxtaposed against the vast sands of time. I thought about how women’s accomplishments in history have been like grains of sand ― numerous yet almost invisible. I then started to imagine accomplishments from the 1800s going through an hourglass, then more and more recent ones building up on top, ultimately leading to the present and future.   

That week, I began collecting U.S. women’s firsts and started placing them into the hourglass. In the image, our potential first woman president stands on the shoulders of so many women before her who were fearless dreamers, risk-takers, doers, change-makers. At the top is the first we are hoping to witness in January ― but this first is not inevitable. So the image is a call to action. And the image is open and incomplete ― that open space at the top of the hourglass represents the firsts that are yet to come. 

Why did you choose not to depict Hillary herself ― or even her name ― on the poster? 

Hillary’s name, or anybody else’s name, is not on the image. It is just achievements and dates. To me, this represents the fact that women’s accomplishments have been largely unnamed and invisible in our history. And also, it is a good test for anyone: How many of the historical women in the image can you name? 

Additionally, as the artist, I chose not to sign the image. I wanted to convey that this moment, potentially electing the first woman POTUS, is larger than ourselves and even larger than Hillary. Also I feel that Hillary’s campaign is less about ego and projecting a personality, and more about policy and a proven track record.

You’ve worked in the intersection of art and tech before, for example, with your work “Touch Our Future.” What are you hoping to achieve with the “Now is the Time” interactive website?

“Touch Our Future” is a tech artwork I built to deepen engagement around infant mortality. Anyone could give their hand trace through the app, which would then weave it into a digital tapestry of hands from women and their infants from developing countries, and people from around the world. The goal was to make the daunting issue of 3 million babies dying in the first 28 days of life less remote, and to evoke a more personal, emotional response to the dry and frightening statistics.

Here with “Now Is The Time,” I hope to build a collective narrative and highlight the amazing accomplishments of U.S. women. These amazing accomplishments, which made it possible to consider having a woman president, get totally lost in the “reality TV” tone and aggressive drumbeat of cable news. Not everybody who participates in “Now Is The Time” has to be a Hillary supporter, or even a Democrat. Interestingly, some have been Republicans or undecided voters.

In your opinion, do artists have a responsibility to engage with the political or social issues of our time?

I think that we all, as citizens and voters, should engage with the political and social issues of our time. I do not think that artists are any more, or any less, obligated to do so than anybody else. But it is true that, perhaps, artists today live in a bit of an ivory tower, compared to previous generations ― see Picasso, or the Expressionists, etc. For me, personally, social causes are an important part of my inspiration.

Were you at all inspired by Shepard Fairey’s work during the 2008 election?

I highly respect Shepard Fairey’s powerful work, but he was not directly part of my inspiration for this project. I’m inspired by the many historical and everyday firsts of American women. I’m also energized by the historic nature of this election and by the extraordinary women in the trenches. I’m incredibly inspired by the prospect of having our first woman president in January. I believe that there can never be gender equality without it, and so it is a human rights issue in our country.

Finally, can we expect to see anything else from you before November?

Many women and men have inspired me to create something for the inauguration. Remember to check out my site post-election.

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At this point, not much about the presidential election is funny. A potential Trump presidency sounds more heinous with every passing moment.

Two guys have managed to plant some outlandish humor along the campaign trail. They gave Ted Cruz an exorcism, appeared shirtless at a Hillary Clinton rally, called Donald Trump “boring,” heckled Marco Rubio during his concession speech and demanded to be paid as seat-fillers at a Jeb Bush assembly. The media have covered these events, and in June, “The Rachel Maddow Show” figured out the same two people were staging each interruption.

It turns out the whole ordeal was part of a mockumentary called “Undecided.” The Huffington Post is premiering the trailer ahead of the movie’s Oct. 18 release on iTunes and other VOD platforms. Featuring actual campaign footage, “Undecided” is, in director Julio DePietro’s words, an “expression of frustration.” It’s a satire about two undecided voters who band together in the midst of a disheartening democratic spectacle. 

“If nothing else, at least we got to fuck with Ted Cruz,” DePietro said in a statement provided to HuffPost. “And that has to count for something.”

Watch the trailer below.

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Roxane Gay, the author of several books including Bad Feminist, An Untamed State and the soon-to-be-released Difficult Women and Hunger, is a powerful force of feminism in the literary world. She also frequently contributes to outlets like The New York Times and The Nation, passionately tackling issues related to race and representation in America.

Earlier this year, Gay added another job title to her ever-impressive resume: comic book writer. As a result, she’s become the first black woman in the Marvel realm to do so.

“I’m the first black woman to write for Marvel,” Gay explains in the video above. “Which makes no sense. I didn’t know that when I signed on. And quite honestly, they didn’t either.”

Gay’s comic series is “World of Wakanda,” part of the “Black Panther” universe helmed by Between the World and Me author Ta-Nehisi Coates. Coates invited Gay to work on the “Black Panther” companion project with him and poet Yona Harvey, set to debut this November. According to Marvel, Alitha Martinez will be drawing the story, Afua Richardson will be providing the covers, and Harvey and Coates will be writing a “backup story” to accompany Gay’s work.

“World of Wakanda” will revolve around two women, Ayo and Aneka, who are members of the Dora Milaje, an elite all-women fighting force that serves as the bodyguards for the Royal family in Wakanda, a fictional African country, which is also the setting of “Black Panther.”

“I’m focusing on black women and the two lead characters are in a relationship,” Gay told HuffPost. “They’re queer women. That’s never been done before. So that’s definitely going to be a hallmark, of writing black queer women into the Marvel canon.”

Marvel has made several recent efforts to diversify its comic offerings. Earlier this year, the company announced that the new Iron Man will be a black, teenage girl genius. The company has also introduced superheroes of color like Miles Morales (Spider-Man), Lunella Lafayette (Moon Girl), and Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel).

“It’s so important to see a breadth of representation in comics,” Gay added in the video. “Representation matters. People want to be able to see themselves. And on the other side, we want to be able to tell our stories. Not even our stories, but stories about people who look like us and share common cultural experiences.

“We’re finally getting to a place as a culture where we can demand it. It’s just important, to show a range of different ways of living and moving through the world and the different kinds of bodies and different backgrounds and cultures. We’re not all the same, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The more we put difference in front of people, the less kinds of problems we’re going to have understanding one another.”

Watch the entire HuffPost Rise interview with Gay above.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misidentified Wakanda as a separate planet.

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If Christopher Walken’s disembodied head propped up on a concrete rod sounds like something out of your worst nightmare, you might want to steer clear of Astoria, Queens’ Socrates Sculpture Park for a while. Because it’s covered in them. 

For this haunting reverie, we have artist Bryan Zanisnik to thank. His recently installed “Monument to Walken” consists entirely of concrete busts of the famed actor, who was born and raised in Astoria himself. Never has the versatile villain looked so stone-faced.

Not so surprisingly, visitors have been uploading pictures of the wonderfully creepy works to social media since the sculptures were installed last week. The hashtag game (#morecowbell) is strong. 

In a display case nearby, a comic made by Zanisnik’s collaborator Eric Winkler adds a bit of context to the disembodied statues, chronicling Walken’s relationship to his native neighborhood. The comic also declares, quite officially, that “No Walken Picking” is permitted. 

Zanisinik’s installation is part of Socrates Sculpture Park’s ongoing Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition, which features the work of 15 emerging artists at various sites throughout the park. A map with specific details is available here. 

For those brave enough to dare take a Walken the park, we salute you. 

EAF16: Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition will be on display through March 12th, 2017 at Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens, N.Y.

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What if you rolled a joint with so much personal meaning that smoking it just felt wrong?

That’s how professional joint roller Tony Greenhand feels about his latest tokeable creation: A joint designed to look like Harambe the gorilla.

The 26-year-old Greenhand was recently commissioned to make the “doobie-us” Harambe tribute by Cannabend, a smoke shop/ dispensary in Bend, Oregon.

“There’s three ounces of pot in it. About $500 worth of Durban Poison,” he told HuffPost. 

Greenhand spent a week on the ganja gorilla, and even added a smokeable version of the 3-year-old child who slipped into Harambe’s cage at the Cincinnati Zoo.

The challenge, he said, was getting a message that’s as strong as the marijuana inside.

“I wanted Harambe to look innocent, as if he’s defending the child,” Greenhand said. 

Greenhand charges up to $10,000 for his elaborately designed joints, and they are usually happily smoked by his cannabis-loving customers.

But that won’t happen with Harambe.

“After I finished making it, there was so much symbolism connected with Harambe that I told Cannabend, ‘We shouldn’t smoke it,’” he said.

Instead, Greenhand’s gorilla joint will be put on display behind glass.

“It should last for at least five years without degrading,” he said.

Greenhand’s tribute is already starting to attract visitors to the weed shop and that pleases him.

“I think it’s good for people to see it in its natural habitat,” he said.

You can see Greenhand’s work here and also below.

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As Italian photographer Alessandro Penso captures images documenting the refugee crisis on the shores of Greek islands, in border towns and at train stations, he encounters people with fascinating, sometimes heartbreaking, stories. 

He once spotted an Eritrean child who had a clumsily drawn tattoo on his arm: It read, “One Day.”  

“If you leave Eritrea behind when you’re just 14 years old, you have the right to hope for a better life ahead,” Penso told HuffPost Italy. “That boy’s story encapsulates all the drama immigrants reaching Europe face: They’re looking for a mother, and find a stepmother instead. They’re looking for a warm embrace, and instead they find a windowless room from which they can’t even see the sun.”

“For that boy, ‘one day’ finally arrived, but it was nothing like he imagined,” he added.

That phrase inspired Penso’s most recent exhibition in Italy, which showcases his work documenting the perilous journey that people undertake to escape violence and persecution in their home countries. 

The crisis has drawn many photojournalists and photographers to the Mediterranean region and Europe, but Penso’s work has received particular acclaim. His photos were named Time magazine’s Pick for Story of the Year last year, and he has been awarded the Burn Emerging Photographer Fund, as well as the the Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund.

The desire to put a human face on the crisis keeps Penso going.

“Through my photographs, I’m trying to show people what the refugee crisis is really like,” he said. 

Penso’s latest exhibition, One Day, will run from Oct. 6 to Oct. 27 at the Officine Fotografiche in Rome.

Scroll down to see some of his photos.

This piece originally appeared on HuffPost Italy and has been translated into English. 

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The award-winning author Gloria Naylor, who published a number of well-regarded works of fiction including The Women of Brewster Place, has died, reports Ebony Magazine.

Ebony confirmed in a phone call with Naylor’s sister, Bernice Harrison, that the author died on Sept. 28 after she suffered a heart attack and could not be revived by medical professionals. 

The author of novels such as Linden Hills, Mama Day, and Bailey’s Cafe, Naylor was acclaimed for her psychologically acute and provocative fiction. She was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1985 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1988.

The Women of Brewster Place, Naylor’s best-known work, was adapted into a 1989 movie starring Oprah Winfrey. It also won the National Book Award for First Fiction in 1983, the year after its publication. In her acceptance speech, she attributed her love of books to her mother, who fostered a passion for reading despite being unable to frequent public libraries while growing up as a black woman in the South. “I wrote that book as a tribute to her and other black woman who, in spite of the very limited personal circumstances, somehow manage to hold a fierce belief in the limitless possibilities of the human spirit,” Naylor said. 

Her writing often depicted the complex, multifarious lives of black women and served as an inspiration for other gifted writers, especially other black women. Even before her death was confirmed by Ebony, Twitter was flooded with messages of homage and mourning from writers and readers who had been touched by Naylor’s work:

Born in New York in 1950, Naylor was the daughter of Roosevelt Naylor and Alberta McAlpin, who had been sharecroppers in Mississippi. As Naylor shared in her National Book Award acceptance speech, her parents moved out of the South in hopes that their children would not face the segregation that they had. 

Naylor earned her B.A. in English from Brooklyn College, and a master’s in African-American Studies from Yale. She later taught writing at a number of universities, including New York University and Cornell.

Naylor had been living and working for some time in the Virgin Islands, where she died. 

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The average American news reader knows something about international refugees. For example, they might know which presidential candidate wants us to increase refugee intake and which vehemently opposes welcoming more into the country. They’re also probably aware of the current Syrian refugee crisis, that a team of refugees competed at the 2016 Rio Olympics, and they have probably formed an opinion on what the United States should or shouldn’t do to help.

Seldom heard in the conversation surrounding refugee issues, however, are intimate descriptions of what life is like for a single person displaced from their home country due to persecution or conflict. It’s far too easy to think of “refugees” as a mass, as a series of numbers, statistics or policies.

How does a journalist find these personal stories? And how do the stories reach an audience? Sarah Glidden tackles these questions in a book of comics journalism that chronicles her 2010 trip to Turkey, Iraq and Syria, Rolling Blackouts. In it, she travels alongside a group of journalists and an Iraq War veteran to see how reporting works firsthand ― how sources are located, how stories unfold.

Along the way, Glidden meets with people who have had to leave their homes for various reasons. One couple left to avoid prison time for publishing things not approved by the Iranian government. Another girl, who left Iraq with her family after violence against Christians rose in her region, is shown waiting for hours for bimonthly food rations in Syria, at the time a place of refuge for Iraqis. 

The phrase “comics journalism” may baffle some. How do narrative drawings and reporting intersect? Can the time-consuming process of formatting, drawing, inking and coloring match the quick pace of news? 

Rolling Blackouts shows just how the genre can work. Because the refugee crisis is ongoing, hardly tied to one particular era in time, a slow and steady approach to understanding the fallout seems apt. A book-length work allows the nuances of a long-simmering issue to come through. 

“For my kind of comics journalism, I think that it’s good for kind of slowing stories down and really letting readers form a connection with the person who I’m talking to. Or, in the case of this book, who the reporters are talking to,” Glidden said in a phone conversation with The Huffington Post. 

And literally painting a picture for readers allows for immersion in the story. Geometric cityscapes and rolling landscapes are aspects lost when an experience is only conveyed in words. Glidden’s tableaux pack in the kind of intimacy and sensory information that is missing from more traditional forms of information sharing. “Maybe some people ― who might look over, or pass over, a book on meta-journalism and on refugee issues ― might take a second look at something that’s in comic form,” Glidden added.

An Iraqi Kurdish man named Sam Malkandi is a standout “character” in Glidden’s narrative. Malkandi had immigrated to the United States and established a comfortable life in Seattle, until a chance encounter at a mall inadvertently led to his deportation back to Iraq. The father had to leave his wife and children behind — he mentions that his daughter is graduating from the University of Washington — and now lives with his own elderly father. Despite those hardships, he shows up in Glidden’s work as affable and welcoming.

“I hope that someone learning about him through this comic will maybe not only get interested in his story and want to find out more, but also feel like they know someone from Iraqi Kurdistan now,” Glidden said, “that when they hear ‘Kurds’ or ‘Iraqi Kurdistan’ or ‘KRG’ in the news, they’ll connect it back to this man that they got to know.” 

Glidden makes sure to distinguish this work from her previous one, How to Understand Israel in 60 Days Or Less, a memoir. She began as a comics artist in this vein, she said, after being exposed to works like Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Joe Sacco’s Palestine. Glidden was also inspired after seeing James Kochalka’s American Elf series, which was “just about the quotidian details of his life, and that was something that seemed accessible.”

Following a trip to Israel for her first book, Glidden found herself thinking about a potential reported project. “I started really getting into the research aspects of it and trying to look at different sides of a political issue, and that’s when I started thinking like, OK, maybe I can do work that moves in that direction.” She was working on that book when she met the journalists featured in Rolling Blackouts. “I was working in comics, and at the same time talking to them about their experiences as journalists and getting more interested in finding out about how they work.” 

She’s still present in this second book, but more in a minor way. “I guess I’m coming from the school of journalism where you don’t really believe in objectivity,” Glidden said. “Part of the reason I like comics journalism is that, by drawing, you’re kind of showing with every single panel that it is subjective. Somebody not only witnessed all of this stuff, but somebody drew it. I hope that the medium of comics itself reinforces that idea, that, hey, remember, somebody is telling you this story. Somebody is choosing what’s important.”

When it’s put this way, the line between memoir and journalism becomes blurrier; it’s all about storytelling, in the end. 

The fact that Glidden’s book tells not only the story of this trip but also the nuts and bolts of how a story comes into being heightens its longevity and relevance. “Our lives aren’t narrative. Our lives are these very complex collections of moments, but when we’re remembering something or telling a story to someone else, we’re constructing a narrative out of our lives,” she said. “As a journalist, you’re listening to someone’s narrative and then constructing a new, different narrative out of that narrative.”

The group in Rolling Blackouts travels through the Middle East, eventually ending up in Damascus, Syria. There, the complications and lasting effects of the war are laid bare. In one scene, a contact tells the war veteran, Dan, “It’s a crime! You’ve done the biggest crime in the world.” A page later, the same man pats Dan’s back, reassuring him that it’s OK, that he understands what it’s like to be a soldier. There are tense, unflinching moments like these, and also lighthearted ones, when Sarah joins the other journalists at an impromptu dance party at an Iraqi artist couple’s house. As Glidden said, lives aren’t narrative. Instead of telling a single story with rising and falling action, Rolling Blackouts offers a glimpse into many lives affected by a major war, with highs and lows throughout. 

The book tackles heavy subjects: the U.S. invasion of Iraq and how we should help refugees from a conflict we’ve created. There are big questions at the heart of it ― questions asked by some of the individuals they meet that the journalists cannot answer. “I think we can focus now on, ‘This happened. And what are we going to do about it?’” Glidden said. “As Sarah [the journalist] says in the book, our generation is inheriting this tragic war that happened, and that is still ongoing. The fallout from that extends to not just Iraq but to Syria, and to Libya, and to all these other places.”

“Right now, we hear about Syrian refugees a lot, and we hear politicians saying ridiculous things like, ‘We don’t know who these people are,’ ‘They’re not vetted,’” said Glidden. “I know now, from talking to refugees themselves, or people who are working with refugees and NGOs and from the United Nations, that this is a huge distortion of the truth ... I think it’s important to know just how complicated it is to be a refugee and how rare resettlement is.”

Glidden’s final section, “Home,” offers an epilogue of sorts, showing what became of the articles researched while abroad, the cover story about Dan’s return to Iraq as a civilian, her own first forays into comics journalism. It’s a stark reminder that the problems presented in the bulk of the book haven’t ended with the last page; in some ways, they have grown and evolved. Even though she chronicles a trip taken nearly six years ago, Glidden’s work feels as it could fit in among 2016’s headlines, urgent and compelling.

Sarah Glidden will be on tour in the United States and Canada this fall. Rolling Blackouts is out now.

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On the heels of #NationalBoyfriendDay comes another lesser-known holiday we’re far more eager to celebrate. It’s World Ballet Day, a day when even the most flat-footed, ham-fisted hobgoblins, by some incomprehensible magic, can whip out a flawless grand jeté, no sweat. 

Actually, no. World Ballet Day is an international celebration of the dance form that’s literally graced our world since the 15th century. Now in its third year, “World Ballet Day Live” is a live broadcasted celebration of the holiest of dance days.

This year’s show, now streaming online, is a 20-hour performance featuring members of the world’s premiere ballet companies, including The Australian Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, The Royal Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, and San Francisco Ballet. 

Along with performances, the showcase will escort viewers on a brief tour through the life and work of a professional ballet dancer. Each company will provide rare access into the rituals and rehearsals that normally remain outside public view, from technique classes to getting dressed. 

Get to the livestream to start watching the dance madness, which has been going on since early Tuesday morning. Happy World Ballet Day!

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Warning: Spoilers ahead, obviously.

Paula Hawkins’ novel The Girl on the Train sold over 2 million copies in the first three months after it was published, racing past all manner of sales records. And that was before hype surrounding the film adaptation escalated, promising even more readers for the lauded domestic thriller.

So, it was fair for Tate Taylor, the director of the book’s on-screen adaptation, to assume that many moviegoers already knew what would happen in his film. Three women ― Rachel, Megan and Amy ― would tell their stories, all surrounding an unsolved murder. 

Rachel, the titular girl, will think she spots evidence of an affair between Megan and her husband, a couple she notices as she rides the train north of Manhattan each day. Confirming the dalliance could help her figure out who committed the crime, but she’ll question her own perception of reality, wondering whether she can stay sober long enough to reflect on what she thinks she’s witnessed.

Megan, who’s an unreliable narrator in a separate way altogether, will tangle up stories from her past while trying to seduce a therapist behind her husband’s back.

And Amy, the new wife of Rachel’s ex-husband, will fret over the safety of their child. These plot lines will converge in an explosive reveal, before things return to relative normalcy.

How, then, will viewers stay immersed in a film that belongs squarely to a genre that’s driven by suspense? Is it as simple as the pleasure of watching events you know will happen play out? Or do directors handling movie adaptations owe it to viewers to add something ― be it a highlighted moral takeaway, an altered ending, or a moody atmosphere?

In the case of Taylor’s vision of Hawkins’ book, a combination of all three kept the film fresh, even for those who might already know the story’s climactic ending. (I won’t be coy: it’s death by wine opener. A man is killed, with a wine opener.) 

Do directors handling movie adaptations owe it to viewers to add something – a highlighted moral takeaway, an altered ending, a moody atmosphere?

The Girl on the Train is a thriller, but it’s a thriller with a purpose. Like Gillian Flynn before her, Paula Hawkins laced a fast-paced page-turner with an extractable, political takeaway. Where Gone Girl used the domestic thriller template as an opportunity to explore the myth of the “Cool Girl,” The Girl on the Train kept readers believing it was a straight-up thriller until, at the end, it’s revealed that its heroine has been gaslighted by her ex-husband, who emotionally manipulates her so that she loses faith in her own perceptions. 

Because the twist comes so near the end, it wouldn’t be accurate to call “The Girl on the Train” a book ― or movie ― about gaslighting. But the story’s life beyond its pages and on-screen scenes, the real estate it occupies in think pieces and in the minds of readers, is devoted to this concept. Why do women enjoy thrillers and true crime? Because, the book’s message implies, they so accurately mirror women’s own abusive tribulations: getting catcalled, getting gaslighted.

The gaslighting twist in the movie is revealed through a character who wasn’t in the book; a woman, played by Lisa Kudrow, who knows Rachel’s ex-husband through work. Her ex told Rachel that he lost his job because of her own behavior at a work party; but, Rachel learns through this woman, he was actually axed for sleeping around.

The tweak is fodder for the book-versus-movie comparisons that are so often central to how we discuss adaptations, and it’s a nice way to keep viewers on their toes. Until the credits roll, we wonder what else could’ve been changed.

But those who enjoyed the book for its message may be irked by the change. The character’s inclusion feels a little convenient, and Rachel’s miraculous return to sanity after the revelation is unrealistic. Gaslighting can result in longstanding psychological damage ― it’s not a witchy spell that needs only to be reversed by the uttering of a few magic words.

Regardless of how the theme was handled in the film, its inclusion is doing a service if it gets viewers thinking, and talking, about this form of emotional abuse.

And, Rachel’s distress is handled in another, subtler way that could resonate with viewers. The film is comprised almost entirely of close-up shots of Emily Blunt’s face, the back of her head, the various rooms she occupies from her shaky point of view. It’s not “Cloverfield”-level rattling ― that’d be awfully distracting for a story that’s already complicated by not one but two unreliable narrators. But the claustrophobic framing creates the feeling that this experience ― Rachel’s confusion ― is hard to escape.

That said, the film can feel airless. There aren’t many opportunities for levity, for humor to seep in and, at least briefly, lighten the mood. This tension makes some unfunny moments ― like when Rachel is caught coddling Amy’s baby outside her newly occupied old home ― very funny. 

As a viewer, this is unsettling; gaslighting, as we learn, is no laughing matter. But some scenes are so surreal and symbolic (Rachel defeats her abuser with the literal tool that enables her unhappiness) that they’re best saved for the page.

Still, only when we watch a story can we immerse our senses so fully in an eerie mood, an experience meant to manipulate our perceptions.

Follow Maddie Crum on Twitter: @maddiecrum

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