For decades, Janet Werner has transformed found photographs into fictional women whose identities remain deliberately open. In conversation, she reflects on painting, collage, subjectivity, art history, teaching, and the necessity of simply continuing to work.
The first time I saw Janet’s paintings in person, I found myself doing something I knew I probably shouldn’t: trying to figure out who the women were.… read more.
As a fan of Hacks on HBO, I felt that its final season lived up to the high expectations that other Hacks fans and I had set for the series finale. As some like to put it, the series “landed the plane” with its fifth and final season. Consistent with all prior seasons, Jean Smart’s role as Deborah Vance in Hacks is hilarious while emphasizing the series’ emotional integrity.… read more.
Once best known for being Mexican artist Diego Rivera’s wife, Frida Kahlo has become a superstar in the past few decades. Her image can be found everywhere. She’s on socks, purses, jewelry, and even in film. Similar to names such as Madonna, Picasso, and Beyoncé, many recognize the world-renowned artist from just her first name: Frida.… read more.
Graduating from NYU Tisch in Manhattan’s famous Radio City Music Hall already felt slightly unreal. The scale of the space, the ceremonial atmosphere, the transition it represented—it created the strange sensation of standing both inside your own life and outside of it at the same time. But what made this year’s Tisch Salute especially memorable was hearing Laura Dern speak to the Class of 2026 not simply as a celebrity guest, but as an artist reflecting honestly on uncertainty, intuition, and creative risk.… read more.
The film Leonora in the Morning Light (2025), based on Mexican novelist Elena Poniatowska’s novel Leonora, tells the story of British-born painter Leonora Carrington who was involved in the Surrealists in the 1930s. Played by Olivia Vinall, the film focuses largely on Leonora’s inner demons, notably her descent into madness that resulted in electro-shock treatments in Spain and her unsaid PTSD years later in Mexico.… read more.
Playwright and director Aleshea Harris demonstrates what it means to authentically showcase Black women in media in Is God Is. The genre-bending Southern Gothic thriller, Is God Is, spotlights female rage in the new 2026 screen adaptation. The story was first performed in 2018 as an award-winning Off-Broadway play, centering Black female rage as the key emotion that drives the narrative.… read more.
The revival of the Broadway play Every Brilliant Thing, starring multi-talented actress Tracee Ellis Ross may have ended, but since then, Tracee has been committed to dispelling the stigma behind mental health and depression, encouraging audiences to engage in conversation about the effects of social disorders. … read more.
The energy in the theatre was palpable after IFC’s screening of Mary Harron’s 1996 feature film debut I Shot Andy Warhol. Indie darling, Lili Taylor, portrays the infamous radical feminist, Valerie Solanas, author of the SCUM Manifesto and attempted assassin of Andy Warhol. The irreverent drama charts Valerie’s life and her relationship with Warhol.… read more.
Hungry Women written by Melissa Maney and directed by Daniella Caggiano (now playing at Manhattan’s SoHo Playhouse) moves across time in three acts to tell a complicated story of vengeance, reconstruction, and attempts at justice.
The show begins with three women seated around a table, oscillating between polite conversation and awkward slurps of tea.… read more.
There is an invisible side to advocating for and achieving change. Behind every shiny accomplishment is the often-overlooked hours of work and sacrifice by the activists involved. This collective exhaustion builds over time slowly becoming a fixture of everyday life. Lindsay Adams’s commissioned piece for the Obama Presidential Center, The Weary Blues, encapsulates both the hope and emotional weight that is born when progress is made.… read more.
Fifty years ago today, the groundbreaking and beloved Peppermint Patty made her first appearance in Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strips. To celebrate her “birthday,” I’m taking a look back at the significance of her character to the cartoon and to the world at large—and she may be more significant than you think.… read more.
The summer vibes permeate upstate New York. The United States barrels into the throes of war. Women fight for reproductive rights and the power to forge their own paths. I’m not talking about the current day but rather the summer of 1969 in the Catskills, the time and place where the newest musical at Signature Theatre, A Walk on the Moon lays its scene.… read more.
Last November, FF2 was proud to help spread the word about a new movement rallying America’s artists: Fall of Freedom (FOF).
FOF is a grassroots campaign comprised of world-renowned artists and everyday citizens working together towards a common goal: the defense of democracy. Like many of us, the organization has had enough of the present administration’s censorship and intimidation.… read more.
In July, Americans across the nation celebrated the 250th anniversary in which the colonies gained their independence from Britain. The great tale of the Revolution has been told and retold for 25 decades; the echoes of sacrifices for freedom have remained omnipresent in America’s culture. Children are taught from a young age that the founding fathers fought against tyranny and for basic unalienable rights for American citizens to have life, liberty, and happiness.… read more.
As we’ve just celebrated America’s 250th birthday and, no doubt, are looking at issues daily that affect how we want to live, it’s probably the perfect time to contemplate freedom. What does being free mean to you as an individual and what would you be willing to do to protect and expand it?
The Obama Presidential Center opened on June 19th (aka Juneteenth) 2026.… read more.
On August 9th, the Suffs suffragists doned their sashes for the last time at the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth (TX) as they close the Suffs The Musical North American tour. The beloved musical follows the story of the women’s rights activist, Alice Paul, as she navigates a decades-long struggle for the passing of the 19th Amendment.… read more.
Today is Emily Brontë’s 208th birthday. To celebrate, I am revisiting Emerald Fennell’s film adaptation of Emily’s iconic novel Wuthering Heights (released earlier this year). I am someone who loves this novel, and someone with very strong opinions about book-to-screen adaptations, so I am taking this as an opportunity not only to celebrate Emily’s brilliance, but also to analyze whether Emerald’s adaptation did it justice. … read more.
When I first talked to muralists Sam Kirk and Dorian Sylvain about their collaboration for Home Court — one of the Obama Presidential Center’s most visible commissions — I tossed out a quick quip, laughing: “Oh, you’re twins by different mothers.”
Both artists have strong south side of Chicago roots.… read more.
Reading Lolita in Tehran (a 2024 film just now opening wide in the USA) brings the beloved 2003 memoir by Azar Nafisi to life. In a severely repressed and religiously dictated Iran, Azar (a literature professor once ensconced at the University of Tehran) gathers a group of seven women students in her home to discuss banned books.… read more.
One of my favorite quotes is Annie Dillard’s “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” I felt the power of these simple words so strongly when I visited Tyanna Buie’s print series at Chicago’s new Obama Presidential Center (OPC). Tyanna’s carefully arranged background images command their own attention as they bring out the key messages of three prints she has dropped into the space of a room in the Forum building.… read more.
