Dirtbag
The Dirtbag Challenge is an annual San Francisco underground chopper building tradition created by Poll Brown. There are very simple rules: build for 30 days, spend under $1000, ride 130 miles around the Bay Area, and no Harleys.* At the end of the ride, there’s a big party with really loud music, really smoky burnouts, and […]
Aerostich Cover Boy and Girl
Al and Zina hold hands on a ride across the Oakland Bay Bridge. To capture this Valentine’s Day shot they had to ask their friend, physicist and excellent motorsports photographer, Bob Stokstad, to follow behind in Al’s Camaro with his camera and with Paul Bostwick at the steering wheel. Both Al and Zina are wearing […]
Sitka Fine Arts Camp
In the summer of 2013, Zina was invited to teach to classes on science illustration to the middle school group at Sitka Fine Arts Camp. It was quite an honor and an unforgettable experience. Children arrive from all over Alaska and are eager to soak up knowledge like a sponge. Summer days are full of […]
A Century of Medical Illustration
at Johns Hopkins, 1911–2011 The Johns Hopkins Department of Art as Applied to Medicine was founded by Max Brödel at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1911. A century later the medical illustration community came together to celebrate an important legacy not just for Hopkins but for all medical art programs and all contemporary […]
Nature Shapes History
In the decade of Zina’s relationship with National Science Foundation, this press release stuck with her the most: a story about reading the rings of a stalagmite in China, and those rings being a signature of more or less precipitation, and also matching the rise and fall of dynasties and civilizations. November 6, 2008 Chinese […]
Mongolian Monk vs Medical Illustrator
In 2003, Zina had the chance to interview Lama Purevbat, an influential Mongolian monk who had a vision to restore Buddhist literacy in Mongolia including restoring the practice of sacred arts. The discipline of painting theological realities or abstractions is surprisingly not that far from painting scientific realities or abstractions.
Three Person Show in Mongolia
2002-2003 found Zina and Al in Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia on a Luce Scholarship. They were placed with a United Nations Development Program, the Eastern Steppe Biodiversity Project. They made friends and contacts in the Botanical Institute, the printing business and the vibrant Mongolian fine arts scene. They were lucky that their friend and famous artist, […]