Jenna Schnuer

American Way: Mission ImprobableOctober 15, 2010

Can artist Jason Polan draw every person in NYC? Maybe not, but that won't stop him from trying.

No piece of paper had ever looked so blank. Or so threatening. But the only way to get a Taco Bell Drawing Club membership card--and you want a Taco Bell Drawing Club membership card--is to grab the pen being offered and start drawing a line on the blank before you.

It doesn't matter if the line wobbles, weaves and is the start of something horrific. With that first line, artist Jason Polan starts filling your name in on that card. You're part of his world.

And it's a good place to be.

Read the profile on the American Way site.

National Geographic Traveler's Intelligent Travel Blog: The Atlas of Remote IslandsOctober 6, 2010

The first five times (or so) that I paged through the Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Never Set Foot On and Never Will, I fell deeply in love with the book. But I also didn't see it for what it really is. The problem wasn't that of the early stages of romance between people: I wasn't blinded to the book's faults but, instead, I underestimated the extent of its charms. Though the elegantly-lettered first words of the preface caught my eye, "Paradise is an island. So is hell," I skipped over the text and went straight to the maps.

Read the piece.

National Geographic Traveler's Intelligent Travel Blog: Make Your Own FestivalSeptember 28, 2010

 I couldn't tell exactly what the noise was or where it was coming from: There was the ping ping ping of xylophones, a beating drum, and the shaking rattling noises of...something. Pursing the sounds across the grounds of the New York Hall of Science, I expected to find a small band of people using a clearing as a practice space. Instead I found a guy in a plaid shirt standing behind a folding table loaded with small player-pianoesque musical instruments (aka, Nick Yulman and his Bone Conductor Mechanical Orchestra).

My brain-swirling day at World Maker Faire NY was officially underway.

Read the piece.

Continental: Latin American LeaningsApril 1, 2010

Gilbert Vicario wanted to be a painter. He even went to art school. But there was one little problem. As he explains it: "I didn't know how to paint to save my life." 

Luckily, the visual arts program at the University of California, San Diego, where Vicario earned his bachelor's degree, focused more on concept than on craft. "I realized the training I got in that program was similar to what was necessary to become a curator," says Vicario, who since August 2009 has held that very position at the Des Moines Art Center.

Read the profile.

National Geographic Traveler's Intelligent Travel: Mapmaker, Mapmaker, Draw Me My LifeMarch 8, 2010

 Twenty years ago, when Connie Brown decided to become an art mapmaker (sans formal cartographic training), she didn't have an inkling of how difficult it would be to put "places on a two-dimensional plane and deliver clarity without chaos. Making it beautiful is the easiest part." Despite her "profound ignorance," Brown's maps are some of the most interesting--and beautiful--I've ever come across. They blend art, science, and storytelling.

Read the full story.

American Way: Guesswork-Free GiftingDecember 15, 2009

Does it seem as though your loved one owns every CD and DVD known to man? Follow our easy-to-use guide to find the perfect present for the entertainment buff in your life.

Get in the flow on the American Way site.

World Hum's Flyover America: Photographers Focus on the 50 StatesMarch 10, 2009

The Works Progress Administration did it. Musician Sufjan Stevens has done a bit of it. Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey got a whole bunch of people to do it. And, um, [my co-writer] Sophia [Dembling] and I are deep into our own version of it.

The it in question? Exploring, one by one, what makes each of the 50 states unique—and looking for the threads that tie them together. Now it’s time to add another to the list: The 50 States Project. Every other month, 50 photos—one from each state—will be posted on the site. Flyover America checked in with Stuart Pilkington, the U.K.-based (we’ll get to that) creator and curator of the project to find out what it’s all about.

Read the interview.

American Way: Child's PlayMarch 15, 2008

The iguanas showed him the way.

After creating "a lot of bad art," sculptor Herb Williams was worried. "I wasn't making anything worthwhile," he says. Then, one night in 2001, the Nashville-based artist had a dream. "The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art contacted me and said, 'We'd love to give you a retrospective show.' I said, 'Great, what is it that I do?' [The dream] kind of fast-forwarded to me going to my own show, and there were thousands, if not millions, of iguanas, all about the same scale, making their way around the museum. Each one was made out of a different material. Stone. Steel. Bronze. Then it started getting a little obscure. Cigarette butts and matchsticks and paper clips … and finally crayons." At that point, says Williams, "I woke right up."

Read the piece on the American Way site.

American Way: Fantastic PlasticApril 1, 2007

When it comes to photography, the focus tends to be on small and digital. But not everybody is mesmerized by megapixels. One of the latest trends is to use plastic cameras, also known as toy cameras, which encourage users to just play -- often with spectacular results.

American Way: Docs That RockSeptember 1, 2006

Summer’s almost over, and with it, the blockbuster movie season. But that doesn’t mean an end to great film viewing. While an empty calorie or two in film form isn’t a bad thing, man cannot exist on Raisinets alone. And, over the last few years, box-office draws of a meatier variety, documentaries, have made it clear that many a moviegoer wants a little something more out of their popcorn time.

We asked experts to offer recommendations of titles you should pop into your DVD player. “Part of the fun of it,” says Michael Renov, professor of critical studies and associate dean of academic affairs for the School of Cinema-Television at the University of Southern California, “is discovering all these different voices and these different approaches to telling stories that are based on people and events in the real world.”

Read the piece on the American Way website.