Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

The Clothes that Make the Man

Luz Maria Sanchez: Narco Violence, as Seen by a Journalist-Turned-Artist

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

What Will Become of the Library?

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Has a San Antonio Inventor Solved a Problem of Small-scale Wind Power?

Giant Steps

EAST Austin Is Over. What’s Next for an Art Scene That’s Losing Its Nucleus?

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

The ‘Moby Dick’ of Texas Football Novels Is Hard-hitting as Ever

Brutally Suppressed in Her Lifetime, Gertrude Beasley Is Finally on Our Bookshelves

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Wall Flowers

No Gogh!

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Houston Photo Exhibit Documents First Markers of Modern U.S.-Mexico Border

“Trapped” in the Limelight

The People’s Champion (Vincent Valdez’s ‘Dream Baby Dream’)

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Dario Robleto artist profile

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Unveiling “Austin”

The Image in the 21st Century

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

While We Were Sleeping: The Feds Say a Price-fixing Scheme Costs Texas Patients Tens of Millions

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

The Great Mellowing

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

No Sign of Trump’s “Millions” of Illegal Voters in Texas

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Did Texas Blackouts Reveal Austin’s New Real-Estate Hot Spots?

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Sedrick Huckaby Looks His Subjects in the Eye, from Dreamers to an Ex-President

The Psychedelic State of South Texas (Fernando A. Flores)

Lives in Limbo

The Catastrophe Guru

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

The Last Book Sale

Welcome to Texas, Elon

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Houston’s National Women’s Conference, 40 Years Later

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation