Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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

Unveiling “Austin”

Lives in Limbo

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

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

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

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

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

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

Wall Flowers

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

Dario Robleto artist profile

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

The Catastrophe Guru

The Image in the 21st Century

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

Robert Irwin in Marfa

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

No Gogh!

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

The Great Mellowing

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

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

What Will Become of the Library?

The Clothes that Make the Man

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

The Last Book Sale

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

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

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

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

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Giant Steps

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?