The dot-com invasion -- call them twerps with 'tude -- is destroying everything that made San Francisco weird and wonderful.

Young men once fretted over sculpting the future, not whether they were going to get a sweaty power-handshake. What happened?

In theory, swearing off male attention is easy, but ignoring a flirtatious smile is almost impossible.

Ally Sheedy talks about the hard road to "high art."

Sound Salvation is a biweekly music column by Sarah Vowell. Beck puts his collages onto canvas alongside those of his late grandfather, Fluxus artist Al Hansen

The artist is the hero in these sensuous children's books that will inspire a passion for painting and provide insight into some secrets of artmaking. In her monthly children's book column, Polly Shulman reviews 'Yellow and You,' by Candace Whitman; 'Chuck Close Up Close,' by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan; 'Little Girl In a Red Dress With Cat and Dog,' by Nicholas B.A. Nicholson, illustrated by Cynthia Von Buhler; 'The Artist's Friends,' by Allison Barrows; and 'Linnea in Monet's Garden,' by Christina Björk , illustrated by Lena Anderson

Cintra Wilson endures the agonizing company of her fellow artists at a weekend retreat at Vassar.

Jesse Helms thinks artists must be socially responsible. So do many of the shocking artists he reviles. They're all wrong.

Photojournalist Ed Kashi captures the defiance of the West Bank's Jewish settlers