Arts + Sciences

During art school at the University of Hartford in the early 2000s, painter Graham Franciose intended to become a children’s book artist. This fact should serve as more than just a bullet point for his resume; indeed, it should form the context through which his artwork is viewed. Whimsical, with splashes of bright colors and elements of surrealism, his paintings suggest stories, even if those stories remain open to interpretation. It’s easy to imagine a child-height bookcase full of titles hinted by the subject of his pieces: The Robin Who Spoke in Rainbows, The Tree That Glowed From Within, The Man Who Wore a Butte for a Hat.

“A lot of the stuff I do, it harkens back to before we knew how things worked, like, wondering why things were the way they were when there was still a kind of magic and wonder to the world,” he said.

Franciose isn’t a kids’ book illustrator, not yet, but he has plenty of time—and a huge body of work to draw on. Born and raised in rural Massachusetts, as a grom he ran wild and free in the forests of eastern hardwoods before a decade-long stint in Austin (not enough nature) and then putting down roots in Seattle (good trees, lots of trees). In addition to his large-scale canvases, he starts most days creating small “morning coffee paintings,” of which there are more than seven hundred.

“Before I’m fully awake, I make coffee, I sit down, and I turn on the time lapse on my phone, which prevents me from getting distracted and scrolling. Having the time lapse creates this sense of urgency to make work and not second-guess myself, not overthink things, just let it happen. It’s a very meditative and therapeutic practice of letting whatever’s inside of me out.”

Letting what’s inside out is a key theme in Franciose’s work. Golden-yellow light seeps from the stump of a logged tree. Flowers sprout from the chests of rabbits and humans and the mouths of tigers and alligators. A cactus grows from the sternum of a supine, barefooted man, its petals casting triangles of light beams.

“I try to instill a little bit of hope and lightness, and one of the things that comes up a lot in my work is the cycle of life. A piece might have a downed tree, but then a character sitting on it has a flower coming out of their heart. Moving to Seattle and going out to the rainforest a lot, I saw the cycle of life in a very obvious way with nurse logs, the fallen logs supplying the nutrients to the next generation of growth. It’s really profound to see that, the idea that energy is just recycled.”

If you want magical travel experiences, serendipity, and the kind of stories that you’ll tell forever, get out of the car. Kick your itinerary to the curb. Take a cue from photographer Jody MacDonald, who’s spent the last few years traversing the Asian subcontinent on a Royal Enfield Himalayan 411cc. Whether on two wheels or two feet, the slower, less predictable road has always been her way.

“I like just going with the flow when I’m on the motorcycle,” she says. “I end up meeting people, so many people. Someone will say, ‘You have to check this out,’ and I do. And then all this stuff happens to me in the process.” Like in 2024, when she got a flat tire in the Himalayas with no phone reception, no backup, and no way to get help, until a monk in a beat-up truck appeared out of nowhere and took her on an eight-hour drive to the nearest town. “Stuff like that happens to me all the time. And I’m like, ‘This is great. This is the good stuff.’”

The “good stuff” has included riding seven hundred kilometers across the Sahara atop the Mauritania Railway, the world’s longest cargo train and one of the most dangerous routes. She’s spent twenty years paragliding in various locations around the world (including getting stuck on an uninhabited island while flying over Mozambique’s Bazaruto Archipelago), flown in a helicopter doing backward 360s, spent a decade sailing a catamaran around the world running remote kiteboarding expeditions, and photographed everything from saltwater-swimming elephants in the Andaman Islands to shepherds in war-torn South Sudan.

Over the last two decades, MacDonald has adeptly balanced the realms between action sports and photojournalism narrative reporting. Born in Canada, she spent most of her youth in Saudi Arabia, where her father worked for a Canadian telecommunications company. One of the perks was paid vacations. “My parents had never traveled anywhere, so every school break and holiday we went somewhere they had never been, which was everywhere. By the time I left at sixteen, I was fortunate enough to see a big part of the world. And I think that childhood really instilled in me this love of traveling to exotic places and adventure. I always tell people that’s where I started dreaming about becoming Indiana Jones, traveling to these far-off lands and having these great adventures.”

In the summer of 2025, a spat between Canada and India stalled her return to the Asian subcontinent to collect her motorcycle from storage. If and when geopolitical tensions subside, she’ll dive into her newest venture, hosting a TV series she describes as part Anthony Bourdain, part Seinfeld. She’ll be traveling by motorbike, chasing and documenting stories of resilience and hope, following her curiosity while savoring the wild unpredictability and letting whatever happens to happen.