Johns Hopkins Magazine
Johns Hopkins Magazine Current Issue Past Issues Search Get In Touch
   
N O V E M B E R    2 0 0 5    I S S U E
Contributors
 
From nerd to cool in just over a decade
Bill Evitts, A&S '64, '71 (PhD), grew up in Northern Virginia, but he regards Baltimore as "the mothership." And why not? Evitts, author of
"Ruminations," has been a Johns Hopkins undergraduate and graduate student, the parent of a Hopkins student, and the university's former director of alumni relations. After a decade of living in Buffalo, New York, he has now returned to Baltimore and is a Hopkins neighbor — and he's amazed at the change in the area since he's been gone. "When I first came to Hopkins, it was earnest and decidedly unfashionable," he says. "There were a lot of engineers with slide rules on their belts. Now it's actually cool." A historian, Evitts is the author of three books and is a contributing editor to Baltimore's Urbanite magazine.


Out of this world
Dan Durda is a planetary scientist at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. He's also a space artist. Durda, whose illustration of Pluto graces our cover, says art and science really aren't as different as people may think. "To me, they're both very creative," he says. Durda, who started painting in 1995 and is a fellow of the International Association of Astronomical Artists, says that while some of his paintings are pure "space fantasy," many illustrate his fellow scientists' findings. Durda's artwork has been displayed in several galleries and exhibitions and has appeared in Sky & Telescope, Astronomy, The Planetary Report, Final Frontier, and in the book Everybody's Comet.


Inspired by throwaways
David Plunkert likes rusty metal. And ancient magazines, old photographs, and crumbling catalogs. These objects litter his downtown Baltimore studio and serve as inspiration to the conceptual illustrator, who draws on people and machines as a recurring theme in his work. Plunkert's illustration for
"The Other Side of Civility" shows a man having his buttons pushed. What pushes Plunkert's buttons? "If a client supplies me with an idea and I sketch it and they don't like it," he says, laughing. "It's a very rare instance." Plunkert's work has appeared in such magazines as The New Yorker, Newsweek, and Rolling Stone. — Maria Blackburn



Illustrator William L. Brown (Wholly Hopkins: "Connections Key to Success of Military Kids") can be reached through his Web site, www.wmlbrown.com.
Photographer Mike Ciesielski ("Comforts of Home") is based in Baltimore. Call him at 410-253-8274.
Photographer John Davis ("Mission: Pluto") is based in Baltimore. Contact him by calling 410-241-2767.
P. M. Forni ("The Other Side of Civility") is a professor in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences' Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, and a co-founder of the Johns Hopkins Civility Project. Visit his Web site at www.jhu.edu/civility.
Will Kirk '99 ("The Big Picture"; "Ruminations"; Wholly Hopkins: "The Supremes," "No Time Like Now for College," and "Clues to Ancestral Appetites"; "Your Other Life") is a photographer for Homewood Photographic Services. E-mail him at photokirk@aol.com.
Howard Matthew Korn ("The Big Questions") is a Baltimore-based photographer. Contact him through his Web site, www.hmkorn.com.
Illustrator Michael Morgenstern (Essay: "Out of Tune") is based in New Jersey. His Web site is www.mmorgenstern.com. Call him at 609-823-2420 or e-mail him at mmorgenstern@earthlink.net.
Baltimore-based illustrator Dave Plunkert ("The Other Side of Civility") is art director, designer, and marketing director for Spur Design. E-mail him at info@spurdesign.com.
Writer Greg Rienzi (Wholly Hopkins: "Virtual Rx for Sick Children") is a freelance writer and staff member of the Johns Hopkins Gazette. E-mail him at glr@jhu.edu.
Angela Paik Schaeffer (Wholly Hopkins: "Task Force Finds Arts 'Orphans at Homewood'" and "A Novel Approach to Free Verse") is writer/editor of the Krieger School's Arts and Sciences Magazine. She can be reached at aps@jhu.edu or 410-516-7702.
Illustrator Naomi Shea ("Lessons from the Womb") is based in Northampton, Massachusetts. Contact her at 413-584-6867 or naomi@naomishea.com.
Photographer Keith Weller ("Lessons from the Womb") is based in Columbia, Maryland. He can be reached via e-mail at weller@erols.com.

Return to November 2005 Table of Contents

  The Johns Hopkins Magazine | 901 S. Bond St. | Suite 540 | Baltimore, MD 21231
Phone 443-287-9900 | Fax 443-287-9898 | E-mail jhmagazine@jhu.edu