Wanxin Zhang is a ceramist of powerful intent and superb execution. He moved to the Bay area from China in 1992, and recently showed work at the Peninsula Museum of Art in Burlingame. Zhang's sculptures reference historical figures in a contemporary context. These life-sized figures are imbued with passion and angst. It is well-nigh impossible to feel neutral when confronted with them.

Also on view at the Peninsula Museum are the multimedia works of Shan Shan Sheng, including a model of her glass construction at the 53rd Venice Biennale in Italy in 2009. Sheng seems to move effortlessly from Venetian glass, to impassioned painting, to public exhibitions. Be sure to view the Open Wall project video as you meander through her website.

"Magic Carpet" is the title of Miguel Chevalier's kaleidoscopic projections onto the walls and floors of ancient structures. These pulsating displays are being shown in foundations, museums, churches and tunnels, as the field of electronic arts spreads its wings. After exploring here, you might want to surf over to Designboom and k11 for further examples of his hypnotic work.

The Lisa Harris Gallery in Seattle features a number of talented artists. Amont my favorites are Christine Sharp's blocked color landscapes; Thomas Wood's evocative paintings; and Karen Kosoglad's heavily outlined acrylic figure paintings. I'm sure you will find others that you admire also.

Iris Van Herpen has taken fashion to a new level, as shown at the Design Museum Holon. Be certain to scroll down the page to view her elegant futuristic designs at close hand. This is an artist who combines taste, imagination, and exquisite craftsmanship.

Jeffrey Carlson has writte a fine article for Fine Art Connoisseur on a Renaissance artist who was a contemporary of Leonardo and Botticelli. Piero di Cosimo has perhaps not received the admiration that he deserves. An exhibit of 44 of his paintings is currently on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. From there it will travel to the Uffizi in Italy.

Kate Clark is a sculptor who lives in Brooklyn, New York. Her eerie and dramatic combinations of animal bodes and human attributes are composed of hide, clay, rubber, foam, thread and pins, producing an altogether startling effect.

"Belle Haleine", or The Scent of Art, is the provocative title of an exhibition at the Museum Tinguely in Basel. All of the artists use the theme of odor/fragrance/smell as the basis for their works, and some appear to have succeeded brilliantly. The works selected were created during the last twenty years, and focus on the unacknowledged importance of the nose in contemporary society.

Known as the Affichistes, a group of artists in the 1950's worked in the realm of panel painting and posters. Using cast-off materials from the streets of Rome and Paris, they presented tattered, overlaid and collaged images that attempted to present remnants as a proper subject of fine art. The works and the concept were considered radical at the time, and are being shown currently at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt.

The name Paul Chan may not be familiar to you, but he has just received the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, entitling him to a cash award of $100,000. and a solo show at the Guggenheim next Spring. Chan is a multi-talented individual. His publishing company, Badlands Unlimited, specializes in "the strangest books", an undertaking he describes as "wasting money and losing time". He is intrigued by projects that are "relentlessly incomplete"; he feels that the ultimate peace, which we are all seeking, is to be an amoeba. This interview with him tells you more about an unusual human being.

Google, that ever-innovative collection of endlessly curious minds, is trying to create a fake human skin. The idea came from a project involving nanoparticles that would send information about cancer cells back to a wrist band. The project originated in a unit called Google X, the same group that brought Google Glass and self-driving cars to the world. An accompanying video from the Atlantic magazine delves further into the concept, and is part of a series on "off-beat perspectives on health".

Architect Hiroshi Nakamura has designed a ribbon-like curving structure to serve as a wedding chapel. Located at a luxury resort in Japan, the Chapel is fully integrated into the surrounding landscape and is composed of painted timber panels coated with a titanium zinc alloy, a finish that is intended to withstand the wind and water of the site.

Archaeologists in Peru are planning to use a "Drone Airforce" to map, locate and safeguard the country's treasures. Elsewhere, in New Mexico, drones with thermal-imaging cameras will be used to map the passageways of a 1,000-year-old canyon settlement which is now buried under dirt. Others are using drones in Israel and Jordan. This marks a new step in the field of archaelogy and will be discussed at a conference in San Francisco next year.

Want to make music but afraid you are tone-deaf? This app may be the answer for you. It provides a simple way to create music by choosing shapes, like circle, triange, square and then picking the speed at which the sound moves around the shapes.

One of the lines in my latest book. "The Ballad of Zero Gulch", reads "Let's move to Mars". Now Google is making that more of a reality by offering views of the moon and the planet Mars on Google Earth. Start planning your trip.

After much prompting, Apple is finally bringing ethnic and racial diversity to the emoji. The new choices are currently in beta mode.

c. Corinne Whitaker 2015