In a historic first, Black, openly gay activist Reverend Darrell Goodwin is elected to a senior leadership role in the United Church of Christ. Meet a man whose story emphatically demonstrates how much authenticity and determination can deliver, both personally and for the people we love and are lucky enough to be loved by in return. [read more]

Curtis Holder cannot recall a time when he did not sketch. His earliest memory is of drawing a house that looked nothing like the other houses drawn by his infant school classmates. 

“Why are their skies one shade of blue? That’s not how I see grass. I don’t care if they want to draw a house that way. I see it differently.”

Forty-seven years later, Curtis Holder is the 2020 Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year award-winner, while working part-time as a primary school teacher in London. He talks about the things that motivate him.

The night my body gave up the ghost and left me covered in shit didn’t afford me pause to go and clean up, take a shower and prepare for the next caper. Jewel was closing soon, and I needed more crack. Now, more than ever as the shame of having defecated on myself began to emerge in my fragile conscious, I knew I had to pull this one off and quickly. The dinosaur's prayer came readily to mind: Lord a little more time. It was good an invocation as any. Could I do it? Would the smell give me away?