Ariana Papademetropoulos’s Art Is a Parallel Universe

Name: Ariana Papademetropoulos Age: 30 Hometown: Pasadena, Calif. Currently Lives: In a three-story Victorian home in the Mount Washington section of Los Angeles that she shares with the musician John Carroll Kirby. Claim to Fame: Ms. Papademetropoulos is a painter whose large-scale, hyper-realistic work offers a window into parallel universes. Her intricate renderings of abandoned…

Homer Simpson Was Made for Fashion

Clapping, whispering, cameras snapping, questionable music: These are the sounds of a classic fashion show. Bursts of laughter? Those are less common. Yet several were heard last Saturday night, rolling around the 19th-century Parisian theater where the great and storied house of Cristóbal Balenciaga skipped the traditional catwalk and screened a special 10-minute episode of…

You Are Not Where You Work

Send questions about the office, money, careers and work-life balance to workfriend@nytimes.com. Include your name and location, or a request to remain anonymous. Letters may be edited. Raising the Stakes I work at a high-end grocery store chain acquired by the largest global online retailer. I’ve been feeling underwhelmed by my impact, careerwise, on the…

A Day in the Studio With Salehe Bembury

“Three years ago, that wasn’t happening,” Kevin Trotman, an associate product manager of global collaborations at New Balance, said in an interview. “It just speaks volumes to Salehe and our other partners — people are very excited about it because they trust him. He’s proven himself to the point where it’s like, OK, this is…