Terrance Pitts first ventured to Africa as a Stanford undergrad on a summer volunteer program in Kenya. Since then, Pitts, ’87, has studied the region and traveled there frequently from his home in Baltimore. A recent trip to Ghana inspired the bittersweet “Return Passage.” “As a writer, photographer and social activist, my vision is to integrate my interest in human rights through words and images,” Pitts says. “I am interested in learning how and what the developing world can do to support Africa’s development and redress wrongs committed during decades of colonization and now neocolonization.” Last year, he launched his first traveling exhibition, “Reflections from Durban,” a documentary perspective on the 2001 U.N. World Conference Against Racism.
A journalist since junior high, when he asked his mom to type his school newsletter with carbon paper, Harry Press, ’39, edited the Stanford Daily before embarking on a 25-year career with San Francisco newspapers. In 1966, he returned to the Farm, where he worked with the Stanford News Service, founded the Stanford Observer and directed the Knight Fellowship for Journalists program. Press became interested in War Torn because author Denby Fawcett had been a Knight fellow under his guidance. Breaking into the male-dominated field of war correspondence, especially during Vietnam, was a huge challenge for women like Fawcett, he says: “They had to prove themselves many times over.” But as War Torn reveals, their contributions were essential. “Many had a different view of the war. They were less macho, more sensitive,” he observes. Press, now retired, continues to guide young journalists through Friends of the Stanford Daily. He and his wife, Mildred, live in Palo Alto.
When Davy Liu was an art student in Sarasota, Fla., he spent summers sketching caricatures at nearby Disney World. That was the start of a whirlwind cartooning career. Liu joined Disney full time after graduation, animating Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and other high-profile films, before working with Warner Brothers (Space Jam) and creating digital animations for George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic. As an illustrator for publications like Sports Illustrated, Business Week and U.S. News & World Report, he likes to make funky collages using cutouts from magazines and photos. “I enjoy creating shapes,” says Liu, 33, now freelancing from his home in Aliso Viejo, Calif. “Then, within that shape, I can play with all kinds of cool textures, or eyeballs, or my buddy’s bad teeth. Overall, I get to have fun.” To share in the laughs, check out “Food Fight.”
