Although a wildly disparate lot, the phalanx of projectionists and volunteers from the Pickford Film Center has historically had one thing in common: its willingness—some might go as far as to call it eagerness—to show movies anywhere.

During my nearly 16 years as a projectionist at the Pickford, this belief that we can transform any and every locale into a temporary movie theater has led us to show films in bars, nightclubs and abandoned buildings. Fields and empty lots have also not…

What do you get when you take a great friendship and turn it into a business partnership?

In many cases, the friendship would be on the rocks, but Bellingham locals Azizi Tookas and Chris Sunde turned theirs into Brandywine Kitchen, a longtime lunch and dinner restaurant on Commercial Street that hums daily with happy diners.

Sunde’s and Tookas’ relationship dates back to their kindergarten days and stretches into their adult years (both are in their late 30s). The two attended…

Parenting these days is a challenge, with friendships and homework assignments, soccer carpools, birthday parties, social media, college applications and more clamoring for families’ attention. Even loving, well-adjusted, income-stable parents struggle.

So imagine what it would be like to have a child, from an early age, identify as transgendered.

Assuming no religious objections or fundamental inability to accept the child’s perception of their gender identity, what is the best…

Bellingham’s population visibly shrinks every summer, when Western Washington University students either head to their hometowns to chill until fall or graduate and vamoose. However, a crew of educatees from WWU’s theater and dance department stick around, working to craft creative offerings for Western Summer Theatre, which, since being revived three years ago, brings performances to campus and beyond from late July through early September.

At 7:30pm July 27-29, Graffiti Dance…

Wildly inventive on a micro-budget scale, actor Bill Watterson’s (not the Calvin and Hobbes creator) shift to directing is an impressively crafted feature that’s full of frequent surprises. Assembling 30,000 square feet of cardboard to build full-scale sets for a fantastical maze clearly requires substantial commitment and creative vision, although the film’s determined quirkiness may mark it for cult status.

An easily recognizable type, Dave (Nick Thune) is a would-be artist and…

When it came time to choose a recurring day of the week for a monthly art walk in historic Fairhaven, artist and organizer Scott Ward admits that it came down to the way the event sounded when it rolled off the tongue.

“To be honest, it was the alliteration of Fairhaven Fourth Friday,” Ward says. “We looked at the first Friday, but knew that downtown has their walk then. We didn’t want to compete with that but, rather, complement it.”

If you’re in the camp of citizens…

I once spent a thrilling summer night helping propel a tandem sea kayak through the waters of Bellingham Bay in search of the otherworldly glow of phytoplankton.

Ultimately, our post-sunset bioluminescence paddle led by staff at Fairhaven’s Community Boating Center didn’t net viewings of the lovely lights given off by marine vertebrates and invertebrates. But that was perfectly fine.

As we paddled along the waterfront and further down Chuckanut Drive to Post Point before returning to…

The state Attorney General asks a federal court to review the Trump Administration’s two-year delay of the Chemical Disaster Rule, which updates safety requirements for large industrial facilities that handle hazardous chemicals. The action was filed this week in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

The state joined 10 other attorneys general to claim the administration’s delay violates the Clean Air Act. The Chemical Disaster Rule was prompted by a number of…