Victoria Bell paints the worlds that hide in plain sight.

She studied art at Carnegie Mellon University, took a degree in psychology there too, and went on to a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology at Princeton. The two have never really been separate for her. A painting, like a mind, has a first impression and a second one, and the second one is where the stories live: the people and creatures tucked inside the paintings, the hands that hold a sun, the six bells tucked into a Sicilian landscape, one for each of the six Bells in her family.

She paints flowers, hands holding the things people love, and whatever else catches her eye. Her murals have brought seasonal trees to a school's doors, stories to a bookshop, dragons to a bar and all of Sicily to a pizzeria, and her illustrated poem, Dream Painters: A Story of Hope, is a book of its own.

Look once, then look again. Something is always being painted.