Paint the Sun: A Boy's Journey

Episode 20 - Inside Her

Reflecting on a startling conversation with his father from twenty years in the past, Chris confronts renewed mysteries about the mother of his oldest half-brother. As he copes with the traumas lingering from his own forays into adolescent love and sex, Joel's take shape as well. In Episode 20, the past once again seems to eerily mirror the present, and as it does, new opportunities for love, compassion and connection emerge.

Episode 19 - PDQ

Chris's life takes on new velocity as his relationship with Alex Green rivals the gravity of his father's illness. Parked squarely in late 90's suburban Milwaukee, this episode explores the unique color of teenage love -- part escape, part addiction. It pays particular attention to the escalating decisions Chris and Alex must make regarding sex and safety while honoring the beauty of a relationship that was, in many ways, a form of salvation.

Episode 18 - Golden Valley

The growing Kursel family, buoyed by Joel's promising new position at an advertising agency, takes root in a rural Milwaukee suburb called Golden Valley. In this episode, Chris explores the history of Golden Valley, both modern and ancient, expounding on the enmeshed nature of time and family in a quaint post-war settlement.

Episode 17 - Alex Green

While his father's illness advances, Chris's life is gripped by a new and completely different energy -- first love. The thrills and fears of Alex Green, a spirited and intellectual dynamo Chris meets through a mutual friend, burst through the painful tedium of his dad's cancer. After a first date on Milwaukee's east side turns into something more than he anticipated, Chris faces a brief but exhilarating summer toggling between the realities of love and death.

Episode 16 - Another Tube of Military Metal

In the period directly following WWII, Joel and his growing family take up residence in a Quonset Hut -- a refabbed piece of corrugated metal issued by the U.S. military -- in a hardscrabble suburb outside downtown Milwaukee. As Chris explores Joel's new life as a family man in the 1940's, he reflects on the sweetness and stresses of early fatherhood that seem to reach across the divide of time.