Curio: Dawn Dudek's Filmscapes

Alexa from Pop Elegantiarum here with your weekly art break.Reading the opening to Nathaniel's interview with Kirsten Dunst ("one half expects her to flicker when one meets her, as if she's being projected still", lovely!) reminded me of this painting by Dawn Dudek.M escapes to dream.2007, acrylic on canvas Dawn creates magical split-frame paintings that go beyond merely imitating the atmosphere

Curio: Rich Pellegrino's Portraits

"Marty McFly" gouacheon hardboard, 5 x 7Alexa here with your weekly art appreciation.Nathaniel shared a link to this artist's work with me and I just had to blog it. Rich Pellegrino is a painter, RISD graduate, and child of the 80s. He paints in watercolor, acrylic, or gouache, straight out of the tube, creating richly textured portraits that are almost musical. ("I want a brush stroke to sound

Curio: My Holiday Wish List

Alexa from Pop Elegantiarum here with your weekly arts and crafts.Every year I dutifully make up a wish list for Christmas, filled with things that I need (cozy socks, a blogging muumuu). But here is a wishlist of things to satisfy my filmic flights of fancy this year. In fact, I may have already bought one of these for myself. Merry shopping everyone! Inception spinning top totem. Available

Curio: Christmas Greetings

Alexa from Pop Elegantiarum here with your weekly arts and crafts.The hubby and I had a very predictable night last week, sitting on the couch, crying during It's a Wonderful Life. (My excuse is I'm still recovering from an appendectomy, making me all soft around the edges. He has no excuse.) Aside from this obvious picture, the holidays are really all about the movies, what with all the award

Curio: Paintings of a Tourist

Alexa from Pop Elegantiarum here with your weekly art break.The media machine just can't get enough of the dueling fabulosity of Jolie and Depp in The Tourist. (What was it like basking in each other's glow? Will they out-charisma each other?) Of course we all know about the impressive extracurriculars of St. Angelina, but Depp has a few of his own. Most people are aware that he came to acting

Curio: Rachel the Replicant

Alexa from Pop Elegantiarum here with your weekly art break.Today is Ridley Scott's 73rd birthday, and 10 days ago Sean Young celebrated her 51st birthday (probably while rehearsing for Skating With the Stars). Their collaboration in Blade Runner put Metropolis, Edward Hopper and film noir into a blender to create a thing of beauty. Who can forget Rachel, the replicant heroine played with

Curio: Odes to Harry Dean Stanton

Alexa here with your weekly art appreciation.Craig's post about Harry Dean Stanton made me smile, something I usually do when I spot him on screen. There is something comforting about seeing that craggy face; like many character actors he has a changelessness about him. Maybe it's because he is usually just playing himself, something he has copped to many times in interviews. I soon wondered

Curio: Bridget Buys

Alexa here. Jose's post on birthday girl Bridget Jones brought back some memories for me. True story: as a 28-year-old singleton I went to see Bridget Jones's Diary, on opening night, all by myself no less. (Insert soundtrack here.) Upon seeing Renée, who had seemingly acquired my identical limp hair and puffiness for the role, I proceeded to sob through the opening credits. Although I'm a smug

Curio: Election Edition

Alexa from Pop Elegantiarum here with your weekly arts and crafts. I hope all of you are voting today, if you haven't already. By the end of the day a significant number of us will be disappointed at the wackadoodles in office. Here are some bipartisan opinions you might want to sport instead of bitching about the results.Independence Day Bill Pullman or Deep Impact Morgan Freeman for president

Curio: Wes Anderson's Bad Dads

Alexa from Pop Elegantiarum here with your weekly arts and crafts. There is a very cool exhibit coming up for those in San Francisco. As I've noted many times, Wes Anderson is a bottomless source of inspiration for visual artists. So Spoke Art, a transient art gallery and publishing house based in the Bay Area, is taking advantage of the bounty by putting on an art show tribute to Wes Anderson

Curio: Lisa Brawn's Woodcuts

Alexa from Pop Elegantiarum here with your weekly arts and crafts. Recently I came upon these woodcut paintings by Lisa Brawn. Lisa carves detailed portraits into wood, generally beams of salvaged Douglas fir. Usually artists carve into wood in order to make prints from the resulting block; instead, Lisa paints the carved block itself to create one-of-a-kind portraits. She looks to pop

Curio: Film and Thread and Scarlett Johansson Pillows

Alexa from Pop Elegantiarum here with your weekly film craftiness. I've shared items from the glorious threadiverse before, but there are so many wonderful film-inspired embroidery pieces out there that they can't be contained in a single post. Some are simply clever, others downright artful. A selection, for your viewing pleasure.Moxiedoll specializes in handstitched happiness. Here are her

Curio: Yul Brynner's Photographic Journey

Alexa here. Yul Brynner has always been a favorite of mine, maybe because The King and I was the first musical I ever saw. Or maybe because my old Ukrainian great-grandmother swore he was the spitting image of her brother. Or maybe it was just his mellifluous voice and shiny dome. But it wasn't until I spotted the recent press on an exhibit of his photographs in New York that I was aware he

Curio: Steve Dressler's Film Poster Prints

Alexa from Pop Elegantiarum here, bringing you more from the intersection of print design and film. Steve Dressler is a favorite artist of mine, maybe because you can tell from his art that he is a sometime comedian in addition to being an illustrator. His designs comment on all things pop culture, from Donald Glover's Spiderman campaign to the douche of the decade Joe Francis, but he dabbles in

Curio: Show Your Team Zizzou Colors

Alexa here. Bill Murray turns 60 today, the perfect age for his curmudgeonly ways. I've always been a lover of his, probably because he and I share the same hometown and oddball taste. And no one can play an aging, washed-up grump grasping for his former glory quite like the Murricane. In that vein, here are some ideas for how to dress like one of his iconic grumps, Steve Zizzou, just in time

Curio: Iain Hector's Animal Instincts

Alexa here. Like Nathaniel, I am waiting with bated breath to see Natalie Portman's transformation into an evil swan. But until I can see Natalie grow feathers, I'll look to the work of London-based artist Iain Hector. You might say Iain specializes in theriocephaly along with screenprinting. He also loves a great film. What results is a great mashup of the zoo and the cineplex. Herewith, a

Curio: For Your Clutter

Alexa here, and no, I'm not shilling for Netflix now. I had big plans this holiday weekend of staging a Terence Malick double feature. Life interfered, so now envelopes with Badlands and Days of Heaven will be gathering dust on our ottoman. Today I spotted this handmade Netflix organizer on etsy and was tempted.Silly thing is, RCR Fabrication sells them reading "FLIX" since they aren't