Curio: For the Love of VHS

Alexa here with your weekly arts and crafts. My VHS collection in the late 90s rivaled any film collection I would ever have. Before the days of streaming, a large collection of VHS tapes was essential to my viewing habits. How else would I support a sudden need to see Parting Glances or My Man Godfrey with only a local Blockbuster to serve me? A brief foray into ungainly LaserDiscs passed in the blink of an eye, and soon I had a wall of 800+ tapes.  Alas, those days have passed, and all those tapes made their way to various thrift stores where, apparently, people are making new use of them.

Upcycled VHS products are all over etsy, as are other crafty odes to the tapes. After the jump, some more favorite curios to make those of you as old as me nostalgic for the plastic rectangles...

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Curio: Lloyd Stratton Ilustration

Alexa here with your weekly art break. In my regular perusal of the amazing artwork showcased in Little White Lies, I immediately noticed the work of Lloyd Stratton. He crafts incredibly detailed, often pointillist illustrations with pencil or a Pigma micron pen, sometimes adding digital elements, but oftentimes not.  His images of works in progress, documented on his Instagram, are just as amazing as his final pieces.  Here is a selection of some of his illustrations of actors and filmmakers.  He inspires me to doodle more...

Work in progress of Rob Pattinson in Life

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Curio: Lucy Liu, Artist

Alexa here with your weekly art break. Lucy Liu made the surprise announcement recently that she'd had a baby boy via surrogate, congrats to her!  In following some links I was also surprised to see that she'd launched a website dedicated to her art, under her own name.

As we've posted before, Lucy had been making paintings under the pseudonym Yu Ling, but now she is ready to unveil new, varied works without the pseudonym.  Her use of media has expanded from painting to screenprint, sculpture, and fiber. 

More pieces after the jump...

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Curio: Oh Sew Nerdy

Alexa here with your weekly arts and crafts. Since I first posted on pop culture cross-stitch in 2009 the craze has only grown, with new styles and patterns hitting etsy daily; now even a novice can spend some free time stitching Wes Anderson characters. Last weekend Gallery1988 opened its first-ever cross-stitch only exhibition, and it is a great one: a solo show by one of my local heroes Derek Sanchez-Hoeksema, aka OhSewNerdy. Derek stitches about some of his pop culture obsessions from here in corn country, and has quite a knack for blending words and image. Here are some of his movie-inspired designs featured at the show.

After the jump I've left them without captions because guessing the film is part of the fun...

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Curio: Getting Intimate With Ingrid

Alexa here with a curio in honor of Ingrid Bergman's centennial.  A few years ago, during a stop at Brooklyn thrift shop The Thing for some record shopping, I spied a paperback lying with a small pile of vintage books. There's nothing I love more than a pulpy celebrity biography, so I left the store without any LPs and with Ingrid Bergman: An Intimate Portrait in my bag instead.

It turned out to be perfect summer reading...

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