Curious French Cat

Oh kitten, what secrets are you guarding? 


{Image via The Paris Review}

Drunken Snow White (and other drawings by Gemma Correll)

The above scenario describes me to a T. It's like British artist Gemma Correll lives inside my head or something. And can you believe she has more hilarious and delightful illustrations on her tumblr? Methinks you can.

And who doesn't agree with the following sentiment? I mean really.

{Images via Gemma Correll}

Tea Slave

This is me right about now. Stuck in bed with a pernicious cold (oh, when will it end?). At least I have a boyfriend to bring me ample cups of tea. 


{Image via Rishi Tea tumblr}

Literary Jack-O'-Lanterns

My favorite Halloween ritual just might be the reading of chilling gothic tales and ghost stories. So I was pretty delighted when I came across these incredible jack-o'-lanterns inspired by great works of literature. The enormous amount of skill, precision, and imagination needed to execute such beautifully detailed designs boggles the mind. I heart these all so much, almost as much as the stories themselves. Can you spot the specific tales of each one?

{Images via Flavorwire}

Celebrating Roald Dahl

So this is where the magic happened. Where beloved author Roald Dahl imagined his beguiling stories for children and grownups alike (last Tuesday marked the 95th anniversary of his birth). I'd quite like to while away an afternoon in a holy place like this.

Oh, and how amazing is this cutout illustration from artist Jayme McGowan? James and the Giant Peach was my first and favorite of Dahl's books. You can view more of her brilliant artwork at Roadside Projects.


{Images via The New Yorker and Roadside Projects}

Advice for Little Girls

Mark Twain, children's book author? In a word, yes. In 1865 his story Advice to Little Girls was published and appeared alongside other stories in a compilation called The 30,000 Dollar Bequest and Other Stories. The NY Books explains that:

"American children’s literature in those days was mostly didactic, addressed to some imaginary reader—an ideal girl or boy, upon reading the story, would immediately adopt its heroes as role models. Twain did not squat down to be heard and understood by children, but asked them to stand on their tiptoes—to absorb the kind of language and humor suitable for adults."

Twain's story is now re-published today alongside these charming, incredibly funny illustrations by artist and children's book author Vladimir Radunsky. The wry, subversive, decidedly very adult humor of Twain comes to life when juxtaposed with Radunsky's droll illustrations. Reading them makes me feel like I've stumbled upon something extraordinary; I think they might have to become a part of my permanent book collection. They're simply too delightful to pass up. Radunsky's work sort of reminds me of Maira Kalman's; I think both artists share a fierce intelligence and honesty in their work.

Any of these images can be enlarged on the NY Books website. More of Radunsky's work can be found on his own website.

{Photos via NY Books}

Embroidered Classics

These Penguin Threads Deluxe Classics are so much fun. I have no doubt Jane Austen would most thoroughly approve of the cover design of Emma. I can just imagine Miss Woodhouse herself stitching up something similarly fetching for her dear old papa.

This cover of Black Beauty is just a wonder to behold, no? The detail involved is so intricately beautiful.

A look at the very talented artist Jillian Tamaki hard at work.

According to the artists's blog, the books can be

purchased later this year.

{Images via here}

Google Art Project

If you have yet to check out the new Art Project by Google, then by all means I suggest you start exploring this very moment. This amazing new website allows you to visit the world's most famous art museums by a simple click of a button. I really get a kick out of gazing at some of my favorite works of art from the comfort of a cozy arm chair (I adore Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, as shown above, which is located at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence). For those times in life when a plane ticket to Europe seem out-of-reach (read: now), it's comforting to know I can still indulge in a bit of culture without breaking the bank.

I remember the first time I saw Holbein's The Ambassadors (above) at the National Gallery in London. At the time I was an English student at UCLA and had the supreme good fortune to spend the summer studying Shakespeare in London. I have long been a fervent anglophile, but I credit my abiding love for London with this first-ever trip to The National Gallery. I remember feeling mesmerized by the rich, saturated use of color, as well as by the weighty stares of the gentlemen staring out at me from the canvas. The painting is so heavy with importance.

And here's an up close shot of Van Gogh's The Starry Night. Check out those thick brushstrokes! Wouldn't it be fantastic if Google continued to add more museums from around the world to the website? I'm looking at you, Museu Picasso.

{Images via Art Project by Google}

Black Swan

It's been a few days since I saw Black Swan, and yet my brain is still reeling from it. It's intense, it's creepy, and it has more than a few jump-out-of-your-chair moments. It's the sort of film that weighs on the psyche for days afterward and warrants rumination and discussion. The dark psychology behind the story is absolutely compelling and is played out through the use of haunting visual images (i.e. mirrors abound in the film and are the cause of some pretty chilling moments).

All of this is just my long-winded way of introducing these graphic, 60's-inspired posters inspired by the film. Created by a British design studio, these advertisements capture the duality inherent in the main character, Nina (played by Natalie Portman...as if you didn't already know that) and in the role she portrays on stage in the ballet production of Swan Lake. The role calls for a dancer to simultaneously assume the grace, fragility, and physical perfection of the white swan, as well as the power and sinister seduction of the black swan. You can see where the struggle lies here, in trying desperately to conform to two very different ideals at once. Life soon imitates art, and it's no wonder Nina loses her grip on reality. I think the designers behind these posters did a beautiful job conveying all of this. The first image where the swan and dancer become one has a sinister quality to it that I find perfectly suited to the movie (and just might be my favorite in the series).

I can't help but think about our (i.e. my, society's) notion of ballerinas and the ballet world in general. Ballet is about attaining perfection, an ideal of beauty and refinement and poetry in motion. And yet, we don't really think about the not-so-pretty aspects of it: the physical injuries and deprivation, the intense physical and mental discipline and rigor, as well as the cutthroat competition among dancers. All of which makes it the ideal backdrop against which to play out this doubling and fracturing of the self that goes on in the film.

If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend you do so; I know it's not the cheeriest of movies to watch over the holidays, but I promise you won't regret it! And after you've done so, tell me what you thought about it in the comments section.

{Images from The Guardian, via Fashionista}

A Cup of Joe

My inner coffee geek is salivating over this whimsical java print from Plaid-Creative. How cute would this look hanging in a kitchen? I need a macchiato, stat!

*For a closer look at the print, go here.

Update: Good news! The print is now available to purchase online.

{Photos via Design*Sponge}

Joyful June

Loving this month's desktop wallpaper from Design*Sponge. Gazing at pretty things just makes the day a bit brighter, no? More pretty images from artist Christopher Bettig can be found on his website.

{Photo via Design*Sponge}

Oh, the places you'll go!

This week I flew to Philadelphia for a work conference. Sadly, as the trip was for business and not pleasure and lasted only a couple days, I wasn't able to do the things I really wanted to do, like check out the liberty bell, Philadelphia Museum of Art or Edgar Allen Poe Historic Site. But it wasn't all work all the time: I ate at great restaurants, had delicious jasmine tea at Reading Terminal Market, enjoyed some amazing spring weather, ogled the beautiful architecture, and delighted in how friendly people were. All the more reason to come back, I say. Which I most certainly shall.

P.S. How adorable are these vintage travel posters? Adding Seattle and Miami on my list of American cities to visit...

{Images via The Heads of State}

Meredith Frampton

To piggyback on yesterday's post, I've included a few more paintings by British artist Meredith Frampton. I really love the vibrant, saturated use of color and their flat, child-like quality. Don't the female subjects seem like the epitome of glamour? I want to wear what they're wearing. Even the unclothed woman. She wears nudity so well!

Nude with Flying Swans 1919

Portrait of a Young Woman 1935

{Images via the Tate Collection}

The Painted Muse

I just finished a book by W. Somerset Maugham called The Painted Veil, and adorning the cover of my copy is this exquisite painting you see to the right (I'll leave my actual review of the book for a future post, but here's a little hint: I loved it). The distant mountains and expansive sky suggest a sort of loneliness, as if the subject were caught in a land utterly strange and foreign to her (which is, fittingly, a theme in Maugham's book). The painting is by British artist Meredith Frampton and hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London, one of my favorite places on the planet. According to the National Portrait Gallery's website, the sitter of the painting is Winifred Radford, a singer and teacher of singing. Seemingly, she was a London girl-about-town in the 1920-50's because there are loads of photographs of her from that era on the gallery's website. It looks as though she had quite the glamorous life (I just found her obituary from The Independent; apparently, she was also an accomplished musical performer).

I love studying older paintings and photos and contemplating the lives of the subjects. I imagine and hope Winifred's life was as lovely as these images would suggest. I really like this photo of her posing next to her famous portrait. She was still such a beauty, even in her later years.


{Images via the National Portrait Gallery}

Prints from Sharon Montrose

If you read blogs with any regularity,you might have already come across these quirky, but delightful animal portraits by Sharon Montrose. Don't you love the spareness of the off-white backdrop and bleached hardwood floors? I certainly do! According to her etsy shop, these creatures live quite happily in a California zoo. Montrose captures each animal's unique personality, from the playfulness of the porcupine to the lordly exasperation of the owl (doesn't he appear to be tapping his claw, as if telling her to take the darn picture, already?). I take such pleasure in coming home and glancing up at my little menagerie hanging from my wall. Oh, the stories they tell....

Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913–2008

Over the weekend I visited the Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913-2008 exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The exhibit celebrates the magazine's 95th anniversary of celebrity portraiture and features photographs from its archives.

Over the years, many a famous actor, dancer, painter, writer, and politician have collaborated with the most talented and in-demand photographers of the day for Vanity Fair, and the tradition certainly continues. The likes of Cecil Beaton, Annie Leibovitz, Edward Steichen, and Mario Testino have shot such luminaries as Princess Diana, Katharine Hepburn, Margaret Thatcher, Pablo Picasso, Josephine Baker, Frida Kahlo, Martin Scorsese, and many more. Among my favorite portraits: a breathtaking painterly photo of Julianne Moore in the style of Ingres; a charming moment between siblings and dancing partners Adele and Fred Astaire (pre-Ginger Rogers era), and a languid Nicole Kidman draped across the sofa in the historic home of Bloomsbury artists Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell, captured years before Kidman portrayed Vanessa's sister Virginia Woolf on-screen in The Hours.

I've actually twice visited this exhibit; the first time coincided with its opening day at the National Portrait Gallery in London. It was February 14th, and I found myself alone for a couple of hours in my favorite city. With my boyfriend thousands of miles away in Los Angeles, I considered the next best way to celebrate a holiday for lovers was to spend a rainy afternoon with these remarkable portraits. It was the perfect valentine to myself.

The Getty Center and Getty Villa

I love visiting museums. Whenever I travel to a new city, it's one of the first things I scramble to see; I think so much can be discovered about a city through its art and architecture that I feel it's a good place to start. I particularly love the Museu Picasso in Barcelona and when I lived in London, I paid frequent visits to the National Portrait Gallery. Living in Los Angeles, I have my share of cool museums to check out, and I've had the good fortune of visiting both the Getty Villa in Malibu and the Getty Center in Brentwood in recent months. Both offer stunning works of art and consistently feature interesting exhibits--the Getty Center's Bernini exhibit is just exquisite.

Equally impressive as the artwork are the grounds of both museums. The Villa's classic proportions, as seen in the photos directly above and below, are something out of a Henry James novel.


Meanwhile, the Getty Center's modern white architecture provides a wonderfully dramatic backdrop against the Western art that lives within its walls (as seen below).