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 culture for inspiration, and finds "suitably rustic and rugged subjects" in tough guys like Steve McQueen, but notes that "Sophia Loren holds her own anywhere". I think her chosen medium is perfect, since it calls to mind Christian wooden icons; it's like she's made pop culture devotionals (Saint Bullitt and Saint Sophia, natch).

Here's a selection.

It Was a Sort of Madness, Honey © 2008

Jake © 2009

You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat © 2008

Bullitt © 2009

Eight (Links) is Enough

Ask David Lynch I asked him a few questions today. He was sympathetic about my cat's health problems but he sure was mean / incoherent once I asked any question about myself. What will Lynch tell you?
CHUD "What if Jaws (1975) was made today?" I love this article and I absolutely believe that it would be as described. So...much...backstory nowadayzzzz
IMDb Q'Orianka Kilcher (The New World) arrested in oil related protest. We all know that oil companies (and our dumb societal resistance to developing alternate forms of energy) are going to be the death of us all so it's good to see young activists out there.
fourfour turns five. Happy birthday to an amazing blog. Rich shares his 20 favorite posts

Observations on Film Art Why are today's movies so unimaginatively shot with back and forth closeups? I'm always bitching about this so it's nice to see other people begging for variety, too. More blocking for your actors, please, directors. Try "The Cross"
The Scott Brothers on The Discreet Charm of Catherine Deneuve:

It’s that filmic resolve that sometimes gets labeled as “emotionally distant”, which is wholly unfair and misses the point of her amazing abilities as an actress.

Movie|Line Christina Hendricks removes her body parts in sci-fi music video. Honestly I think I just read a book like this. Was it Saturn's something?
Los Angeles Times the great cinematographer William A Fraker (Rosemary's Baby, Bullitt, Looking For Mr Goodbar) passes on. RIP

Earliest (Second Hand) Movie Memory: Jaws (1975)

I'm ready to love a big summer blockbuster again. But will there be one worth loving? I worry.

It pains me to say that I don't remember my first moviegoing experience. Some people do and I'm jealous of each and every one of them. I assume it was something Disney but I've never been able to recall and my parents aren't helpful there (they're not movie people). My earliest cinematic memory is actually second hand. I was scared to death of Jaws (1975) as a little kid a full decade or so before I actually saw it. Ahhhh, irrational childhood phobias...

[These illustrations were first published on the site in 2003]

First Panel: Jaws' poster haunted me. Neighborhood kids fixated, snickering, on the nude swimmer. I stared in horror: How could any animal have so many teeth ?!?

Second Panel: I tried to inure myself by playing the famous theme on our piano. Nothing worked. The backyard pool became fraught with terror.

Third Panel: People blame Spielberg for creating the blockbuster filmmaking mentality. I blame him for ruining summer in the pool.

What's your earliest movie memory?
Were you scared of any movies as a kid that you didn't see until years later? I'd especially love to hear from any readers who have first memories from earlier than the mid 70s so that I don't feel so old! ;) I don't suppose TFE readers born in the 1990s have any movie fears. Don't they wean kids on slasher flicks now?