Swedish art director Jakob Westman spends his day working with companies like Acne, Fido and Dennis Eriksson, coming up with ideas and designs for them. But he spends his evenings working on sculptures and illustrations just for himself. His most recent project is a re-imagining of our Corduroy cover with Elijah Wood, turning the stark photograph into a beautifully textured and illustrated image. He may have taken on the project just for fun, but we’d like to think a little part of Westman decided to do this for us too. We’re flattered.

Westman recently released his second book of illustrations, entitled “Color Blast.” The book is printed in a limited edition run of 500 signed and numbered copies. Find out more at jakobwestman.com.

Join us for cocktails and music at the Rendez-Vous show tomorrow night. Details on the flyer below:

Confession time:  I recently caught an airing of My Girl on TBS and bawled my eyes out — again — some 19 years after first doing the same thing in a rundown suburban shopping mall theater in the outskirts of Toronto. It’s safe to say the characters — and the cast — still hold up to this day. But while Macaulay Culkin has bounced back from his post-Home Alone exile to appear in a number of well-received films and become somewhat of an indie acting icon, Anna Chlumsky’s whereabouts have been more of a mystery. Well I’m proud to announce that the mystery has been solved.

We caught up with Chlumsky in New York a few months ago, where she’s been busy auditioning for television roles, while also performing in a number of local Off-Broadway stage productions. At 30, she’s married, living in Brooklyn and enjoying her relative anonymity, but also ready, it seems, for a return to acting. She’s older, wiser and more motivated than ever to pursue the craft she’s always loved with a new vigor — and outlook. Make sure to pick up our next issue of Corduroy to read all about Chlumsky’s “comeback plans,” and to see the beautiful images from our rooftop photoshoot in the Lower East Side. In the meantime, here are a couple behind-the-scenes pics. Enjoy!

- TC

Like most of the Western world, we woke up this morning eager to see the much balleyhooed Oscar nominations, announced earlier today. As everyone predicted, Avatar and The Hurt Locker lead the field with nine nods a piece while sleeper hits The Blind Side and District 9 crept in to earn surprising Best Picture nods. Everything else seems to be just where the three million prediction lists we saw this week said they’d be, though we can’t say we weren’t a little disappointed that our friend Ben Foster didn’t get nominated for his gripping performance in The Messenger. Though his co-star Woody Harrelson earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination, Foster’s performance as a casualty notification officer was the film’s emotional core, and should have been recognized by the Academy. We spoke with Foster last fall and he was obviously excited about his work in the film, but after reading the piece in our upcoming issue, you’ll see that the last thing Ben Foster does this for is awards. Here’s a little sneak peek from our photoshoot with the actor. And make sure to pick up our spring issue of Corduroy to see all the photos and to read our brand new interview with Ben Foster.

- Daniel Barna

When we met up with Basia Bulat to interview and photograph her for our current issue, the singer was in the middle of a busy stretch of writing and recording for her sophomore album. That would explain why we shot the photos of her in New York (during a much-needed weekend “off” for Bulat) and did the interview a few weeks later in a busy cafe in Toronto (during “lunch”). Ever since her Polaris Music Prize-nominated debut album, “Oh, My Darling,” captured audiences and critics alike back in 2008, Bulat has been hard at work refining both her writing and her voice to put out a follow-up album that could live up to its weighty expectations. Fortunately for everyone involved, the new disc, dubbed “Heart of My Own,” does just that.

Like “Darling,” the songs on the new album are both intimate and muscular, sounding equally at home in a small singing circle as they do in a live stage setting (Fittingly, many of the new tracks were written and road-tested on tour before Bulat laid them down in a studio). The melodies this time around are fuller and more vibrant, backed by Bulat’s trademark auto-harp and an ensemble of folk-pop musicians whose parts were recorded live off the floor. The lyrics, meantime, resonate with a haunting honesty gathered from months on end in a tour bus, far away from home and loved ones. If Bulat sounds a little more emotional, it’s because she was, and perhaps still is.

We met up with Bulat a few months ago here in Toronto and she was understandably tired, though excited for the new album to come out. When we reminded her that the first time we heard her sing was at a karaoke bar with mutual friends during university, she perked up and let out a quiet chuckle. And her response was perfect, if unexpected. “I love to sing and perform,” she said, “whether it’s with a group of friends or in front of huge crowds… I’m really not worried about what people will think about the new album. No matter what the response is, I’ll always be singing.”

Bulat’s new album, “Heart of My Own,” is out in stores this week. To find out more about the album and Bulat’s current tour dates, check out www.basiabulat.com. And to see the photos and read our interview with Basia Bulat, click HERE to order Issue 6 of Corduroy.

- TC

(photo by Peter Ash Lee)