Unusual and one-of-a-kind gifts draw savvy shoppers to museums and galleries at this time of year, from astronaut ice cream at Carnegie Science Center to a flame-flashed mug at the Society for Contemporary Craft.

The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, reflecting its merge with Pittsburgh Filmmakers, offers a unique selection of new media works by local artists, from experimental audio to documentary, edgy to educational.

A sampling includes DVDs "Mandela Meditation" by Philomena O'Dea, a single natural image expanding kaleidoscopically to music ($19.99); "Animation," five works from CMU prof James Duesing's darkly humorous 2004 Artist of the Year exhibition, with director's commentary ($17); Art Institute of Pittsburgh faculty member and Plan Z media company founder Andres Tapia-Urzua's "Electronic Cinemas I - III," potent examinations of identity, globalization, and the creative process ($30 each); filmmaker Kenneth Love's fine documentaries, including those on artist Aaronel deRoy Gruber ($24.95) and Fallingwater ($29.95); and Johan Nystrom's contemporary experimental audio CD "Absence Gestures," available in a plastic sleeve or a plaster cast (break to play; $7).

If you'd like to preview, seven clips from artist solo and anthology DVDs, selected from shop shelves by PCA Curator Adam Welch, run continually in the second-floor Video Gallery.

Welch says a wish of his is that the PCA shop carry work by artists who have exhibited in the galleries, and this is a beginning. Show pieces range in length from 40 seconds to almost 16 minutes and are excerpts from longer DVDs.

Michael Mallis' animated "The Wing Ding Pittsburgh Miracle," for example, the artist's official announcement as mayoral candidate (later disqualified), is from "Pittsburgh Reframed [at 250]," video shorts by Pittsburgh artists edited from a 1978 promotional film for the city in tribute to the 250th anniversary ($15).

Gordon Nelson's "Sixties Teen Dance Party," found footage of a wild dance party played backwards at one-third speed to a soundtrack created live in 2000 at the 31st Street Pub, and Rebbyro's "Paint N' Scratch," are from Encyclopedia Destructica's "Volume Bumba: Issue the Fourth." The hardbound multimedia edition ($15) includes poetry, artists' journal entries, sketches and other work by 40 artists who are "a who's who of local media artists," says shop manager Jen Carter.

Pittsburgher Chia-Pi Chao re-interprets "The Little Mermaid" in "Bedtime Stories 218" from "Where Did the Fish Go in Winter" ($14.95); Pittsburgh Filmmakers faculty John Cantine's "Tomorrow" employs spatial layering "as all our yesterdays light the way to dusty death," from "Temporal Decompression" ($18.50); Matthew Day's "Sum Parts" is plucked from the playful scenarios of "Beached on the Isle of M.R. Day Film" ($20); and Sam Boese, through "Series 25 Part i (Team 25)," continues the exploits of the rather esoteric Hamilton Lurie, Inc., an "innovator in quantum branding" and subsidiary of HL International Holdings Ltd Co LLP ($7.99).

Whatever the choice, there will be something beyond sports as holiday entertainment.

Rumor has it that approximately 600 original artworks have been purchased over the decades by the nonprofit organization Friends of Art and donated to the Pittsburgh Public Schools for the enjoyment and education of students. But record-keeping can sometimes be sketchy and no one seems to have a complete account of which or how many works are owned by the schools.

As a part of the celebration of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh's Centennial in 2010, two members have begun to rectify that omission. Project co-directors Adrienne Heinrich, artist and AAP Centennial Education Chair, and Patricia Sheahan, artist, AAP board member and educational consultant, have taken on the enormous task of finding each work and documenting its title, artist, date made, dimensions and location.

"We've becomes sleuths," Sheahan says.

So far they've found approximately 300 artworks, with the help of the Sen. John Heinz History Center and Middle School gifted students enlisted through the AAP "Taking a Closer Look!" program.

And they need your help. Artworks may at times be relegated to closets and storage areas, loaned elsewhere, temporarily borrowed, or simply packed up with other belongings when a staff member retires or changes jobs.

Anyone with leads may leave messages for Heinrich or Sheahan at the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh office, 412-361-1370 or education@aapgh.org.

Renee Piechocki, director of the Office of Public Art, Pittsburgh, has been elected a member of the Public Art Network Council, an advisory body to the national nonprofit Americans for the Arts.

An e-mail from reader Lee Diener prompted me to look up my November review of "Paul Gauguin: Paris, 1889" and the sentence "France flaunted its prowess by importing 30 indigents from its widespread colonies to parade before the exposition's 28 million attendees." The word that I'd shortened "indigenous peoples" to should have been "indigenes," not "indigents" as I'd habitually typed. It may be true that many of those rounded up for the Exposition Universelle were indigent, but that was not my intent.

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