A few photos from one of my morning walks last week. It was foggy and cold with frost on the ground. Such a beautiful way to start the day!
Category: Inspiration
Visiting Frida and Diego in Mexico City
I’ve been slow to share photos and write more about my trip to Mexico last month, mostly because enough time has now passed that it almost feels like it didn’t happen. It was such a brief trip that I mostly tried not to have expectations or make specific plans in advance about what to see.
I visited two art museums in Mexico City and that was pretty much it, but they were moving and inspiring experiences. The first was Museo Mural Diego Rivera which houses the work of its famous namesake. Unfortunately for us there was only a single piece of work on display during our visit, because the building was under repair (possibly because of earthquake damage), but it was a spectacular piece of work. Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Almeda Park is a fifty foot fresco rich in symbolism and figures from Mexican history, including Rivera as a boy and Frida Kahlo.
View the entire mural and read more about it here.
The one place I felt I had to visit while in Mexico City was the house turned museum that once belonged to Frida Kahlo. It was a bit of an ordeal to get there across the city from where we were staying, but I was deeply moved to be in a place where this powerful artist once lived her life and made art. My favourite part of the visit was viewing the small collection of recently discovered items of clothing, support garments, and prosthetics. It was a strong reminder of her striking personal style, and struggles with debilitating health issues.
It felt like paying tribute when I took the above self-portrait of Boris and I in a mirror located in Frida Kahlo’s bedroom.
An unfinished self-portrait by Frida Kahlo.
Below are a few photos I took in her light-filled studio, which was my other favourite part of the visit. What a beautiful place it must have been for her to do her work.
The large and spectacular Día de Muertos alter was set up in the court yard, with a beautiful black & white photo dedicating it to the memory of Frida.
Beautiful Embroidery in Mexico
At the beginning of November I had the privilege of tagging along on Boris’ business trip to Mexico, with stops in Mérida and Mexico City. It was a very short five day trip but I managed to fit a lot in while visiting each city.
My friend Carlyn is staying in Mérida for a few months over the winter, and we spent a day walking all over the place, through museums and various markets, with a few stops for ice cream and food. We walked 15 kilometres over the course of the day and evening, because that’s just how we roll.
The photos in this post are pieces of embroidered clothing on display in the Museo de Arte Popular, and Museo Regional Antropologia. It’s a mix of cross-stitch and other embroidery techniques, with bright colours, and intricate details. I’m am inspired by these pieces, and it was a terrific introduction to Mexican textile work.
Look at all of those amazing stitches!
The pieces are rich in symbolism and meaning, not just decorative. In Mérida many women wear embroidered huipil as every day wear, and it was wonderful to see them as we walked around the city. It was an important connection to make between the museum artifacts and modern clothing.
This brief infusion of colour and energy from another culture is what is seeing me through the current round of rainy blah days in Vancouver. I also intend to incorporate ideas inspired by my experience in upcoming stitching projects.
Work In Progress: Test Stitching on Wool Fabric
Fall and winter are the seasons I tend to concentrate on stitching, and this year I am going to work on a project to make a hand-stitched wool blanket. My friend Michelle Sirois-Silver had a studio sale a few months back and she was clearing out unused materials. I came away with a pile of lovely colourful wool fabric she’d hand-dyed over the years but never used in her work. The material was so irresistible that I started coming up with a project as I selected colours because I needed to have it and make something beautiful for our home.
Look at those colours! I was originally intending to make a Queen-sized blanket, but I came to my senses and decided to concentrate my effort on a reasonable sized throw. I need to select a design for piecing the fabric together, but I want to concentrate my efforts on stitching designs into the fabric. I did a test piece (pictured below) using a spiral pattern done in straight stitch.
This is going to be a lot of work, and very challenging to do because I’ve never made a blanket before. It could take me years to finish, or maybe I’ll be so determined it’ll be gracing my couch by next spring.
Learning The Art of Kumihimo
I am so grateful Vancouver has Maiwa and their school of textiles because they manage to bring to town so many interesting and skilled artists from all over the world to do talks, teach workshops, and share their work. When I looked through their latest brochure earlier this year I knew I wanted to take a workshop, but it was a toss up between embroidery and learning something totally different. I went with a two day workshop on kumihimo with master artist Makiko Tada, simply because her work seemed so compelling.
Kumihimo is a braiding technique traditionally used as functional and decorative ties for samurai armour and swords, and in current day are used for tying obi and haori jackets. My hands-on experience in the workshop demonstrated to me that kumihimo is essentially small scale weaving, and can get incredibly complicated.
Some participants came to the workshop with their own marudai, which is a wooden stand, but everyone was given a foam disk marked with notches and numbers to work with. This was more my speed since I am not a weaver and many in the class were. Our first project was to work with four strands of yarn in two different colours to create the most basic of braids.
Our next project took things up a few levels as we worked with twenty-four strands of silk thread, divided into sections of three per notch and long enough to wind up into bobbins. That’s when things got really complicated as we quickly went through four different kumihimo patterns to try and master by the end of day one. Some I was able to get my head around and others were totally confusing. It’s hard to explain but you use both hands to braid and they move around the disk in specific movements, usually in the opposite direction. My brain was totally exhausted by the end of day one, but I came back for more in day two.
Makiko also brought in many samples of a variety of different braids done in different fibres, and vibrant colours. It was inspiring.
Work by Makiko Tada
Work by Makiko Tada
Work by Makiko Tada
I completed three braids by end of day two that I am happy with, which are pictured below. I decided to stick with the simpler patterns and really get a handle on the technique because there was no way I was going to get my head around the five different designs we were shown. We were given beautiful supplies to take home for further work, along with two different disks to work with.
I’m glad I took this workshop because it was super challenging and different from most of the textile work I’ve learned so far. I’m not sure what I am going to do with this going forward but I definitely need more practice.
The Tree of Life At Lipont Place
These are photos of some of the wonderful art in Tree of Life at Lipont Place in Richmond. I went to see it last weekend and left feeling super excited and inspired by all of the incredible work. It’s a traveling show predominantly featuring textile art by fifty-eight master artists from twenty Asian countries.
From the Lipont Place website:
The Tree of Life is an archetype, theme, motif, image, spiritual concept and mythological story that is found across cultures and throughout human history. It is understood to connect all forms of creation and is a cosmic conception that embodies life’s mysteries, unites the heavens, the earth, and the underworld, and is seen as a representation of everlasting life. Its various interpretations from indigenous cultures and major religions have influenced art, architecture, and visual representation for millennia.
This international exhibition explores the ways in which the Tree of Life has been represented in 20 countries across Central, South, East, and South-east Asia and includes the artwork of 58 artists and craftspeople, many of whom are masters of their chosen form and some who are Living National Treasures in their countries of origin. The artworks are as diverse as the cultures they originate from and are both traditional and contemporary. They are handcrafted from natural and sustainable materials, and include textiles, paintings, ceramics, weaving, leather, lacquer ware, jewellery, stone, wood, and metal.
The show continues until Tuesday October 10th. Read more about it on the Lipont Place website.
Pattern Play with Upcycled Envelope Paper
I created these pieces two weeks ago for an artist call application, and have been inspired by their mix of colours and patterns ever since. I shared work in progress of one of them in a previous blog post about revisiting recycled paper from security envelopes in my work again. It was a pleasant surprise all of this pattern mixing works as well as it does. Both pieces are approximately 9″ x 9″, and will go nicely into 12″ x 12″ shadowbox frames.
The pieces are inspired by a few different things, including quilting blocks and granny squares. I realized recently I should just acknowledge I am heavily inspired by textile art design and process in my approach to creating art from paper. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to bring my modular approach to installation in the type of work I create to fit into frames and hang on a wall. These two pieces feel closer to those ideas.
I had a lot of enjoyment in making these because I had to pull it together in a short amount of time in order to make a last minute deadline. I couldn’t over think it, so I made decisions about composition, material selection, and pattern choices as quickly as possible. It felt really good to work that way.
I want to make more of these pieces because I have lots more security envelope paper to make use of. In the meantime, my fingers are crossed these two get accepted into the show I submit them for.
Sculptural Work by Mo Kelman
I attended a lecture by Mo Kelman at the beginning of September as part of Maiwa School of Textiles fall schedule, when they bring in a new round of out of town speakers to teach and talk. Kelman is an interesting choice for Maiwa because while she does use textiles in her work, her approach is non-traditional and not at all functional.
I went back a week later to view her show at the Silkweaving Studio on Granville Island.
It was great to see her work in person so soon after the talk because photos don’t quite do justice to them. I loved these amazing sculptures that use bamboo structures, nails, thread, fabric, and sometimes sausage casing (!) to create abstract organic forms stretched across the wall. The shadows cast by the forms were an import element to the work as well, but maybe it’s because I love a good shadow.
Unfortunately, you can’t go see the show yourself because it closed on the weekend but you can check out more work on Mo Kelman’s website.
Cute Fox Embroidery Kit by Kiriki Press
I bought this embroidery kit by Kiriki Press at the Paper Place when I was in Toronto earlier in the year. I loved the cute design and thought it would be a good practice project to brush up on my embroidery skills. But when I started working on it in July I was really frustrated by the small scale and having to follow a pattern. I set it aside for most of the summer and then decided to have another go at it this weekend.
I’d been lamenting my lack of productivity last week so I really wanted to work on something. I somehow managed to get past my frustrations with this kit when I took it out on Saturday, and made my way through all of the embroidery by mid-afternoon on Sunday. This was between going out for walks, naps, swimming at the beach, reading, and eating. I learned new stitches – the chain stitch and the ladder stitch – and fell in love with the little fox in the process.
The kit comes with a back piece and stuffing to turn the fox into a very cute little softie. She is about six inches high, and is a lovely addition to my small collection of handmade toys. The first I’ve made myself!
Uninterrupted Under The Cambie Bridge
Uninterrupted is a stunning video installation that has been playing under the Yaletown side of the Cambie Street Bridge all summer, in Cooper’s Park. I saw it for the second time last night with friends.
The 25 minute video is mapped to the pillars and underside of the bridge, and follows the migration of Pacific Salmon from beginning until their sad end. The image above shows the projector doing a mapping test before the performance started, which was pretty interesting.
I shot a few stills during the performance but mostly I wanted to enjoy it without a camera in the way. The imagery begins and ends in a cityscape but is mostly water and salmon at different stages of their lives. It’s awe inspiring and magical.
Performances of Uninterrupted continue until September 24th, and the start time is currently at 9pm. This may shift as it gets later in the year and the sunsets earlier. I recommend taking a blanket and small pillow because it’s best viewed while lying down.