Towards the beginning of July, Boris and I visited my friend Nadine at her home near a small town called Dannenberg. She and I met in Vancouver last year when she came by for a studio visit. Nadine is a book designer and works remotely for a Vancouver-based publishing company. She comes to town about once a year to meet with them in person, which is how the meeting came about. I promised to visit her the next time I was in Germany, so of course I reached out when we decided to travel to Berlin.

Nadine is a master book binder as well as a designer, and she also has an obsession with paper folding. We spent some time in her workshop talking about materials (mostly paper) and looking through her many beautiful samples of books and paper folding pieces.

We spent a lovely few days with Nadine and her family. We went for walks, made meals together, had ice cream, visited the neighbour’s puppies, swam in a lake, went to a concert, and slept in a cozy caravan on their property. Boris and I had an enjoyable few days there. I hope Nadine and I can meet again soon.

Boris came across a flyer for a tape art convention in Berlin, which led me their wonderful exhibition, and attending a workshop on the weekend.

Tape Art is an artform where the artist uses tape or adhesive vinyl as a drawing/painting tool. From what I could observe from looking at the work on display, any type of tape will do. The most common seems to be gaffer, masking, and packing tape but in a wider variety of colours and widths than anything I’ve seen in Canada.

Ed von Schleck by Klebebande

Tangara Lavarta by Lamia

Tape sculpture by Tapeigami

Neurowand 2 by Felix Rodewalt

The image above is of one of my favourite pieces from the show, but I missed recording the artist’s name. They used a digital cutter to create the patterns from adhesive vinyl and then installed them in two layers over the windows. It looks amazing backlit by the window light.

Japanese Man by Tape That

Collision by Atau Hamos

The two images directly above are great examples of artists using tape in a painterly way to create their work.

City Bird by Klebebande

Benjamin Murphy

The pieces by Benjamin Murphy are extremely delicate and intricate cuttings made from tape and mounted onto glass. Now I’m curious about creating my own cut designs from similar materials.

The workshop I took after a tour of the exhibition was light on teaching techniques but did everyone a chance to use gaffer tape to create pieces of our own. I’ll share mine in another blog post. My new exposure to tape art is going to be a great excuse to buy more tape.

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.

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.