Post-Earthquake Report for San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas: Rumor or Fact
The 8.2 magnitude earthquake shook southern Oaxaca state and Chiapas a month ago on September 7, 2017. What’s the situation in Chiapas now? I asked my friends Ann Conway, owner of La Joya Hotel, and Bela Wood, owner of Bela’s B&B, for an on-the-ground report about the state of things in and around San Cristobal […]
Sunday Afternoon on the Last Aztec Lagoon: Xochimilco
We packed it in. After a Sunday morning at Casa Azul followed by seeing the largest private collection of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo paintings at the Museo Dolores Olmedo, we took an UBER (safe, easy, the only way to get around in Mexico City, despite USA negatives) to the Embarcadero de Nativitas in Xochimilco […]
Details, Another View of Frida Kahlo at Casa Azul
In the last three years, I’ve probably visited Casa Azul, where Frida Kahlo was born and lived with Diego Rivera, over ten times. I come because I organize the art history study tour, Looking for Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Can you get to Mexico City next weekend? On this latest visit last Friday with […]
Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera in Mexico City: Art History Study Tour,
Arrive Thursday, October 17 and depart Monday, October 21, 2019. Space available for 4 people. Cost is $795 per person. (Does not include lodging) Come to Mexico City to explore the lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera through their art. This is in-depth art history education at its best! We offer you a narrated, leisurely […]
Mexico City Architecture: Luis Barragan House Photo Essay
True Confession: In all the years I’ve been visiting Mexico City, I never made it to the Casa Luis Barragan in Colonia Condesa. One of the benefits of staying in this neighborhood is to make a pilgrimage to the home where this disciple of Corbusier lived. You MUST make a reservation in advance to visit. […]
Safety in Mexico City. Advice for Travelers. Featured in Mexico News Daily.
Mexico News Daily asked me to write about SAFETY IN MEXICO CITY. The feature story was published today! Let me know what you think. *** When The New York Times picked Mexico City as the #1 among 52 places to go in the world in 2016, I felt like doing a somersault. Finally, my much […]
Have you been to Mexico City? Is it SAFE? Share your comments.
Hi, dear readers: I’m planning to write a feature article about Mexico City safety, and would like to hear your opinions about visiting there. Here are some ideas: Where do you live? Why did you go to Mexico City? How was your experience arriving at the Mexico City airport? What about getting a taxi to […]
On The Road, Again: Leaving Oaxaca, Hello North Carolina, California and India
If I had Willie Nelson’s voice and guitar picking skills, I’d give you a personal performance. But, my elementary school glee club (mandatory) teacher asked me to mouth the words. You might like to hear him sing, once again. Willie Sings: On The Road Again I left Oaxaca early this morning and now overnight in […]
Happy Birthday, Mexico: Celebrating Independence Day
On September 16, 1810, Mexico declared her Independence from Spain. Hidalgo, a priest from Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato, gave out El Grito, the cry for freedom and the war began. The Spanish conquest of Mexico began in 1521, and after almost 300 years of occupation, the country followed the United States independence model to set itself […]
Artist Hollie Taylor Creates Frida Kahlo Retablos
At Casa Azul in Coyoacan, Mexico City, one of the largest collections of folk art ex-votos (also called retablos) hangs along with pre-Columbian art and memorabilia collected by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. They were avid supporters of artists who had no formal training but who represented the naive, populist art of Mexico. Ex-votos are […]
At the Dolores Olmedo Museum: Pablo O’Higgins Prints
The entire Frida Kahlo permanent exhibition of paintings at the Dolores Olmedo Patiño Museum in Mexico City is on loan to the Faberge Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, until April 30. We discovered this last Sunday as we made our afternoon visit as part of the Looking for Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera Art History […]
2016 Summer-Fall: Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera–Mexico City Art History Study Tour
Come to Mexico City to explore the lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera through their art. This is in-depth art history education at its best! We offer you a narrated cultural immersion that you can miss if you visit on your own. Our expert guide is a bi-lingual Mexican art historian! Come solo, with […]
Pablo O’Higgins and Mexican Muralism: A Weekend in Mexico City
Mexico City is Number One on the New York Times recommended travel destinations. CDMX has it all, they say, and I agree. This is probably the tenth time I’ve been here in the last two years for the art history study tour I organize, Looking for Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. New Dates: June 30-July 3, […]
2016 Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera: Mexico City Art History Study Tour
Come to Mexico City to explore the lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera through their art. This is in-depth art history education at its best! We offer you a narrated cultural immersion that you can miss if you visit on your own. Come solo, with a partner or friend. Norma Schafer participates in all […]
Diego Rivera Murals at Secretariat of Public Education (SEP), Mexico City
Diego Rivera, Mexico’s famed muralist, returned there from Europe in 1921 at the invitation of Jose Vasconcelos, Mexico’s Secretary of Public Education, to paint three floors of murals in the national headquarters that was once a Franciscan convent. From 1923 to 1928, Rivera worked in the building with assistants to create 125 panels that would […]
El Rebozo Made in Mexico Exhibit, Franz Mayer Museum, Mexico City
Getting to see this exhibit El Rebozo Made in Mexico before it closes Sunday, August 30, 2015, has been a priority for me since I first heard about the planning for it several years ago from British fashion designer-textile artist Hilary Simon. I scheduled this Mexico City stopover of two days before returning to the […]
Bully Pulpit: Why Not Fly Aeromexico to Oaxaca?
Aeromexico, are you listening? Why is it so hard to have a decent customer service experience with your airline company? I’ve been debating whether to publish this and decided to go ahead. Maybe it will get a decision maker’s attention. There is no customer service feedback link on your website! I arrived in Mexico City […]
Travel Day (and Night) to Oaxaca, Mexico
You might think that a short post about taking an airplane to Oaxaca belongs in a Tweet or Facebook post. Federal elections will be held this Sunday, June 7, and this is wrecking havoc in Oaxaca. The Oaxaca airport was closed yesterday and news from friends there on the ground is that it is closed […]
Diego Rivera Murals in San Francisco: Critical Guide for Visiting
There are three Diego Rivera frescoes in San Francisco, California. To get in to see them all is not easy, but it is well worth the effort. It was an incredible treat to be able to see these frescoes up close and personal. A word of advice: it’s very important to plan and confirm your visits […]
Iconic Frida Kahlo: A Look Inside Her Closet
Frida Kahlo is iconic. I have described her as the 20th century’s Virgin of Guadalupe. Her legend endures. The Huffington Post has just published a photographic essay by Ishiuchi Miyako of her personal belongings, along with letters and photographs, first revealed decades after her death. These clothes and other life’s artifacts — letters, corsets, altered shoes […]
2016 Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera: Mexico City Art History Study Tour
Come to Mexico City for an art history tour to explore the lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera through their art. This is in-depth art education at its best! We offer you a narrated immersion experience that you cannot get visiting these places on your own. Come solo, with a partner or friend. Norma […]
Wide Angle View: Antoni Gaudi’s Basilica Sagrada Familia, Barcelona
Awesome. Inspiring. Surreal. Transformational. Meditative. Astonishing. Captivating. Beyond imagination. Crazy. No words can adequately describe the Basilica Sagrada Familia in Eixample, Barcelona, Spain. You can learn more about this architectural wonder by reading works of art historians, cultural pundits and architects than you can from me. So, I won’t say much more than this is […]
Around the Zocalo, Sunday in Mexico City
Sunday is family day in Mexico. Most people work a long six-day week often until eight or nine at night, so this is the only time they have together for an entire day. On this particular Sunday, the Zocalo is filled with families flying kites across the great expanse that looks as huge as Tiananmen Square in […]
Looking for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo: Garden at Casa Azul
Casa Azul, home of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera in Coyoacan, Mexico City, has a stunning garden. Once the home of Frida’s father and mother, and where she was born in 1907, Rivera bought the property after the family amassed huge debt paying for years of treatment after the bus accident that severely handicapped Frida […]
Thanksgiving and Frida Kahlo, Hospitals and Recovery
It’s Thanksgiving Day 2014. I’m at Duke Regional Hospital in Durham, North Carolina recovering from knee replacement surgery in a hospital bed that reclines to any position at the touch of a finger. In the past twenty-four hours, Frida Kahlo has often entered my mind. Mostly because she did such a miraculous job of […]
Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera: Art History Tour 2015
Come to Mexico City for an art history tour to explore the lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera through their art. 2015 Schedule April 9 – 13, 2015 We will have a long weekend — 4 nights and 5 days, to learn about Diego Rivera‘s stunning Mexico City murals, visit Casa Azul where Diego and Frida […]
More About Mexico City: Museums
For the past week, before returning today to North Carolina for knee replacement surgery next week, I have been in Mexico City where some of the world’s best museums are found. I added on two days on my own before we started our fifth Looking for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Art History Study Tour […]