Tag Archives: paintings

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.

Ex-voto in Casa Azul, the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City

Traditional ex-voto/retablo in Casa Azul, the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City

They were avid supporters of artists who had no formal training but who represented the naive, populist art of Mexico.

I am broken but I am happy. Frida Kahlo Retablo by Hollie Taylor

Ex-votos are small devotional paintings that offer thanks or prayers to a saint for a gift granted, wish fulfilled or for good health. It usually includes a hand-written note of gratitude at the bottom of the painting.

After a foot amputation, Kahlo gave us this inspiration, interpreted by Hollie Taylor

Hollie Taylor is a North Carolina artist who loves Mexico and Frida Kahlo. On Friday, April 8, the North Carolina Crafts Gallery in Carrboro, hosts an opening reception for Hollie and artist colleague Madelyn Smoak from 6-9 p.m., Dreaming of Frida: Hollie & Madelyn at Casa Azul. 

Frida Kahlo Retablo by Hollie Taylor Novak

Hollie has  adapted the ex-voto concept to offer thanks to Frida for her courage, strength, femininity, resolve and creativity by creating Frida Retablos. These are small devotional wall plaques with many of the icons and sayings that represent Frida Kahlo.

Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera in Mexico City Art History Study Tour

Kahlo studio at Casa Azul

Kahlo studio at Casa Azul, just as she left it

As we know, Frida’s health issues — childhood polio and a debilitating accident at age 18 that rendered it impossible for her body to carry a child — defined her and shaped her art. French artist Andre Breton named her a surrealist, a brand she refuted.

I paint because I need to. Frida Kahlo Retablo by Hollie Taylor

She was a woman who painted her emotions and that is what makes her a great artist. We can identify with her pain, passion and joy.

I paint self-portraits because. Frida Kahlo Retablos by Hollie Taylor

Hollie captures the spirit of Frida Kahlo in the retablos she created for this show. At the gallery, the retablos are offered at $58 USD.

Shrine to Frida Kahlo by Hollie Taylor

Shrine to Frida Kahlo by Hollie Taylor

You can order your retablo from Hollie at a direct-from-artist price.  They are lightweight, ready for hanging, made from collected objects on hand-painted rice-paper covered foam core.

Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera in Mexico City Art History Study Tour

Hollie also teaches retablo workshops in her Chapel Hill home studio. Email her at hollietaylorart@icloud.com her for details about ordering and scheduling a workshop.

Hollie Taylor Novak, mixed media artist

Hollie Taylor Novak, mixed media artist

 

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 programs. Small group size limited to 8 people for quality experience.

 

2016 Schedule

  • February 11-15, 2016
  • March 31-April 4, 2016

Arrive and meet for a group dinner on Thursday at 7 p.m. We will have a long weekend — three full days —  to learn about Diego Rivera‘s stunning Mexico City murals, visit Casa Azul where Diego and Frida Kahlo lived, and see the largest private collection of their work at the Dolores Olmedo Museum.

Man Controller of the Universe 1934 replicates mural destroyed at Rockefeller Center

Through their eyes, you will better understand Mexico’s political, cultural and social history, and their personal lives together. Theirs is a story of Mexico’s development as a post-revolutionary modern nation. You will also meet their contemporaries, muralists Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Sequieros, as you compare and contrast their collective work.

If you want to register, send me an email. Tell me the dates you prefer!

A few little nips

A few little nips — Frida painted this after Rivera’s affair with her sister

This is an incredible experience! The Rivera murals at the Secretary of Public Education building were like nothing I expected. The scale, the intensity, the variation of themes, the continual flow of connecting  vignettes – just mind blowing! It isn’t just an art tour. It is an intense immersion into the beginning of an art movement, a cultural movement, and a culmination of historic events that come alive. — Christine Bouton, North Carolina

 

Our expert guide is a noted art historian who holds a master’s degree in art history who is about to embark on a doctoral program. She shares her passion for the Mexican Muralists, narrates the expedition, and leads us through these spaces to give you the most meaningful educational experience:

  • Palacio Nacional
  • Palacio Bellas Artes
  • Museo de Mural de Diego Rivera
  • Secretaria de Educacion Publica (SEP)
  • San Ildefonso National Preparatory School
  • Abelardo Rodriguez market
  • Casa Azul — the home of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo
  • Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiño

MuralsSEP+Best81-28 

Yes, you can visit these places independently. But it’s not likely you will get the same in-depth knowledge, insights, and perspectives if you do.

 

She called him toad. He was 20 years older. They were passionate about life, politics, each other. They shaped the world of modern art and she became an icon in her own right, creating an independent identity that serves as a role model for women. They were twice married and unfaithful, the subjects of books and film, and art retrospectives around the world.

Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Park mural covers 500 years of Mexican history

Rivera’s Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Park survived 1985 earthquake

Casa Azul  — Museo Frida Kahlo is a tribute to the life of both artists. Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiño holds the largest private collection of Frida and Diego paintings in the world. Lola Olmedo was a benefactor and life-long personal friend of Rivera who became executor of his estate that included Casa Azul.

 

Rivera’s mural at the Palacio Nacional (National Palace) covers detailed Mexican history, from pre-Hispanic America to the Spanish Conquest through industrialization, including the French and U.S. invasions, from 1521 to 1930.

David Alfaro Sequieros, Rivera rival, painted this mural at Palacio Bellas Artes

David Alfaro Sequieros, Rivera rival, painted this mural at Palacio Bellas Artes

Plus, you will have lots of options for independent exploration: shop for outstanding folk art, and eat at local markets, historic and fine contemporary and traditional restaurants!

Lunch at the gourmet Mercado San Juan

Lunch at the gourmet Mercado San Juan

See our reviews on Trip Advisor!

Base Trip Includes:

  • welcome dinner at renown restaurant Azul Historico
  • guided discussions by an expert art historian educated at UNAM and Southern Methodist University
  • introduction to Norma’s favorite restaurants (meals not included) and folk art galleries
  • transportation to Casa Azul and Dolores Olmedo Museum
  • complete travel packet and readings sent in advance via email

DiegoFrida4Group2-5 copy 

Also consider Evoking Frida Kahlo: Making Altars + Shrines Mixed Media Art Workshop — honor a loved one or create a self-portrait visual memoir

Preliminary Itinerary

  • Day 1, Thursday:  Meet for group dinner at 7 p.m. at Restaurant Azul Historico near the Zocalo. Dinner included in your tour cost. Overnight in Mexico City.
  • Day 2, Friday: guided visit to SEP, Colegio de San Idlefonso, where Diego met Frida, and the Abelardo Rodriguez market where Rivera’s students, including Pablo O’Higgins, painted. Lunch and dinner on your own. Overnight in Mexico City.
One of 125 Rivera painted at SEP, 1923-28

One of 125 Rivera painted at SEP, 1923-28, this one mocking the bourgeoisie

  • Day 3, Saturday: guided visit to Palacio Bellas Artes and Museo Mural de Diego Rivera. Optional folk art shopping or visit to Anthropology Museum. Lunch and dinner on your own. Overnight in Mexico City.
Palacio Bellas Artes built during Porfirio Diaz presidency

Palacio Bellas Artes built during the 30-year Porfirio Diaz presidency

  • Day 4, Sunday:  guided visit to Casa Azul and Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiño. Includes transportation. Lunch on your own. Overnight in Mexico City.
  • Depart on Monday for home.
The oldest street in Mexico next to the Palacio Nacional

The oldest street in Mexico next to the Palacio Nacional looks like Europe

Be ready to WALK and then, walk some more!  Don’t forget to bring an extra suitcase to pack treasures you pick up along the way.

  • Base Cost:  $595 USD per person without lodging.
  • Upgrade: $895 USD per person double occupancy, includes 4 nights lodging.
  • Single Supplement offered: $1,195 USD

Choose the upgrade and stay with us at a comfortable bed and breakfast inn located in the historic center of Mexico City with breakfast included.

Tiffany glass ceiling at El Gran Hotel Ciudad de Mexico

Tiffany glass ceiling at El Gran Hotel Ciudad de Mexico — an optional stop on our tour

What the base cost does not  include:

  • lodging — we can recommend wonderful hotels in the historic center of Mexico City where you can make and pay for your own lodging arrangements directly, such as Chill Out Flat B&B, Hotel Catedral or Gran Hotel Ciudad de Mexico.
  • meals except noted in itinerary, alcoholic beverages
  • transportation to/from Mexico City
  • museum admission fees
  • mandatory international health/accident insurance
  • tips for hotels, meals and other services

Base Cost:  $595. USD per person. Small group experience. Maximum: 8 people.

MuralsSEP+Best81-22 MuralsSEP+Best81-21MuralsSEP+Best81-24 

Upgrade: $895. USD per person double occupancy, includes B&B lodging with breakfast, private bath for four nights, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Otherwise, all exceptions noted above apply.

Single Supplement: $1,195. USD for private room and bath.

Optional: Arrive early and/or stay later to discover Mexico City and her incredible museums and restaurants. We will give you a list  of recommendations to explore on your own.

Katharsis, 1934 mural by Jose Clemente Orozco, Palacio Bellas Artes

Katharsis, 1934 mural by Jose Clemente Orozco, Palacio Bellas Artes

Reservations and Cancellations.  A 50% deposit will guarantee your spot.  The last payment for the balance is due 45 days before the program start date. Payment shall be made by PayPal.  We will send you an itemized PayPal invoice.

Please understand that we make arrangements months in advance of the program. Deposits or payments in full are often required.  If cancellation is necessary, please tell us in writing by email. After 45 days before the program starts, no refunds are possible. However, we will make every possible effort to fill your reserved space or you may send a substitute. If you cancel on or before the 45 day date, we will refund 50% of your deposit.

Frida died July 12, 1954 not long after she painted these watermelons

Frida died July 13, 1954, at age 47, not long after she painted these watermelons

Required–Travel Health/Accident Insurance:  We require that you carry international accident/health/emergency evacuation insurance.  Proof of insurance must be sent at least two weeks before departure.  If you do not wish to do this, we ask you email a PDF of a signed and witnessed waiver of liability, holding harmless Norma Hawthorne Schafer and Oaxaca Cultural Navigator LLC. Unforeseen circumstances happen!

 

To register, email us at norma.schafer@icloud.com. We accept payment with PayPal only. Thank you.

Frida’s sketchbook and journal. Notice the one deformed leg from childhood polio.

This workshop is produced by Norma Schafer, Oaxaca Cultural Navigator LLC.  We reserve the right to adjust the itinerary and substitute leaders without notice.

A note to Frida from Diego two years after her death … “you live in my heart.”

Paint brushes in Frida’s studio at Casa Azul, exactly as she left them

 

Frida Kahlo Mania: See Her in the USA

Our iconic Frida Kahlo, her life, art, clothing, jewelry, pain, sorrow, tragedies, affairs and everything else worth examining about her is featured in 2015 exhibitions around the United States of America.

Frida Kahlo: Art, Garden, Life is an exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden featuring the plants that Frida loved to wear and had in her Mexico City gardens.

p0080 self-portrait-with-necklace-of-thorns

Several famous paintings shown include one of Luther Burbank who she and Rivera admired, and “Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird” (1940), a parting gift to Nicholas Muray, Hungarian photographer and lover.

The Burbank portrait, which I have seen many times as part of our Looking for Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera in Mexico City: Art History Tour, is on loan from the Dolores Olmedo Museum.

The blockbuster Detroit Institute of Arts exhibition featuring Kahlo and Rivera will run until July 12, 2015. I know many who have bought plane tickets to go see it.

The New Yorker magazine says, “The exhibition is nothing if not an event, which is fitting, given how much of a moment Kahlo is having this year (see The Striking Absence in the Detroit Intitute of Arts’s Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Blockbuster and Frida Kahlo Love Letters Sell For $137,000—That’s Over $1,000 Per Page!).

For about the same price to travel to Detroit or New York, why not come to Mexico City for our art history tour that will take you to Frida’s paintings, Diego’s murals, Casa Azul and the Dolores Olmedo Museum where you can see it all (except those pieces out on loan!)

We have offered Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera in Mexico City: Art History Tour multiple times a year since early 2014 to rave reviews.

Plus, you will see the amazing gardens and the endangered xoloitzcuintle, too.

 

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 to correct the leg length difference of childhood polio, family photographs — are part of a temporary show at Casa Azul where Frida and Diego shared a life together.  So popular, it will continue and you will see it as part of our fall 2015 educational arts programming.

Diego_Frida_July2014-101 Diego_Frida_July2014-107 Diego_Frida_July2014-103

Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera in Mexico City: 3-Day Art History Tour. Click this link for complete program itinerary. This weekend walking tour also includes visits to Casa Azul and Museo Dolores Olmedo with transportation.

Choose Your Dates:

  1. September 24-27, 2015.
  2. October 22-25, 2015.
  3. November 12-15, 2015.
  4. December 3-6, 2015.

Come solo, with a partner or friend. Norma Hawthorne Shafer accompanies all programs.

Visit for the weekend. Make it a getaway. Make this trip part of your Mexico City travel plans. Stop here with us and then go on to other parts of Mexico or wrap up your Mexico trip and explore Mexico City with us before returning home. This is a great orientation to Mexico’s art, history and culture, and to become more familiar with Mexico City .

Diego_Frida_July2014-99 DiegoFrida4Group2-35 Diego_Frida_July2014-100

Blessings and Benedictions: Art Makes a Home

Four years ago in anticipation of moving into the little casita in Teotitlan del Valle, I bought a painting by Oaxaca artist Pantaleon Ruiz Martinez, titled Sombras de Mi Ayer (Shadows of My Yesterday).

Pantaleon Ruiz Martinez-6  Pantaleon Ruiz Martinez-7

He had just finished an exhibition in Mexico City and luckily the painting I loved had not sold.  I arranged to make periodic PayPal payments over several months to make the purchase seem more affordable.   Here are some photos from Pantaleon’s 2008 exhibition catalog Mis Memorias–Mis Sueños (My Memories–My Dreams).

Pantaleon Ruiz Martinez-4-2 Pantaleon Ruiz Martinez-3-2Pantaleon Ruiz Martinez-2-2

Then, when the construction took longer than expected, Pantaleon agreed to keep it in storage for me.  He had to hide it because people who came into his studio over the years wanted to buy it!

Pantaleon Ruiz Martinez-8 Pantaleon Ruiz Martinez-2-3 Pantaleon Ruiz Martinez-3-3

When I got settled into the casita this last week, I asked Pantaleon if he would bring the painting and help me choose a place to hang it.  I had in mind a house blessing with a bit of mezcal to go along.  Without ART this is not really a HOME!  We picked the center of the wall over the sofa.  

Fortunately, I bought a drill and a concrete drill bit when I first moved in.  It comes in handy and I know how to use it.  With the help of his friend Venustiano, we got the painting hung in ten minutes.  The before and after shot of mezcal helped. 

Pantaleon Ruiz Martinez-4-3

Then, there was cause the celebrate!  Las bendiciones por mi casa!  Pantaleon’s style of painting has changed and evolved over the last four years.  He is a multi-talented artist who is working in the Oaxaca graphics arts studio of Fernando Sandoval to make etchings, making collaborative metal sculpture in Mexico D.F., and has his hands in clay making pottery.

Pantaleon Ruiz Martinez-6-2

I told someone recently that I would rather buy art than food.  Fortunately, with 20 handmade mole amarillo tamales in the refrigerator that costs $5 USD, I don’t need to make that choice.  Maybe, I should say art and fresh flowers are what it takes to make a house a home.  As we say in Zapotec, Chichi Bayo, salud, to good health, blessings.

When you come to Oaxaca, send Pantaleon an email to arrange a visit to his Teotitlan del Valle studio.  You will love meeting him .

Pantaleon Ruiz Martinez-5 Pantaleon Ruiz Martinez-4 Pantaleon Ruiz Martinez-3 Pantaleon Ruiz Martinez-2