Azulejos - Lisbon, Portugal

September 08, 2017 by Emily Bruff

On the way home from my trip to Angola I strategically placed a long layover in Lisbon, Portugal as my last stop before flying home. This was an important part of my trip because Angola was a Portuguese colony until the war of independence ended in 1974. So, much of my Angola experience was really influenced by Portugal.

My flight from Amsterdam landed late so I went straight to my hotel - which was amazing anyway, but especially after spending three weeks in Africa.

The next morning I had a fantastic coffee in the hotel and headed to the subway to begin my full day of exploration. Luckily, I had experts (Robert and Teague) give me a detailed plan of how to fill my day complete with a hand drawn map of the city before leaving Angola!

The first thing I was amazed with was the incredible tile covering EVERY square inch of wall space on 95% of the buildings. These tiles are called azulejos, which stems from the Arabic, meaning small polished stone.

This style can be traced back to as early as the 13th century but was most popular between the 16th and 17th centuries. The hand painted tiles’ most common colors were blue and white and sometimes yellow/gold. I walked down each little street nearly bumping into people simply because I couldn’t stop looking at the buildings!

Lisbon was incredible. The weather was perfect, the food was amazing and I got to see every spot on the Meyers’ map.

Tchitundu Hulu - Virei, Angola

September 17, 2016 by Emily Bruff

After the 600 kilometers to Namibe from Huambo, we drove another 1.5 hours through the desert to the village of Virei. After gaining permission from the village and a police escort, we were on our way another 30 minutes through extremely rough desert terrain toward the painted rocks of Tchitundu Hulu. After only dreaming about seeing these rocks in person a year before, I was just minutes from laying my eyes on them. The last stretch we were literally driving on the bottom of a dry river bed, navigating between rocks and trees. At first we were distracted by an enormous mountainous rock that rose up before us. It had two large rock overhangs which made it look like a face with squinty eyes.

Although this mountain looked familiar from my research, I was worried for a moment because if the paintings were in those overhangs, I would have come all this way for nothing since I am not a rock climber and so did not bring rock climbing gear. But in all my research I had not read about anyone (of the two articles I found) having to climb to see the paintings.

We continued on the course which began to lead us away from the larger rocks. Thankfully and amazingly, the GPS took us within 10 yards of the opening of the rock overhang - which was at ground level!

I jumped out of the Land Cruiser immediately recognizing the shape of the rock’s opening and tried to contain my jubilance. While there was a cement wall coming out of either side of the rocks, possibly having held a gate at one point, there was nothing protecting the ancient paintings from the elements or humans. The art, up to 20,000 years old, was just sitting there - open and vulnerable.

As I walked up the dry river bed and onto the rock I noticed some Mucubal Tribal people making their way curiously over to our truck. It felt as though I had transported through time to the very moments after the paintings had been created.

The colors were vibrant, opaque brown, red and white pigment on top of a transparent white wash background. Although I had seen several pictures of the art, it wasn't until I saw it in person that I realized the entire surface of the rock had the whitewashed under-painting. I could still see the drips from the wash covering the original color of the rock.

There were creatures, like a sea turtle and a sand dollar, that made me think the river bed could have been salty. The browns and reds were the same colors as the dirt and sand on the ground around us.

I looked out from the rock at the Mucubal people and imagined people like them expertly mixing the crushed pigments with animal fat. Then I imagined the artist applying the paint with deliberate and controlled mark making to the smooth rock walls.

I thought about the physical distance I had come and all the red tape and obstacles I had been through to see this art. The fact that I may be one of only hundreds of people throughout the history of the world to lay eyes on this, to stand right where the artist had stood, was incredibly overwhelming.

I could have stared at the lines on that rock for hours. But the sun was high in the sky and beating down. So we packed up the Land Cruiser and began the 2 hour journey back through the desert.

Open Call for International Art Making Cooperative Participants

July 23, 2016 by Emily Bruff

September 1st I leave for Angola, Africa to visit my friends Teague and Robert Meyer. I will be researching art of the region and facilitating an art making cooperative. I need participants from all over the world! If you would like to participate see the instructions below. Send me the picture(s) of your finished work and I will add it to the collection!

Symbolic Mixed Media Self Portrait.

There is no artistic ability required for this project. There is no age requirement. There is only the requirement to be thoughtful about who you are as a person and how you will tell that story to someone in a different country.

The idea behind this is that we learn about each other's daily lives.

1. COLLECT: Start to collect things to use in your project that represent daily rituals or traditions. For me, I drink coffee every morning, commute to work and pick up my kids from their nanny. So tangible things that represent that ritual are starbucks cup sleeves, gas receipts and the daily report from my kids' teachers. Then I have larger/more important traditions like quiet time and my scripture journaling. I might pull some pages from my journal. Pictures of me and my kids. A map of where I live. A picture of my church and some of my friends. All these things represent me and create variety.

2. COMBINE: Look at all your items. What pulls them together in unity? Similar colors or textures? Think about how you can amplify those similarities. How can you tone down the differences? Continuing with my example, I might use green, brown and blue as my color scheme since the green and brown is symbolic of starbucks, the blue is already in the pen marks of the daily report and the journals. Then I might decide to run copies of most of the pictures so they are black and white and can be painted/colored on. This also tones down their differences.

3. CREATE: Find something you can use to glue all your pieces onto. This is referred to as a support. It will be more interesting if it is NOT a pre-made canvas, but maybe a scrap of wood or piece of cardboard. Cardboard also has layers that are wonderful for peeling back to reveal textures. You might also find scraps of fabric, colored paper or magazines that are in your color scheme. As you are arranging your items, think about balance and emphasis. What do you want to be the first thing people see when they look at your piece? How can you use repetition to create balance around your piece? Maybe repeating the same fabric all around, or the same color. How can you create a visual sight line throughout your piece? Maybe using brightly colored thread and sewing a line all around and through the composition. Can you use an image INSTEAD of words? (Words are fine too...but keep the language barrier in mind) If you use words can you use them in an interesting way with layers? Suggested materials: cardboard, newspaper, magazines, thread, wood, markers, watercolor, acrylic, pastel, crayons, fabric, found materials, transparent paper, foil, glass, photos, and anything else you can think of!

4. CO-OP: Send me a picture of the finished piece! I will share with the group in Angola and the whole process on this blog.

Submit Artwork