LIVING IN THE DANGER ZONE: BACK FROM THE DEAD

Okay... well, this story isn't quite as excting as this heading makes out! Despite living in a part of the world where earthquakes are frequent, typhoons tear through the country on a frequent basis (right now the rain is pouring horizontally outside my window), and riding to work on my scooter is like a game of MarioKart, the last thing I expected was to be incapacitated by a 'wrist injury'. Least not from any kind of bathroom escapades, as opposed to say, an epicly proportioned truck running me down at an intersection - as the news channels here like to show on looped videos. Yes, an injury to my wrist in May has been a major factor in my inactivity both online, and in Taiwan. It’s kind of painful trying to type with torn wrist cartilage! Sadly, the story surrounding how I got my injury is not as exciting as the potential content of my blog – I simply twisted my wrist getting out the bath one night. Anyway, you didn’t come here for tales of wrist woe – but to cut a long story short, I haven’t been on as many adventures as I’d have liked since May. But my wrist is no longer painful, and I’m able to resume usual activities – including typing. So here goes… let’s go back to May!

I took a trip to Taipei (Beitou) to visit an open studio event with my friend Sophie and a couple of other German teachers. The artist I went specifically to meet was Tim Budden. I have a few pictures of his work in his studio, but I don’t think they do any justice to his work, so please click here to see his remarkable work with papercutting.

He is a Welsh artist who is also an English teacher in Taiwan. He has been involved in the illustration work and content of English language materials produced by Oxford University Press. I was motivated to meet him and see his work when I attended a conference by Caves Bookstore in Taipei, and Tim delivered a talk about how his art and teaching work overlapped. He described some of his experiences of his youth in the UK and this triggered a (very) sudden onset of homesickness! I was moved to tears during his talk – which was kind of embarrassing... With the encouragement of one of my colleagues (…who was handing me tissues during the talk…) I sent a message to Tim. We exchanged our stories, and he informed me about his open studio event.

His studio is one of a dozen or so units within a building in the Beitou area of Taipei. It’s a great space, and we got to see many different artists and their work. I really enjoyed meeting Tim in person too. He is an inspirational artworker - combining his art and teaching, and his work is truly beautiful. The colours in his work really reflect the Taiwan experience – he told me that he applies paint to the papers before cutting into them and that the shapes (particularly butterflies) are revealed through the cutting process – the removal of the paper reveals a story, rather than the application of paint or mediums. I love his approach – less is more, as they say. In this case it really is outstanding the effects that he achieves with such a small area of work. His larger work pieces are intriguingly complex, and I could have spent hours just looking at each one taking in the detail!

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