Japanese artist Nasa Funahara recreates famous works of art using strips of masking tape.

What started as a hobby, collecting masking tapes in different colours and patterns, turned into a successful college assignment. Since then, Nasa’s work has been exhibited as part of exhibitions and she sells her work online.

Itō Jakuchū – Golden Pheasant

She’s recreated paintings such as Johannes Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring, Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun’s Marie Antoinette portrait, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers, Edvard Munch’s The Scream, as well as the works of ukiyo-e master Utagawa Kuniyoshi.

To see more of her work, visit awrd.com.

(h/t) Spoon & Tamago

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For the past twenty-five years, devout French miniaturist Dan Ohlman has spent his days reconstructing real-life scenes into 1/24th of their actual size.

His keen eye, skilled craftsmanship and passion allows him to recreate even the tiniest details of the life-sized world with perfect execution, creating a surreal optical illusion that anyone can appreciate.

Each scene he creates takes him roughly one year to complete and he has created thirty scenes in his lifetime. Patient and happy, Ohlman shares his thoughts on why he would not want to be doing anything else in the above clip.

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Katie Thompson’s eco-friendly repurposing brand Recreate has launched a new interactive working studio in Salt River.

Recreate are well known for their creative use of discarded junk items. Combined with clever design ideas, they always manage to create a cool range of upcycled and repurposed products.

The concept behind the new studio is to let the public catch a glimpse into how Recreate works, while simultaneously browsing the latest creations.

Grab a coffee from a nearby café and watch the team at work.

For more information visit recreate.za.net.

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Most of us are starting to emerge from our winter cocoons and make plans. We decided to round up 9 awesome travel-inspired items you can buy today to help keep that travel fever at bay (for now at least). Happy browsing!

1. Globe Lamp Shade R275, Woolworths

2. Vintage Maps Sticky Notes in Gift Tin R190, Cavallini at Fine & Fabulous

3. Black Trunk Chairs with African Mud Map Fabric R9 950, Recreate  

4. World Antique Poster Map R170, Map Studio at Makro

5. World Aqua Scatter R495, Fundi at Clever Little Monkey

6. The Wanderlust Backpack R850, Double Edge

7. Box Set with Inflatable Globe R99, Décor Extravaganza at Superbalist.com

8. World Map Laundry Bag R50, Big Blue at Spree

9. Vintage Maps Petite Parcel Set of 12 Gift Bags & Sheets of Stickers R185, Cavallini at Fine & Fabulous

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Lees in Afrikaans.

Looking for a taste of the good country life with icing on top? Eccentric finery has just popped out of the oven at the Old Mac Daddy luxury trailer park, which unveiled two new Airstreams decorated by the gals from Charly’s Bakery.

“We always wanted to work with Charly’s, from right back when we used to order their cupcakes for high tea at Daddy Long Legs,” said Old Mac Daddy owner, Jody Aufrichtig.

To fulfil the design brief, Charly’s Bakery owner Jacqui Biess roped in her daughter, Alexandra, and the two of them called on their good friend Carin Cronje of Vanilla Concrete to take the helm as production manager. Says Jacqui: “After all, what is cake decorating but design-by-sugar?”

The trailers are called “Love Cake…? I Do” and “Love Cake…? Me Too” respectively. Although perfect for a family holiday with folks in the “Love Cake…? I Do” Mama trailer and kids in the “Love Cake…? Me Too” Baba trailer, there will undoubtedly be adults throwing their toys to stay in the seemingly edible cupcake fantasy that is the Baby trailer. Designed to look like the inside of a Charly’s Bakery cake box, the walls are papered with fat pink-and-white stripes. Graffiti artist Mak1one painted the Charly’s Bakery logo, parachuting cupcakes and 3D rainbow-burst over the couch.

Boldly appliqued bedding and scatters cover the custom-curved queen-size bed and plush couch. Quirky touches included the Cookie Monster scatters and mat, the birthday candle backing of the couch, stuffed felt gingerbread men and a cupcake pouf made of soccer balls.

In turn, the “Love Cake…? I Do” Mama trailer is more like the steampunk honeymoon homage to the romance of baking. Carin was responsible for the Mad Hatter’s ceramics, as well as repurposing all the old cake tins and other Milnerton Market junk into quirky steampunk lighting and decor fixtures. Carin, Jacqui and Alexandra worked on the chandeliers together, which have a crazy gypsy chic feel. A trailer with chandeliers, you ask, not to mention the pressed-ceiling wallpaper from Robin Sprong? Well, only in Elgin.

A printer’s tray table made by Katie Thompson of Recreate is filled with miniatures made with sugar and vintage metal icing nibs, which Jacqui says they got on Gumtree by swapping them for cupcakes! The upholstery and bedding boasts embroidery by Lauren Fowler. Adding further texture to the environment are cushions covered in novel T-shirt tapestries by Alex Daniel of the Kraal Gallery and others sheathed in inner-tube rubber ingeniously repurposed by Roche van den Berg.

The Mama trailer is also the only one at Old Mac Daddy that is self-catering and has an indoor shower for those particularly nippy evenings. Mama and Baby can be rented as a pair or separately, and share an outdoor patio that looks out across apple country and a picturesque dam.

Pastoral living at its finest and most eccentric, which is just perfect considering it’s the closest that you’ll ever get most of us town mice to camping! Now as for how close you’ll get us to Charly’s Bakery’s cupcakes…

Charly’s Bakery, 021 461 518, www.charlysbakery.co.za
Old Mac Daddy, 021 844 0241, www.oldmacdaddy.co.za

Read more about what VISI has to say about the Old Mac Daddy here.

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Browse the pictures above and use the links below for more information.

Carlex Design, www.carlex.pl

Laikingland, www.laikingland.co.uk

Roche Bobois, www.roche-bobois.com

Thomas Heatherwick, www.heatherwick.com

ThinkOrange, www.thinkorange.pt

Katie Thompson’s Recreate, www.recreate.za.net

Xavier Clarisse, clarissedesign.com

Christopher Jenner, www.christopher-jenner.com

Szymon Klimek, www.byk01051953.user.icpnet.pl

Richard Clarkson, richardclarkson.com

More from the SPRING FLING edition of VISI

• New and second-cycle
  Renovation and interior design is seldom a stagnant, once-off affair. The best spaces grow into themselves. See the before pictures of the houses featured in the magazine.

• Deft blue strokes
  Fabric, surfboards, shacks… Something is afoot, and not just in South Africa! From Babylonstoren to Russia, browse our full Delft trend report.

• Popcorn architecture
  We have inspiration from the Architecture ZA 2012 Biennial Festival to share. Watch our online film festival and read our report back.

• Mechanical futurism
  Some say steampunk is what happened when Goths discovered brown. Others say it grew out of a literary genre.

• Joburg Art Attack
  For at least one week in September, Joburg was hit by an art attack. Read the post-mortem and our guide to starting an art collection, written by the experts.

• Winning wishes
  In October, Warren Lewis will be giving away four paintings. Up for grabs over October and November is a Bodum Bistro Coffee Maker from Banks Kitchen Boutique. Enter the competitions here.

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Some of the country’s best local designers and manufacturers were proud exhibitors, including Haldane Martin, Aidan Bennetts, Wolf & Maiden, Okha, Frank Böhm, Andrew Dominic, Casamento and James Mudge, not to mention a host of edgier youngstas such as Thingking and Abode.

Although themes of modernist lines and lovingly crafted sustainable wood predominated, the overall creative diversity is testament to the growth of the local industry.

“South Africa is a young democracy seeking its cultural identity and this process is portrayed in our local furniture with their distinctive brands,” agreed Martin in his keynote address.

A revered South African icon of design, the furniture designer went on: “In my opinion what it takes to be a successful creative entrepreneur is PASSION. As clichéd as that may sound it is nevertheless true. Passion is an inexhaustible resource that will see us though all the trials and tribulations that challenge us as we go about manifesting our creative vision in the world. Then, of course, dogged persistence and many other personal qualities are also necessary but passion is the fuel that keeps us going.”

The exhibition was the brainchild of the Western Cape Furniture Initiative, which was formally registered as a non-profit in 2009 to develop and grow the local furniture industry by building and marketing a furniture brand locally and internationally.

More info about the Western Cape Furniture Initiative: www.capefurniture.za.org

More news from Creative Week

Creative Week Cape Town
Cape Town was a veritable creative maelstrom kicking off with the ArchitectureZA Biennial Festival, which led into Creative Week and culminates in the Loeries Awards weekend. Here’s our highlights.

The art of comics
Part of Creative Week Cape Town, the Open Book festival included an entire day dedicated to comic book artists and illustrators. We chatted to organiser Andy Mason, a legendary comic book artist himself.

Picture this
Since VISI loves all things eyecandy, we chatted to two kids book illustrators – Emily Gravett and Alex Latimer – who participated in the Open Book Festival.

SA architecture awards announced
Here are the best eight South Africa architecture projects of the past two years, as chosen by the Corobrik-SAIA Awards for Excellence, presented at a gala event during Creative Week Cape Town.

AZA2012 in Cape Town
Kicking off the official Creative Week Cape Town with international speakers including David Adjaye (UK) and Atelier Bow-Wow founders Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kajima (Japan) at the Architecture ZA 2012 Biennial Festival, it is clear that Cape Town is not waiting for 2014 to unroll its design capital status.

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Katie’s first foray into upcycling was the now iconic suitcase chairs she created for a Decorex stand in 2009. 

The popularity of the suitcase chairs proved to be the launchpad of her furniture and interior design business, Recreate. In 2010 she opened a showroom in Salt River, stocked to the brim with an ever-changing array of reimagined throwaways.

Much of Katie’s recent work consists of reworked old wooden pieces. “Wood is fantastic to work with as it complements so many other materials,” says Katie. “Without changing or transforming it too much it can very easily be adapted into many different styles.” Wooden shoehorns become coat hooks, a garden sieve is turned into a notice board, and an old wooden ruler becomes the frame of a mirror.

“I recently made a large bookshelf from an old door frame that came from a house renovation,” adds Katie. “My real treasures are found on visits to the rubbish dump! And I also source old timber from builders who collect it at the sites they work on.”

More information: 021 447 0007, www.recreate.za.net

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