Mona Superhero is an artist whose medium is, believe it or not, duct tape. When I visited her studio in Portland, Ore. a few weeks back I was surprised to see how non-duct tape it looked – I never would have known the vibrant colors and lines were created with only duct tape. The pieces are large and can take hours and hours of intricate and back-breaking work – you can check out some of the prints for sale here.

Mona was raised in Texas and landed in Portland after her car broke down there when she was driving across the country, working in strip clubs along the way to earn money. I asked how often she got back to Texas and she replied, a bit mysteriously, “I don’t go back to Texas.” I immediately thought of Thelma and Louise – I’m not sure whether it was Thelma or Louise that said something similar about avoiding Texas but Miss Mona had a similar vibe of toughness and vulnerability of both characters. Her work has a similar outlaw quality about it as well.

I asked about how all of this affected her work – being a stripper, not going back to Texas, and she replied, “It's all just made me who I am. It's made me tough and angry and sad but it's also slowed me to see beauty in the bad and ugly things in life.”

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