Mosaic Rocks!

Mosaic Mirrors

2007-11-01T14:43:00.000-07:00

Many moons ago - or what seems like many moons ago - we used to do a lot of art/craft shows. For the most part it was a lot of fun. We had to produce a lot of pieces for our display. It was great to meet and talk to people who were interested in our art. And, on the occasion where we did make a sale, it was satisfying to have people pay real cash for our mosaics.

But it was a lot of work and the sales were far and few between. So we pretty much gave up doing the show circuit ... except for one show. We've done this for 4 years now - this will be our 5th. It's held in Provincetown - at the tip of Cape Cod - the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving. We've always done well at the show, making enough to pay for a few night's stay in a B&B and a couple of great dinners with a nice bottle of wine. This time of year is great to be in Provincetown. The chaos of the summer is over and the town is settling in for a quiet winter.

So the problem is - what do we bring? The crowd that comes to a show like this is looking to buy holiday presents. Something nice but not too expensive. We still have a lot of smaller pieces from the days we did shows - mostly trivets - but nothing which includes our marble and rocks.

So we've been making a few things to bring to the show and it's been fun doing some non-serious pieces. Here are four mirrors.

This one uses one of Lynn Moor's mirror frames (http://www.mosaicsmalti.com/). The inner rim includes polished kyanite. The outer ring is sodalite. And inbetween is satin spar selenite and marble.

This one uses one of those inexpensive Ikea frames. The inner ring of stones are pictured rocks. Moving outward - honey calcite, St Laurent marble, and Palace Onyx.

This one also uses an Ikea frame. The inner stones are white howlite, followed by blue calcite, brecia sarda and cararra marble, and a border of pure white tiles.

This one I like. It looks better in real life than the photo. The inner circle is a combination of Orsoni mosaic gold with Cararra marble. The outer circle is Cafe Pinta and Gray Black marble. The red square is Mosaic Gold and the inner fill is Pure Black marble.

Hillary Sloate - MFA Thesis Exhibition

2007-10-26T03:22:00.000-07:00

Barbiensis Pearlatum, detail, 2007, ceramic, glass

Natura Morta
MFA Thesis Exhibition
November 12 - 21, M-F, 11 am - 3 pm
reception, Monday November 12th, 5 - 7 pm
Dimock Gallery, 730 21st St. @ H St., Washington, D.C.
(Lower level of Lisner auditorium)

Foggy Bottom/GWU Metro
straight 2 blocks on 1 St.
right onto 21st, one block to gallery

http://home.gwu.edu/~hillarys

Color Matching

2007-10-12T04:14:00.000-07:00

When we designed the fashionable Mosaic Rocks t-shirt, we weren't expecting that we would change the habits of mosaic artists world wide, but look here. Dianne Sonnenberg has selected a color palette for her latest mosaic, no doubt, to match the colors of the t-shirt. How cool is that?

Well ... not really, but it is a happy coincidence. I can't wait to see how the mosaic turns out.

Check out Dianne's website at www.GnomenclatureStudios.com

30 Minute Mosaics

2007-10-10T07:15:00.000-07:00

The past Saturday was the last day of the exhibition. We had over 150 people come to see the show and attend the artist demonstration. Michael & I did the demonstration. The topic was "various mosaic materials." Previous demonstrations were in a lecture format, so we decided to do something more interactive and get people involved.

We talked about different materials - glass, ceramic, vitreous tiles, smalti, gold, marble, stone - and then gave people 30 minutes to create a mosaic using these materials. We created a design (a leaf) on a large substrate and cut it into smaller 6" x 6" pieces. Each piece has part of the design with an L to indicate that light colored tesserae should be used in the space and a D for dark colored tesserae.

Most folks had never created a mosaic before. A few were mosaic artists. But all were engaged for 30 minutes gluing all sorts of items on the squares. It may not have been the more "professional" way to introduce people to mosaic making - but everyone had a lot of fun.

Here are the results:

An Unexpected Surprise

2007-10-07T07:55:00.000-07:00

Last night, Margaret Ryan and I were given recognition by the Massachusetts House of Representatives for our work on the Art of Mosaic exhibition. We had a closing party for the artists and friends of the museum in which Denise Provost, the Somerville state representative, presented us with this honor.

Here's the text of my citation:

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
The House of Representatives

Be it hereby known to all that:
The Massachusetts House of Representatives
offers its sincerest congratulations to:

Bill Buckingham
in recognition of

Your outstanding contribution to the City of Somerville through your role as curator of the Art of Mosaic exhibit at the Somerville Muesum. Your efforts to publicize this beautiful exhibit and to involve students and members of the community were extraordinary. Your community joins me in expressing our most sincere appreciation for your contributions to our great city.

The entire membership extends its very best wishes
and expresses the hope for future good fortune
and continued success in all endeavors.

Give this 6th day of October, 2007
at the State House, Boston, Massachusetts

by: Salvatore F. DiMasi
Speaker of the House

Offered by: Denise Provost
State Representative

Here we are (left to right):
Bill Buckingham, Margaret Ryan,
Evelyn Battinelli (director of the Somerville Museum), and
Denise Provost (State Representative)

Life Imitates Art

2007-10-01T06:40:00.000-07:00

Wendy Tanner recently submitted this photo for the 2007 edition of the Mosaic Yearbook. Wendy is an Australia mosaic artists who made this mosaic for a "friend" who frequents her studio. Here's her story:

I made this bench with concrete blocks outside my studio, and decorated it with a mosaic using pebbles at one end, gradually changing to broken tiles, using the same natural colours. In contrast, the red and yellow tiles, show a large diamond python (carpet snake) which had swallowed a small animal and hung around the studio while we were renovating it. Amazingly, the original snake turned up recently, to meet its mosaic mate!! This photo shows them both together.

The full story of the snake can be found here.

Also, check out Wendy's website.

Atlanta Mosaic

2007-10-01T06:33:00.000-07:00

This is the type of mosaic that I love to see submitted to the Mosaic Atlas. Polly Price sent this photo of a mosaic on a railroad trestle in Atlanta (Hill Street, SE between Decatur St. and Martin Luther). It looks like it's been around for quite a while and I would imagine that hundreds of people drive by it every day but never even notice it. I wonder what its history is.

A larger photo can be seen here in the Atlas. Look on page 3.

Chicago Mosaic School

2007-09-24T04:13:00.000-07:00

Matt Federico (left) holding his completed marble mosaic project at the Chicago Mosaic School. Maestro Judah approves.

This last month and a half have been crazy. Now that things are calming down, I'll be able to catch up with the blog.

Opening Reception - A Big Success

2007-09-11T05:07:00.000-07:00

The opening reception for the New England Mosaic exhibition was a great success. We didn't have a scientific head count, but we expect that 300-500 people attended. I posted some photos on the exhibition's website. Go to the calendar page and click the link to view the photos.
http://www.exhibition.mosaicrocks.com/calendar.aspx

I'm behind in posting new items to the blog - but they will have to wait until we get back from our trip to Chicago next week.

Getting Ready for the Opening Day

2007-09-04T13:54:00.000-07:00

The Art of Mosaic - Somerville Museum

Somerville, Massachusetts

September 6 - October 6, 2007

Our "to-do" list is getting shorter and shorter. The museum looks great, the mosaics look great, and we're ready to open the doors on Thursday.

If you are in the Boston area, come see this exhibition which features 51 New England mosaic artists. (Who would've thought there were that many of us in New England?) The website for the exhibition is: http://www.exhibition.mosaicrocks.com/ This includes an Events Calendar as well as directions to get to the museum.

We also published a catalog with 64 full color photographs of the mosaics. It's only $6.95 (including shipping) and can be purchased on the Mosaic Rocks website. (Catalogs can be purchased at the Museum as well.)

Here's a sneak peek of the exhibition. Enjoy.

An Exhibition Coming Together

2007-08-31T04:13:00.000-07:00

We spent Tuesday configuring the movable walls in the museum and Wednesday figuring out where we wanted to put each piece. We did hang Adam & Eve (by Shawn Newton) as a symbolic gesture. They had to be first, after all.

Now, it's Thursday morning. The blank walls are begging to be adorned with mosaic art.

Anne Hyland came to hang her "Garden of Delights." This piece is on 24 panels - each a square foot. Anne spent the better part of an hour and a half measuring and marking where each panel goes. Once the wall was measured, the hanging was relatively simple.

Margaret Ryan and her husband, Lawrence Paolella, planning something. Michael O'Connell is in the background hanging Lori Bradley's Forest Floor.

Michael and Lawrence working on Forest Floor.

Katherine Jaggie came in to help. Here she's hanging our wall of ladies: "Graces of Central Park" by Lynn Moor, "Venus" by Celoni Espinola, and "Carmen" by Gretchen McPherson.

After hanging her enormous piece, "Cycles", Leslie Wallace-Coon takes on a smaller and more manageable "Full Moon Gazer" by Margaret Ryan.

The walls are filling up. In the foreground are Jessica Regelson's Calypso, Thallo, and Europa". Next to these is Linda Dadak's "Iris".

"Che" (by Celoni Espinola) having a conversation with Ann Hyland's "Self Portrait".

More walls and a pedestal adorned with art. Lorie Reilly's globe, "The Brooding Jewel". Ora Avni's "Together Apart" is in the center of the photo.

The photographers - and proud curators - photographing each other.

At the end of the day with all the mosaics hung, we put together a list of everything else to do ... but that's for another day.

The answer revealed

2007-08-29T07:57:00.000-07:00

There people took the bait. All had the correct answer:

Jackie Iskander : Jennifer appears to be working barefoot... wouldn't try that with glass... she sure looks comfy...

Lillian Sizemore : The Benefit to working with stone? answer: that you can work barefoot without slicing your feet to shreds

Alissa Turtletaub : I was reading your blog and I thought I'd take a stab at your challenge question regarding the photo of Jennifer Blakebrough-Raeburn. Is that she is working barefoot with no fear of glass shards?

* * *

Yes, yes, and yes. It's been a year since I've worked exclusively with stone, and I haven't cut my fingers once. I can also walk around the house barefoot again.

Jennifer Blakebrough-Raeburn : Mosaic Rocker!

2007-08-27T13:48:00.000-07:00

Here is Jennifer Blakebrough-Raeburn, hammer in hand, chipping away at marble while dressed in her fashionable Mosaic Rocks! t-shirt.

Jennifer is a great stone enthusiast. She is currently working on a mosaic of a red-wing blackbird. The bird has a history, starting in smalti but them metamorphosing into marble while still maintaining a touch of smalti. I've seen the beginnings of the mosaic and can't wait to see the finished piece.

This is a very important photo - Study it carefully!!!!

Jennifer is demonstrating one of the most important - if not THE MOST IMPORTANT BENEFIT for working with stone. Can you figure out what it is? If so, email me.

I'll collect any speculations over the next day or so and publish them before revealing this very important benefit.

Old Testament by Jackie Iskander

2007-08-24T03:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I posted a "random" act of mosaic. Today's posting is a "deliberate" act of mosaic.

This is Old Testament by Jackie Iskander. Up till now, Jackie hasn't worked much with natural stone even though she's been purchasing all sorts of rocks, gemstones, and marble from Mosaic Rocks for some time. This is her first inspiration which includes an ammonite fossil, marble, smalti, coco geode, pyrite, sodalite, turquoise, faceted garnet, and amazonite. It is 14 1/2" x 5 1/2". (I did not reduce this photo - so if you click on it, you will see an enlarged version.)

You may remember Jackie's work from the SAMA exhibition in Mesa. She had the treasure chest and the vase in the show.

I greatly admire Jackie's sense of design and color. I particularly admire the precision in her cutting. You can easily tell from looking at her work that every piece in the mosaic, no matter how insignificant, is deliberately cut to fit exactly in its place. This type of precision and attention is what separates good mosaic artists from the great. And Jackie is one of the greats.

Check out her website.

RAM: Random Acts of Mosaic

2007-08-23T03:45:00.000-07:00

Julie Richey sent this photo of an impromptu mosaic created on the shores of Lake Michigan.

"We created this two weeks ago in Door County, WI on the shores of Lake Michigan. It took us two attempts. The first one I had to leave half-finished, and my attempts at public art puzzle cooperation were dashed when someone jumped on it. The second attempt, we finished in two hours and it lasted at least a whole day. I didn't have the heart to go back and check again I think we definitely need more RAM: Random Acts of Mosaic."

They have sandcastle competions - why not mosaic competitions. Perhaps we should find some rocky beaches throughout the country (world?) and organize a day of beach mosaics.

A few years ago when Michael & I were traveling in the Languedoc region of France we found this RAM in a dry riverbed near Minerve.

The Colors of Calcite

2007-08-23T03:31:00.000-07:00

YowZZa! Take a look at the colors of these stones.

We recently picked up these pieces of calcite and added them to the Mosaic Rocks store. They are probably the most consistent and rich colors of calcite that I've ever seen. The orange stones look like you can pick them up and eat them.

Extra bonus - the green and blue stones are small and ready to be used or nipped further into smaller pieces. (The orange stones are somewhat chunky and still need to be cleaved.)

Extra extra bonus - we got a great price for these stones and were able to lower the price on half-pound bags.

Stacy Schlegel - Mosaic Rocker!

2007-08-21T02:46:00.000-07:00

I'm not that familiar with Stacy's work. I hope we will see more in the future. This piece looks like great fun. It's hard to tell from this reduced photo, but Stacy has a great eye for combining and laying different materials for the background of this mosaic. The order of the background is broken by the gold frame around the bird, set at an angle on the substrate which makes it all the more interesting. I can't wait to see this piece finished.

More Progress on the Mosaic Kits

2007-08-17T08:49:00.000-07:00

I finished the fist of the Roman Mosaic patterns. The color blending and andamento turned out quite well.

So onto the next design. This is the top middle design in the Roman pattern list (scroll down to see the 9 designs).

Things started out quite well. Again, the color blending in the inner arches worked well going from Gold Travertine to Yellow Cream to Crema Marfil.

But things fell apart when I tried to fill in the space between the arches and the inner square. I should have measured the distance between the arch and the square better. Instead I glued the square first, then discovered that the space was too big for two rows of stone but too small for three. It took a while to figure out how to best to the andamento and I'm still not sure if I got it correct. You can see one approach in the bottom center and a different approach in the left center sections of the circle.

One way or another, the execution is a disaster. I will throw this out and start again.

My original thinking was that this would be an easy design for someone who is relatively new to mosaics (not necessarily at the beginning level, however), but I'm not so sure about this. Cutting and laying those central white stones takes technique - unless I find an easier way to do it that looks good and is consistent with Roman design patterns.

So, giving up on the circle, I started working on the floral design. This is coming along well and in some respects is easier to do than the circle, although the pieces are fairly small.

The green marble is not easy to work with. This is the Green Jade tile. It's a beautiful color, but like all green marbles, it's difficult to cut and nearly impossible to shape into a specific size or angled cut. I found that the best way to do the leaves was to cut many small (i.e. tiny) pieces of green tile first and then build the design with the squares. You can easily make an arch with anything that's small enough.

The background of the piece will be white. I chose light brown for the star to keep an earth-tone color palette, and I didn't want a sharp contrast between the star and the background. Hopefully this will draw more attention to the flowers and not to the star.

Lynn Adamo : Rock Star

2007-08-14T05:23:00.000-07:00

I just added Lynn Adamo to the Rock Star Gallery. Her mosaics are relatively small, but they are incredibly powerful. I really like this mosaic (called "Untitled") for its combination of contrasting materials and subtle range of colors. Lynn is a master at making something which is quite complex look so simple.

Check out Lynn's website.

Working on Mosaic Kits

2007-08-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

With all that's going on these days between the New England mosaic exhibition, work on the SAMA website, and hauling around our new shipment of stone mosaic tiles, there's no time for mosaic making.

Fortunately, another project has forced its way up to the top of the queue. Michael and I are teaching a class in marble mosaics in a few weeks at the Chicago Mosaic School. We will talk about Roman mosaic traditions, design patterns, and techniques. Then have participants work on their own mosaic using our the stone mosaic tiles (which are fabulous, I must say).

Our plan is to provide patterns for 5-10 designs from which participants can choose. But we first want to create the mosaics ourselves to work through any issues in advance. This means that I need to walk away from the computer and actually make mosaics for a change. Yippie!

For the patterns, I borrowed from Lynn Moor an incredible book that catalogues Roman mosaic geometric design patters titled: Le Decor Geometrique de la Mosaique Romaine. The book (Vol 1 of a two volume set) has hundreds of pen & ink reproductions of Roman patterns. It's quite humbling.

I selected these patterns to start with:

Most are fairly advanced - but there are a few which will be appropriate for a beginning mosaicist. These will eventually become Mosaic Kits which will be added to our collection in the Mosaic Rocks shop.

I am working on the pattern in the upper left. Michael just started working on the one in the lower left.

Here's the progress so far.

We're working on an 11" x 11" MDF board. (11 inches is a good size- not for any artistic reasons, however. It fits into a USPS flat rate box.) I traced the pattern onto the board and sealed the board with a wash of Weldbond and water.

I'm using the stone mosaic tiles which are roughly 1/2" x 1/2" x 1/4" and cutting them into quarters. The tiles are glued directly onto the substrate. The colors in this piece are: Pure Black, Green Jade, Mugwort Green, Red Travertine, Rose Empress, Crema Marfil, and China Beige.

I started with the outline of the design/flower. Then filled in a couple of the petals.

These two did not turn out very well. It takes a couple of attempts to figure out how to lay the stones to get the correct placement and shading - something which is very important in a geometric design in which consistency is key.

Instead of starting at the top, I found that it's important to lay down the line of stones at the base of the upper arch. This is also the line where the darker stones transitions into the lighter stones.

The stones in the upper arch can now be filled in. Each arch isn't exactly the same, but there is space for two lines of stone which can be cut to shape to fit in the space.

I next start at the bottom and work up, trying to keep the rows even with the ones in the other petals. This will create a nice circle pattern. Eventually, I get to the row which transitions from the cream colored marble to the light gray/green marble. The row alternates the two stones.

I then fill in the gray/green stones, cutting them to shape so that the fit in the remaining space.

I am trying to create another effect by increasing the widths of the rows as they move up the circle. The row of the petal closest to the center is fairly thin with each row progressively getting larger.

Here's the piece so far. I next need to fill in the background. I like how the shading turned out. And I like the circular movement of the stones.

Marble is interesting. By itself, each stone looks fairly dull, but when placed next to other stones - even ones with a similar color hue - its true beauty really shines.

I've found something similar with smalti - but in an opposite way. One color of smalti has such a bold color, but when placed adjacent to other colors, the boldness is somewhat muted and the magic of color blending happens. There have been times when I was reluctant to use a color of smalti thinking that it wouldn't work in the piece, but when I combined it with other colors, it worked just fine. The same holds true for marble.

This piece is almost done. Then it's on to the next.

Queen Califia - continued

2007-08-06T02:53:00.000-07:00

More photos from Queen Califia's Magic Circle taken by Dawnmarie Zimmerman.

Queen Califia's Magic Circle

2007-08-04T04:09:00.000-07:00

Dawnmarie Zimmerman sent this photo from Niki de Saint Phalle's Queen Califia's Magic Circle in Escondido, California: "It was AMAZING! Several sections of this entire thing is done in polished gemstones. Kim and I had the best time running around trying to identify them all. Malachite, Red Jasper, Rainbow Jasper, Hematite, Granite, Rose Quartz, Tiger eye, some white with black polka dots that was not granite, mother of pearl, turquoise and several others we couldn't identify."

Lynne Chinn's Virgin

2007-08-01T04:43:00.000-07:00

Lynne is in my pantheon of mosaic gods & goddesses. I am always in awe when I see her work. But more importantly, I always learn something when I examine her technique.

There are a number of things about this piece which amaze me - the way the light falls on her head, the way her veil disintegrates into the background, the effect created with the different thicknesses of the strands of her hair - the little shadow under her right (our left) eyeball. Just amazing.

But I learn the most when someone does something which I would never think about doing and I wonder why. Lynne kept the line between her left cheek (our left - her right) and its shadow jagged. I would have smoothed it out and thought nothing about it. But look at the effect it creates making the jawline more defined and her face thinner than it otherwise would have looked. She said she did this intentionally: "If I made both sides the same, it looks too perfect and therefore, not like artwork or ‘brushstrokes’."

If I didn't know any better, I think Luke is a little bit smitten with her.

All jesting aside, look at what happens to her cheek when the photo is reduced - similar to looking at her from a distance. The line between light and dark smooths out but in a way which is very subtle and exquisite. In contrast, the line of shadow on her left forehead (our left - her right) was smoothed out to begin with and looks more pronounced.

New England Mosaic Exhibition

2007-07-31T03:46:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth during these last two weeks. Margaret and I have been busy with the next stage of the New England mosaic exhibition which will be held during September. Check out our revised website to learn more about it.

Even though September seems like a long time away, it's not. Last week we mailed our press packets and already have had an article published on the show in the Somerville Journal.

More recently, I've put on my graphics designer hat and laid out a brochure (which we should get back from the printers any day now) and an exhibition catalog. I'm really excited about the catalog - 40 pages, with full color photos of all the mosaics in the exhibition.

The catalog goes to the printer today so I may start finding some time to get back to mosaic making.

Rachel Sager

2007-07-24T06:18:00.000-07:00

I know a lot of mosaic artists. Most of us are mosaicists first. Our approach is to create a mosaic which happens to be a work of art (or at least we hope).

From my perspective, Rachel Sager is an artist. Her approach is to creat a work of art which happens to be a mosaic.

These are two of her most recent works which combine wood, stone, and glass (organic, inorganic, and manufactured) in such a wonderful way.

The one above is entitled Wounded Tree II. The one below is called Fool Moon.

The branch in this piece is a Japanese maple. The gold is from a venetian glass necklace that she took apart. The moon is made with pyrite nuggets.

Rachel doesn't have a website - yet. (We're working on that.) But she does have a page in the Rock Star Gallery. Check it out.

New Rocks on Mosaic Rocks

2007-07-20T13:08:00.000-07:00

Last week we ran out of a few of our standard tumbled gemstones, so we took a trip to one of our rock wholesalers to restock. It's dangerous going to this place. We just can't resist picking up new materials - particularly if they are the perfect size for mosaic tesserae. Here are some of our latest additions to the Mosaic Rocks shop.

(top row)
Citrine Points - These fascinating quartz crystals are capped with an amber colored citrine point.
Tiger Eye Tumbled Gemstones - We found a batch of smaller polished tiger eye stones - and at a lower price! We love these stones.

Tumbled Amazonite - Amazonite has an incredible sea-green/blue color unlike any other stone that we've seen. These stones are fairly small and would look great in a mosaic.

(second row)
Tumbled Mix - A potpourri of colors and shapes. This mix of small tumbled pebbles has a bit of everything.

White Howlite Nuggets - No, this isn't white cheese covered popcorn. But these nuggets are about as white as white can be.

Yellow Jasper - These polished stones are great to work with. Most are long and thin with one side that's flat.

We also have a number of new aragonite clusters to add to the site, and we've replenished our supply of copper nuggets.

Another Mosaic Rocker!

2007-07-19T05:20:00.000-07:00

Here's Jackie Iskander rocking on in her Mosaic Rocks t-shirt. Check out her website with her stunning mosaics (the precision in her work is incredible).

She also has an on-line journal. It's fun to read about other people's journeys in their mosaic art.
(Would someone please turn off the spigot so that it stops raining in Oklahoma?)

Metamorphosis

2007-07-19T05:19:00.000-07:00

Last month I posted a photo of a marble floor medallion which Ginger Terry just started for a client. Look at what it's turned into!!!!! Metamorphosis

On Boredom

2007-07-16T15:25:00.000-07:00

It's been slow going on my Venetian piece. My excuse is that my friend Margaret and I are working hard on putting together the New England Mosaic Exhibition which will take place in September. Our selection committee finished its work and we just notified the artists who will be in the show. (That was fun.) I also notified the artists who didn't make it. (That wasn't fun.)

I'll ramble on about the selection process in a later post. For now, back to Venice.

It's been slow going on my Venetian piece. (I said that already.) I think I'm bored. It's pleasing to see how the mosaic is turning out, but laying the stones for the sky in a random pattern is monotonous. I envy painters who lay down color with a few swoops and swishes of a brush. We mosaic artists must lovingly touch every single piece. Perhaps that is what sets mosaic apart from most other art forms. Margaret made this observation. We touch everything. There's no instrument (like a brush or a chisel) between us and our art.

It's a nice idea, but it doesn't get pieces glued to a substrate any faster - nor does jabbering on a blog.

I can't imagine what it's like to do a monotonous part of large mosaic. That's why the top mosaic artists have their myrmidons to to this work.

(Myrmidon - Teresa Sullivan taught me that word. It's a person who executes without question or scruple a master's commands.)

Perhaps the best mosaic artists find ways to make solid color backgrounds interesting. Some of my favorite mosaics - like Lynne Chinn's Far Red - have so much life and drama in a fairly monochromatic spread of color.

But I'm not looking for drama. My goal is to achieve a sense of serenity where everything just blends together. I think the randomness and color blending achieve that.

Grout rivers in a groutless piece!

Say it isn't so, but it is. One danger of doing this type of work is the unintended creation of a straight line in what should be a patchwork of interlocking pieces. Here are two grout rivers.

I didn't notice them until I looked at the section I was working on from a distance. So I replaced a few pieces to break up the lines. Still, I may need to do more. Now that I know there was a line in those locations, I'll always see it regardless of how I change it.

I like looking at this piece in different light. There's a point in the evening when dusk starts turning into night; the design of St G. just fades away and the entire piece looks like a strange bumpy surface of nothing in particular.

Perhaps boredom isn't so boring after all.

Virginia Gardner - Rock Star

2007-07-13T08:32:00.001-07:00

I just added Virginia Gardner to the growing list of Rock Stars in the Rock Star Gallery.

This piece is White Noon and includes an incredible array of materials, including buffalo teeth! Also, those little dots about a third of the way up the piece are Desert Roses.

If White Night dazzled you with its brightness, here's one of her most recent pieces, Earth 1. It, too, contains an assortment of materials including some of the turquoise slabs from Mosaic Rocks.

Virginia says that a workshop with Ilana Shafir & then all day with Emma Biggs at SAMA had a profound influence on her.

A while ago when I first got into mosaics, I frequently surfed the net looking for mosaic artists. One of the first I stumbled on was Virginia's site & I've been following the progression of her work as a mosaicist and artist over the last few years. It's fun to see how we grow and change as we explore different motifs and new materials.

Check out her website at http://virginiamosaics.com/

Sailing (Marcia Hinds)

2007-07-11T06:08:00.001-07:00

One of the great joys I get from Mosaic Rocks is the opportunity to meet different artists from all over the country and world. Most are mosaic artists in the traditional sense; however, some have an entirely different orientation.

I love Marcia Hinds' work. She call her paintings "ethereal landscapes" which is a perfect description for the way she sees the world through her art. This woman is not afraid of color and uses it in a way which simply draws you into her work.

Of particular note to mosaic fans - some of her work are mixed media in which she incorporates some traditional and some not-so-traditional pieces of tesserae. This photo is her most recent piece called Sailing. It's definitely not mosaic - but some of her other mixed media pieces come right up to the line between mosaic and other art forms.

Check out her website at http://marciahinds.com/ - A few mixed media pieces are in her "acrylics" section but don't ignore the rest of her site, especially her pastels.

2007-07-09T07:10:00.000-07:00

Light & Mood - part 2

This past week with the holiday in the middle threw me off schedule to update the blog. I did find a few hours to work on my Turner-esque piece with some interesting results.

My goal is to create a mosaic with marble in which colors blend with each other to create an impressionistic mood similar to what Turner did with oils and watercolors in his work. The subject is a silhouette San Giorgio Maggiore against the Venetian lagoon and sky. Here's the piece without the sky.

I wanted the water to be colorless. You know, that color on a foggy day or at a particular time of day in which water really has no discernable color - not gray, not white, definitely not blue. So I mixed some grays with white cararra marble - which is also not quite white and not quite gray.

San Giorgio and its surrounding buildings is made with a gray-green marble, separate enough to distinguish it from the water of the lagoon, but similar in tones to make it look ghostly. It's hard to tell where the water ends and the land begins. The tops of the bell tower and the dome progressively get lighter so that they will blend in with the sky.

I started on the sky yesterday using a mixture of light yellow and rose colored marble. The rose stones are close to the horizon representing a setting (or rising) sun. The rest of the sky will be yellow. Here's the result so far.

A side note about photography: Both of the previous pictures were taken at different times of the day. For the first, I placed the mosaic on a black background; the second was placed on a tan background. I cropped out the backgrounds in both. It's interesting to see the difference in the colors. The first has a lot of blue tones in the photograph. The second is more white & gray, closer to how the piece actually looks. Perhaps it's the time of day, perhaps it's the background on which the photo was taken, or perhaps the color changed in the photograph when the yellow was added.

I like the ghostly effect. The piece is really interesting to look at from a distance. Close up is another story. Here's how I am placing the pieces:

Nothing flat here. Each piece is a different height, randomly set. This creates an interesting texture for the piece, but it also increases the exposed surface area of the marble. Not only are you seeing in the tops of the stones, you're also seeing the sides. This creates more color - and more shadow which perhaps confuses our eyes, making them see a blur of color instead of individual stones.

2007-07-09T06:55:00.000-07:00

Mosaic Rocks! Summer Clearance - continued

This week some of our pyrite suns and polished ammonites are looking to be adopted and hoping to find a place in a great mosaic. The suns aren't the most glamorous, but they are fun and unusual. The ammonites are fairly small (about 1-2" across) and do sit flat, although they are thicker than most tesserae with their ends thicker than the spiral section.

You can see the suns which are on sale here and the ammonites here.

The Dance (Julie Dilling)

2007-07-04T05:55:00.000-07:00

I am now the proud owner of Julie Dilling's The Dance. It's difficult to photograph this piece so that you can see the red background with the slightly raised slivers of stained glass that make up the grasses - but it's true beauty is revealed when light comes from behind.

Here's what Julie says about the mosaic:

The background is L'Opio. The grass is stained glass cut in 3/8, then cut in 1/3 and laid on its side. The edge are seed beads.

My inspiration came from a recent scuba trip to Indonesia. Most of the coral and sponges were reds and oranges - hence the red background. In the shallow areas were the turtle grasses that seem to dance in the current with the sunlight glittering on them. That's why I wanted the grass to be transparent. I have had "The Dance" sitting in the window at my house so the sun made the grasses sparkle.

Julie is a co-owner of Tesserae Mosaic Studio in Plano, Texas.

Mosaic Rocks! Summer Clearance

2007-07-01T10:05:00.000-07:00

We plan to clean up the rock pile around here to make way for some new things which will be coming in the fall. So we just added a Clearance section to our website.

We love books, and we especially love mosaic books. But who can possibly compete with places like Amazon? This week we're clearing out our stock of books by offering them at a 50% discount - lower than Amazon's prices!!!!

We also have quite a few copies of Mosaic Art 2005 CD, so we're putting them on sale just for the summer at a great price.

Each week we will add something new to the website's clearance section. Check back to see what's new.

Mosaic Rocks! rocks find a home

2007-07-01T09:59:00.000-07:00

We love to see our rocks find a home in a mosaic, and (of course) Sophie never fails to showcase rocks in such creative ways. This "mini mosaic" has our new Sodalite stones, red calcite, and an aragonite cluster.

Send us photos of your latest mosaics using our stones & we'll showcase them on this blog.

Sherman Hay - Rock Star

2007-06-29T06:11:00.000-07:00

River's Edge by Sherman Hay
58" x 24" x 12"
Sculpture, cast concrete, semi-precious stones,
blown glass by Chaos Glass

I just added Sherman Hay's incredible art to the Rock Star Gallery. Sherman works in stone and says that stone's "beauty is unparalleled as a gift from the heavens." Couldn't have said it better myself. Check out Sherman's page in the Rock Star Gallery.

Another Mosaic Rocker Busy at Work

2007-06-27T04:28:00.000-07:00

Jenny Perry wearing her favorite T-shirt
and mosaicing a cast of her daughter's pregnant belly.

Light and Mood - a new project

2007-06-24T09:46:00.000-07:00

Continuing my mosaic journey in stone, I want to do something entirely different. Luke was a lot of fun to execute. I learned a lot by reproducing a Byzantine mosaic using marble. But this time I want to do something a bit more personal, creative, and less confined by the classical rules of mosaic making.

During the last few months, I've only worked on tessalated mosaics that implement representational designs. Luke is a good example. Mosaic is the original pixel art form - individual pieces of colored material working together to make a larger image. Because of this, many mosaic images appear to be cartoonish in nature. There's nothing wrong with this. After all, the underlying design which we work from is called a cartoon. But I'd like to experiment with a non-cartoonish design for this project.

I admire people who can do abstract work. They see color and design in a way which I have difficulty doing (so far). They push mosaic into new territory and seem to have fun in playing with materials in new ways. I also love natural stone's palette of color; it's so earthy (of course!). And the range of tonal colors within each stone is amazing.

So for my next project, I want to do something a bit more abstract in which I can experiment with color - particularly color blending.

I have two sources of inspiration for this project.

First - I've been corresponding a lot lately with my mosaic buddies, Karen Sasine and Barbara Peacock. They are planning a trip to Italy this fall to take the Orsoni class and are picking my brain about things to do while in Venice. This made me go back and look at the hundreds of photos I've taken of Venice. These three caught my attention:

San Giorgio Maggiore

Santa Maria della Salute

Grand Canal

There's something about the light in Venice - even on overcast days. And there's something magic about the silhouettes of San Giorgio Maggiore and Santa Maria della Salute which has appealed to artists for centuries. Although they are human creations, they seem to be somehow imprinted in our DNA.

Second - my favorite artist (by far) is JMW Turner (1775-1851). He's called a "painter of light" - perhaps a cliche, but it does describe his revolutionary work. Here are a few of his Venice scenes.

San Giorgio Maggiore

Santa Maria della Salute

Grand Canal

It's hard to imagine that Turner painted these pieces at the end of his career when the likes of Monet and others were still running around in diapers. There's a lot of drama in his work, but these express more tranquility and mystery. Time and space are suspended in a wash of light, color, and mood.

My project is an attempt to capture this feel by using stone in mosaic. On the surface it seems like a study in contrasts. Stone is solid and far from being ethereal and mosaic is mostly about movement. This is the challenge.

The subject is a silhouette San Giorgio Maggiore against the Venetian lagoon and sky. I am using marble cut into small pieces varying in length. I am using the raw, cut part of the stone, gluing them directly onto a 14" x 12" substrate in a rough 3-d fashion. My goal is to create a subtle blending of colors with enough differentiation for the sky, land/buildings, and water.

I'll talk about the colors I'm using in later posts. For now, here's my marble soup:

I cut up pieces and mix them together so that when I work on a section I get plenty of variation in the stone that I'm using. The soup changes as I gradually work from one section to another in the piece by adding - or removing - more or less of a particular color.

All I have is a primitive sketch of San Giorgio Maggiore.

And here's what I've done so far. No movement - no andamento (except for maybe the outline of the dome and campanile) I'm still a bit up in the air about the sky, but I expect that it will have the yellow and rose colors which Turner uses so masterfully.

One last thing about Turner: the Tate in London has the premier collection of Turner's paintings and watercolors. Their website has an extensive listing with thumbnail images of his works.

French Horn (Sophie Drouin)

2007-06-23T06:55:00.000-07:00

(Shhh....) Sophie is a little modest these days thinking that she's taking up too much space in this blog. She's also being very prolific and just produced this mosaic of a french horn for one of her musician friends. How can I not show you this piece?

Just look at what she did with the recent batch of pyrite suns she got from Mosaic Rocks! I'm sure it was painful to break them, but WOW!!!! they're perfect for the bell of this horn. The music coming out of this mosaic is incredible.

Hey there Lightning Bug,

2007-06-21T05:50:00.000-07:00

Your luminescence has always brought joy to us, but you seem to be glowing a bit too brightly these days. It's a temporary phenomena - something necessary to recharge that normal beacon of yours for years to come. Please know that we love you and think about you all the time.

- all the rest of us little bugs

The two faces of Luke

2007-06-20T05:18:00.000-07:00

The gods of mosaic must be partial to Luke these days.

While I've been chronicling my work on reproducing a Byzantine mosaic of Luke, Julie Richey and Lynn Chinn have also been working on a major commission for the St. Philip's church in Virginia. They have created four mosaics representing the canonical Gospels of Matthew (the man), Mark (the lion), Luke (the ox), and John (the eagle). Here's their Luke along with mine.

You can see more of Julie and Lynn's magnificent Baptistery project here.

I chose to do Luke because I wanted to recreate a Byzantine mosaic as a portrait exercise in marble. I saw this mosaic of Luke in a book on the mosaics at San Marco. He was an interesting face in a book.

But my friend Margaret asserted that we choose the art that we do for a reason and that there must be some significance as to why Luke came into my life at this time. Maybe so. The fact that Julie and Lynn's Luke came into being at the same time only reinforces Margaret's statement. After all, how many years have passed where we haven't even thought about St. Luke and now there are two Lukes in our lives?

I've been thinking about that for the last few weeks and haven't come up with an answer. It's easy to attribute this to simple chance. I found a cool dude in a mosaic book and wanted to replicate it. Julie & Lynn got a commission. It's as simple as that.

But if there is a more mystical reason, it's not hard to fish for an answer. Luke is the patron saint of artists, glass makers, stained glass workers, painters, sculptors, and gold workers (as well as bookbinders, brewers, butchers, doctors, lacemakers, notaries, and unmarried men). So I suppose if mosaic artists were to have a patron saint, Luke would be a good candidate.

Luke was also born in Antioch. All those incredible Roman-era mosaics must have had some influence on him. (Check here and here.)

I'm not religious nor a follower of any institutional religion - but Luke spoke of human love and care for the poor and suffering. Forgiveness and mercy were of first importance to him. And he, more than his cohorts, emphasized the role of women in the ministry. All of these are pretty good reasons to be attracted to him.

Luke was also an evangelist. In the last few years, my life has totally changed from a drone who worked for corporate-America to an evangelist for mosaic art. We have that in common.

Or perhaps his expression reflects my mood these days. (Spring is a dreary part of the year in New England - too cloudy and too cold for a season which should be otherwise.) Sophie and Ginger commented on how the Luke mosaic finally turned out with the choice of Silverwater as the background. Both comments talk about Luke's expression:

(Ginger) The face is somber but not sad, introspective, deeply spiritual. It is the face of this great man who was not only a physician at a time when it meant something to be a physician, but a writer and a historian and, oral tradition tells us, the first iconographer. All this shows in your Luke.

(Sophie) Luke has a quietly pondering sort of sadness that the silverwater echoes. He seems to be brooding a bit, and the siverwater makes that a private moment more than the gold would have. The feeling is heightened, I think. Strange...I was much in favour of the gold, with siverwater a distant third, as I recall. I like the feeling of this piece very much, and I am very glad you went with your gut!

Luke

2007-06-19T05:53:00.000-07:00

Here he is in all of his glory. You can see a larger version here.

I spent most of the weekend pondering over the background and all the advice the gurus offered. In the end I went with my gut and used the Silverwater marble.

I think mosaic gold would have worked well - particularly a dark copper gold. A darker marble would have worked, too. I was hesitant about using yellow. A brighter yellow background would be good - especially for an icon; however, I used too much yellow in his face and I thought a yellow background would either wash out his face or make him look a little sickly.

So, why Silverwater?

Silverwater has a color tone that is not used elsewhere in Luke's head. It offers enough of a contrast to distinguish the head from the background but does not compete with the head.
I wanted the mosaic to be all marble. After all, I do promote stone and want to show others what they can do with it.
I used a dark background in all my other portraits. I wanted something lighter.
I have a special affinity for Silverwater. When Michael and I visited Sophie in Ontario last summer, she took us to a "stone yard" in a nearby town. The place had about ten acres of piles of stone mostly left over from construction jobs. I suppose it's a place where stone goes to die unless someone (like us) finds a special use for it. We found about 5 slabs of this stone and loved its silver-gray color - unlike any of the other gray stones which I offer on the standard Mosaic Rocks sample board. It cuts beautifully. (I do offer it on Mosaic Rocks while my supply lasts. Once it's gone, I won't be able to find more unless I hunt for it back in Ontario.)
I am in mortal fear of the wrath of the guru who strongly advocated for Silverwater.

The background is not all Silverwater, however. I did mix in a little Bardiglio Nuvolato. I selected it because it was a little bit darker than the Silverwater, but when I placed it next to the Silverwater stones, it was interesting to see how much blue there was in it. Very interesting.

I did keep the first three rows around Luke solid Silverwater, thinking it would create a subtle halo effect. Well, it turned out to be subtle alright - too subtle.

So, in retrospect was this the correct background choice? I'm happy with it - but I wish I had three other mosaics of Luke's head where I could have tried different backgrounds. It would be an interesting experiment; however, more work than I want to take on.

Not done yet....

I know, I'm being picky, but there are two things that annoy me which I may try to fix.

The first is the color of the marble in his garment on his left side (yellow arrow). This color is too close to the color of the background. In full daylight, it looks OK. At night, however, in artificial light, it blends with the background making the black border of his garment look like it is suspended out in space.

The other issue is one stone on his chin (white arrow). This piece is a little taller than the ones around it and a brighter stone. It needs to go. Few people would notice it, but whenever I look at the Luke's face, I zoom right onto that one piece.

Floor Medallion II (the sequal)

2007-06-15T03:57:00.000-07:00

This must be the season for floor medallions. Ginger Terry (Arkansas) is an incredible artist and avid natural stone fan. She recently started a commission to extend a marble bathroom floor into a huge dressing area, office, and exercise room. Big rooms, big mosaic medallions.

Here's a photo of the medallion in it's current state: Says Ginger:

Right now it’s about 17 inches across. It will be 44 inches across. Those strange looking things in the center are aluminum “checkers.” Up until now I’ve put the medallion on that new sticky mosaic contact paper I got at SAMA, which would be fine if the work were no larger than, say, 18 inches across. But the heavier it gets, the more I wonder if it will be possible to flip this thing over!

Ginger also goes on to ask:

What would you do—would you do this thing in sections? Would you lay it indirect so it will be perfectly flat, and if so, how would you go about it? Would you lay it direct on mesh? I’m thinking that I should go ahead and “flip” it onto mesh now, before it gets any bigger, and maybe consider doing it in sections, which will require more technical expertise than I have right now.

If you have any suggestions for her, you can email me and I'll pass your email on to Ginger.

Aside from the medallion, the main part of the floor will be done in 12x12 St Laurent and Pink Petal floor tiles. Ginger loved our pink petal cut marble so much that she ordered 50 sq feet of it from our source in Boston and had it shipped to Arkansas. The shipping almost cost just as much as the tile itself.

Table Top (Karin Wainwright)

2007-06-14T06:23:00.000-07:00

Karin is a good friend from South Africa. She is also one of the driving forces in the growing and thriving mosaic community in South Africa. Last year she was instrumental in getting 26 SA artists to submit their works for the Mosaic Yearbook. No doubt there will be more this year.

Here is a table top she just completed. Check out Karin's website.

Mosaic Guru Hotline

2007-06-13T06:17:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I started struggling with the color for Luke's background. There's not a lot of background space to work with, so I was thinking that a solid color would work best and not distract from Luke himself. I picked out a few colors of marble and mosaic-gold and placed pieces on the mosaic to see what the color would look like and then photographed each.

You can see larger versions of these photos here.

I next engaged all of my alter egos in a heated debate - this one too bright; that one too dull; he looks jaundiced; he looks sickly; too gaudy; so on and so on. I quickly got tired of that game. Besides, it's no fun arguing with yourself.

So I got out my phone book, looked up Mosaic Gurus in the yellow pages, and sent them the photos of my dilemma. I told them that I wasn't concerned about making him look saintly and that I didn't necessarily have to follow the tradition of putting a halo around him. Saint or not, he's an interesting dude.

Not surprising, each guru came back with a different answer. Their wisdom is a real gift and has given me a lot to think about.

Here's a summary of their remarks:

Did you not consider using a very dark tone? That's what I see. Sad guy, sitting in the dark. I see you might be concerned about the hair contrast, but I think you could get around it.

In short, my answers for 1st choice etc, are:
In 1st place- Gold
2nd place-Gold
Distant third –silverwater
Even if Luke is just a dude, you’ve spent all that time being accurate about his person, so I think to finish him off in style you should really spring for the gold, which is in the original. It looks like you’ve got bumpy gold there, which looks fabulous, and would be my choice too.

I'm voting Royal Gold or Pistachio.
Royal gold because I think the yellow in that will play into the yellows in the face -- kind of a color link between object and background -- and give the "hint of a halo".
Pistachio because I just like the looks of it.

Pistachio definitely. That will let the face be the focus.

Silverwater: too dull?
royal yellow: I'm likin' it- warm, enough contrast to hair and allows figure to pop.
pistachio - perhaps better as an ice cream treat once background is finished.
mugwort green - hand cut better than square cut tiles, but if that is not issue, color is a bit too light?
green jade - seems this color doesn't relate that well to other marble used.
copper gold - stunning, love it.
blue - not! But good on ya for throwing that into the mix.
gold - too predictable? does lend religious overtone for "Just a Dude"

I vote strongly for silverwater. It is the most muted, and subtle. Second choice would be royal yellow, because it's neutral but rich in color and, like XX says, plays with the same colors in the face.

The reason I like silverwater is that it isn't trying too hard to be matchy, and it allows Luke's face to take precedence over the background. Makes him look as if he appeared in a natural environment. I also will advocate speckling or feathering in from a lighter to a darker color (either direction). And...and, am I getting really bossy and opinionated here? You vill of course make zem zeh same general size as zeh rest of zeh werk, ya. You vill.

My 15 yr old votes for the copper gold. She says that the others blend in too much and the contrast is nice with the copper gold. I agree a bit with her, but also like the pistachio.

I would love to see a blend of the top three colors (royal yellow, pistachio, silverwater) in which you step outwards from brightest (yellow) to darkest (silverwater). This would give it a subtle halo effect.

I vote for Royal Yellow. I think silverwater is too cool...at least on my screen. It seems to pull it down.

I have lots to say, so don’t start rolling your eyes—yet.
I love how you finished out your Luke. He looks great. But don’t kid yourself! I’m not religious either (even though my daddy was a Methodist preacher!!), but there is no getting away from the saintly, long-suffering look he has about him.
Color Choices
That being said- here goes the color theory lesson. The green colors- Pistachio, Mugwart and Jade bring out the green in his face, so they make him look a little sickly—like he needs to vomit—Yikes!
Silverwater, again, brings out the grey tones- so it looks like he’s been dead a long time, yet is resurrected (how biblical).
Blue Gold is just simply too fabulous. You will lose all of your more subtle color choices, and it has a very modern feel to it. Cobalt-y colors were not used much in ancient art because there was no easy way to process the ore. Even today anything this color (like oil paint) is more expensive because of the process of making it. So blue is just not a believable background for your ancient- or Byzantine-styled face. (Unless he’s in Ravenna with the stars).
Okay, Marble-Man, get rid of that [censored] bumpity gold! Throw it out!!! I can’t stand it!!!! (Sorry, got carried away!) The only gold you should use, IF you wanted everyone to know that this dude is a religious figure, is a very dark yellow, antiqued or “crackled” surface. I could send you a free sample of one that I have that could work.
So, that leaves us with your yellow tones. I like your Royal Yellow, but I wish it were a little deeper, not so white-ish. Could you try a color-enhancing liquid on it?
The tone and color of your Copper Gold is wonderful, but I fear it is metallic and we just can’t see that in the photo. Again, a metallic may look very modern, but it is the best color choice, and as long as it is not too pristine I think it could look great. The coppery tone on the Mosaic Smalti board, if this is the one, is very good. Not too shiny/glossy a surface.
Andamento (I know you didn’t ask, but I’m tellin’ ya anyway!)
I very much like the varied sizes and shapes (squares, rectangles, triangles) you’ve got going on in the Copper Gold photo. A non-andamento andamento. Because of the severity of the andamento within the central figure, it would either work well to continue in exactly the same technique, or to do something very different like this “scattered/shattered” look.
The photos where you have the background of perfected cubes of marble lined up—they are not very attractive. The scale is not right, and neither is the uniformity and rigidity of the style for your lovely work. The background would over-power it.

I am voting GOLD.....

I'm looking forward to checking out the decision process on the blog. Backgrounds are always the hardest part for me. I focus so much on composition, and know that in a clinch, the wrong decision can change the entire tone of the piece (no pressure, by the way).

Ah, the background question, a bit hard to tell in pics, but I am curious, what is the color of the line in his collar? You used a thicker, almost light purplish stone there. I am wondering how that would look, it has me curious. I do not think you have that color anywhere else in his face do you?
I also like the Royal Yellow, Pistachio. I love the golds too, but they are a bigger contrast, I am afraid the gold may over power all your hard work and he might fade into the background.

* * *

Well, there you have it. This is such a great wealth of ideas and I thank the gurus for sharing this with me.

I do have my own opinion which is coming more from a gut feeling than from a rational choice. Sometimes it's good to listed to one's gut. Then again, I've observed that the quality that separates good artists from great ones is "intention" - Great artists do things for a reason. It might not be an overly rationalize, thought-out reason, but there is intention behind everything they do.

I'm mulling over the situation.

A Mosaic Rocker Busy at Work

2007-06-12T07:12:00.000-07:00

Jennifer Johnson in her Palm Springs, CA studio.
Check out her website to see her fun and inspiring mosaics.

Send us a photo of you wearing your Mosaic Rocks! t-shirt while making mosaics and we'll send you a $10 discount off your next purchase. (Take note - photos may be published on our website and blog for all to see. )

Luke - with hair

2007-06-12T03:56:00.000-07:00

Luke now has a full head of hair! Well, almost. There is that little bald spot on the top of his head. The hair turned out a little bit different from the original, but I think I like this better. The original was meant to be viewed from a distance, so the contrast between the light and dark waves in his hair would probably be less pronounced. This mosaic is smaller and more intimate.

Now comes the big problem - what to do with the background. Mother Macrina has added some comments to a previous post suggesting that I use a light yellow marble. She pointed out the website http://www.mosaic-art-gallery.com which has some good examples of Byzantine style portraits.

I don't have much space to fill in for the background and I tried placing the yellow marble that I have to see what it would look like. I fear that a yellow background would accentuate the yellow that I used in the face. I'll play around with some colors and let you know what I find out. Any suggestions are most welcome.

Mosaic Atlas Updates

2007-06-11T06:37:00.000-07:00

Mosaic Atlas' 2nd anniversary was last month. To date we have 3213 mosaics from 490 different locations in 62 countries throughout the world. 216 people contributed photos to make this all happen.

I just got caught up with the most recent submissions. Here they are:

Michael & I - Boston - Colonial Theatre
Robert Field in the UK is doing research on a mosaic firm from Manchester, UK which existed from the mid 1800s to 1965. Apparently all the records were destroyed when the firm went out of business. One of their commissions was the Colonial Theatre in Boston. I was unaware that this site had such interesting mosaics on the lobby floor.

Also from Massachusetts, James Bowen sent photos of mosaics on Cape Cod. Check out the new mosaics in the Church of the Transfiguration in Orleans.
Barnstable
Orleans
Truro

An Italian Artist, Orodè, sent photos of his work in Lecce, Italy

Kurt and HuQing Piemonte (USA) sent photos of the wonderful Portuguese sidewalk mosaics from Macau (once a colony of Portugal - now a Special Administrative Region of China.

Brian McMorrow (United Arab Emirates) - our pilot/travel photographer sent over 100 photos from Germany and three new countries for the Atlas: Sénégal, Laos, and Syria.
From Laos
From Sénégal
From three locations in Syria
The Umayyad Mosque mosaics are a wonderful example of early Islamic mosaic art.
Also from Germany: East Berlin
West Berlin
Charlottenburg (a district of Berlin)

Wendy Tanner (Australia) - Photos from her travels in Vienna and Camogli, Italy. (Check out the mosaic of the boy peeing outside a men's toilet.)
Also one of her installations in Coffs Harbour, Australia

Josef Norris (California, USA) - CHECK THESE OUT. Three of Josef's large mosaic murals in San Francisco. Look on pages 4 & 5

Kim Grant (Australia) - Mosaics on the War Memorial in Canberra

Virginia Gardner (Virginia, USA) - Mosaic walls of a building that houses a pottery store in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Here's something to do with pots that tourists break.

Colonial Theatre - Boston

2007-06-10T05:15:00.000-07:00

A while ago Robert Field (UK) asked if I knew about the mosaics in Boston's Colonial Theatre. He was researching Ludwig Oppenheimer Limited a mosaic firm established by Oppenheimer in 1865 in Manchester, England. The firm worked on several major projects in Ireland and England until 1965. Bob mentioned that the Colonial Theatre was the only project done in the United States.

It took a while, but we finally got into the theatre and found the mosaics in the lobby. The design is a frieze of Pompeian-style masks that circumnavigates the room. The main part of the floor is an interestingly irregular opus circumactum.

I can only imagine the thousands of people who go to productions at the theatre and don't even notice this incredible floor.

I posted our photos on the Mosaic Atlas.

(If you've never been to Robert Field's website, do so. He is in my pantheon of mosaic gods. )

A mosaic unlike any you've ever seen...

2007-06-08T03:07:00.000-07:00

This is Sophie's latest mosaic. It is unlike any that you've ever seen. Can you tell what it is? (Scroll down to find out.)

In the meantime, here are photos of the finished Cohen hearts floor.

Sophie did the medallion. The fan pattern in the rest of the floor was fabricated in Italy.

Here's Sophie:

"Those marble fan modules are pretty impressive, and the last bit of polishing has made a huge difference in the entire floor. Boy, I’ve sure learned a lot being around while this floor has come to life. First and foremost, it takes a lot of people (and money) to make it happen, and it takes people who really know what they are doing for installation."

And now - drum roll - here is Sophie's mosaic under a black light.

It's title is Ghoti (pronounced "fish").

War Memorial Update (Connie English)

2007-06-07T04:28:00.000-07:00

Connie recently installed her "Daughter" cross at the War Memorial in Lafayette, California. Here's her story:

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with Nadia McCaffrey, about her 6 year old granddaughter, Janessa, who lost her father Patrick (3 years ago) in this war.

This cross is therefore dedicated to Janessa, as her story inspired me to create a cross to represent "all" daughters; the parents of women soldiers, the women themselves and the daughters of soldiers killed in War.

Connie plans to do more of these and will start looking for sponsors. Half of the proceeds will go to a non-profit for soldiers recovering from the war. I'll keep you posted as I find out more.

Here come the suns....

2007-06-06T03:29:00.000-07:00

We recently visited our source for pyrite suns. He just got back from a trip where he picked up hundreds of them. We were blown away at this batch. The colors in the iridized ones were spectacular - unlike any I've ever seen before. I recently posted them in the Mosaic Rocks shop. Look for them starting at the bottom of the page.

One friend who received a few of these said:

"The pyrite suns came in yesterday. Bill, they are stunning. I was going to do some mosaic Christmas presents featuring them, but I’m not sure I can let them go. In the sun they shimmer in a thousand different colors."

No one really knows what these things are. Pyrite suns are found in one location in the world - a coal mine in Illinois.

People originally thought that these were some type of fossils. The current thinking is that they are pyrite crystals that grow in the seams of coal or shale layers. Since coal is so dense and hard, the crystals can only grow horizontally out. Here's a photo of how they look embedded in the shale.

The sun in the above photo has been cleaned. Usually, they come out of the ground looking something like this - only worse.

Irina Charny sent this one to me. She purchased a number of uncleaned suns a while back. They came encrusted the dark mineral - probably coal or shale. She said she tried everything in the book to clean them up, spending hours scrubbing them. Eventually she discovered that Diet Coke worked best. Who would have thought? Imagine what that stuff does in your stomach.

This is the other side of the same sun - the side she cleaned. Big difference!

Now for the big mystery/secret. There are a few people who clean suns and then put them through some process to tint and/or iridize them. Apparently, this process is a well kept secret. The person who cleans the suns for our dealer told him that someone recently paid $10,000 to get the recipe. It's hard to imagine that it's worth it. I think pyrite suns are very reasonably priced given that they are so rare.

I expect that the silver ones are close to the natural color. Pyrite has a silver/gold color. Natural or not, these iridized ones are just spectacular. Here are some more photos of ones from Mosaic Rocks.

Sonia King is the queen of pyrite suns and needs to be given credit for making them so popular in mosaics. If you haven't see her mosaics, check out the galleries on her website. I asked her if the tinted/iridized suns will lose color over time. She said she hasn't noticed any color loss over the years. Then again, her mosaics aren't that old.

I expect that thousands of years from now when archaeologists are digging up our mosaics, they'll come across these suns and wonder why we used such colorless things in them. But for our lifetimes we can enjoy these magnificent colors.

Rock Stars Julie Richey and Lynne Chinn

2007-06-05T03:31:00.000-07:00

Julie Richey and Lynne Chinn are rock stars in the truest sense. They recently collaborated on a kitchen project for a client. Julie designed this incredible backsplash based on the clients' love of the Lascaux caves in France. In it she used marble (including some Mosaic Rocks marble) and a tiny bit of eco smalti.

Lynne designed these pieces based on images from New Grange, Ireland. Julie cut the stone opus sectile style on her DL 5000; Lynne inlaid the Bisazza.

Halfway through the longest horizontal piece, Julies DL motor fried and she had to finish it with her hammer and hardie! She said she actually like that part a lot more than if it had been opus sectile.

Luke - Still no hair

2007-06-04T06:09:00.000-07:00

After last weekend's hair-razing experience, I decided to work on easier portions of Luke's body: his ear and neck. He's starting to look like a real person - not just a face floating in a void. The ear looks somewhat funny because it's hanging out there, but I expect that it will blend in when I make my next attempt at doing his hair.

Necks are interesting. There is a lot going on in a neck - movement and shadow.

First of all, note the line of tesserae that separates the left side of his beard from his neck (his right - your left). This line also extends down the side of his neck and even breaks out into the neck. The effect is nice, providing a definitive separation between the head and the neck by creating a slight shadow effect. I used a pale green stone for this - the only place in the mosaic where this color occurs. Green was typically used in Byzantine portraits.

One problem I did have was the andamento of the lighter neck stones around this line. There was too much of a noticeable angle in making the corner. This probably occurred because I placed the green line of stones first and then filled in the lighter stones. (This is what happened when I worked on the hair. I started with the strongest line and then tried to fill in the shading around it.)

So I ripped out the stones in this area and built the curved line of lighter stones first. This time I used larger pieces which I think help balance the smaller pieces closer to his beard. The first attempt had too many distinct rows of thinner stones which drew unneeded attention to it.

Once the curved line of lighter stones was in, I rebuilt the stronger line of green stones. The result looks much better.

The hair is next; can't avoid it now. And following the advice of that wise Texan sage, I will pour myself a glass of Vin Santo and dip a few biscottini di Prato before tackling it.

Ultimately I need to decide on the materials to use for the background. Any suggestions?

Mosaic Exhibition

2007-06-01T05:07:00.000-07:00

CALL FOR NEW ENGLAND MOSAIC ARTISTS

New England mosaic artists are invited to submit an application for exhibiting their work in an all-mosaic exhibition to be held at the Somerville Museum (Massachusetts), September 6 through October 6, 2007. This exhibition is a first for the Boston area and offers an extraordinary opportunity to expand the understanding and appreciation of contemporary mosaic art in the northeast.

This is an open call for mosaic artists living in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. There is a $30 submission fee and a 20% commission for the Somerville Museum collected on sold artwork.

The Prospectus and Submission Form can be found at:
http://www.exhibition.mosaicrocks.com/

Submission Deadline: June 30, 2007

Please help us spread the word by forwarding this Call for Mosaic Artists to your fellow mosaic artists who live in New England.

Glass

2007-05-31T03:13:00.000-07:00

It's a common misconception that we're only about rocks. Why, some of our favorite artists bat for the other team and work in glass. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) Here are two new mosaics.

Arlene Piarulli (Crema, Italy) just finished the Master in Mosaic course at Orsoni Smalti Venezia. This is her masterpiece. I love the big, bold red pieces of smalti in contrast with the smaller floral pattern. It's great to see a mosaic which is fun - most pieces (including all of mine) are way too serious.

Yulia Hanansen (Ann Arbor, Michigan) is in my pantheon of mosaic gods and goddesses. She is a true master with stained glass, and her mosaics are infinitely more impressive when seen in person than through a photograph. This is a southern oak tree with Spanish moss hanging from it. Its size is impressive - 3' x 4' - and it was recently installed above a jacuzzi.

The Mosaic and Music Muses

2007-05-30T03:22:00.001-07:00

Etymologically, music and mosaic come from the same origin - mousa - the Greek word for muse.

The mosaic and music muses combined forces the other night when Sophie, along with her fellow members of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, presented a commissioned mosaic which she did for the symphony's retiring conductor, Simon Streatfeild. He was absolutely thrilled.

Sophie's statement of presentation:

How an artist conceives new ideas is a very personal process. Mine often come in the middle of the night between two layers of sleep. It really feels as if an idea has decided to nudge me and make its presence felt.On night last February, I was struck with such nighttime inspiration, in the form of a question: what kind of mosaic would be a fitting thank-you gift for Simon Streatfeild?

The answer came right away: a life-size portrait of the beautiful viola he used to own. I was aware that this instrument now belonged to a friend of mine, McGill University Professor Douglas McNabney. I contacted him and he generously sent me pictures of the instrument, along with his gracious permission to use them for a mosaic. The KWS Board, musicians and staff then agreed to team up in a joint commission for this mosaic.

Having decided upon the main subject, I started to think of other ways of symbolizing some of the history of Simon’s monumental Canadian career. Therefore, in the marble background, I put the initials of 13 different Canadian music and orchestra organizations for which Simon has been an artistic leader. There is also a row of gold bars on either side of the viola: each of these represents one of the 70 Canadian orchestral works that Simon has premiered so far in his career.

I am grateful to the KWS musicians, staff and board for trusting me with this great responsibility. And most importantly, I wish to thank Simon Streatfeild. My very first professional orchestra experience was with him on the podium, and I now have had the immense privilege to share music with him in four different orchestras in Canada.

Many thanks, Simon!

Bad hair day for Luke

2007-05-29T05:23:00.000-07:00

In my first posting for the Luke project I mentioned that I tend to lose patience midway through a project and start working faster than I should. Yesterday was one of those days.

I started working on Luke's hair. I really enjoy doing hair (in a mosaic that is) and think that the hair usually ends up being the best part of the mosaic. Here's Kurt and Augusto. It's hard to make out the tesserae in these reduced photos. There's a nice randomness of lines and (with Caesar) color that resembles real hair.

Luke hair is different. Here's a photo of the original along with the work I did yesterday.

What's up with the top of his head? Is he going bald or wearing a yarmulke?
Do saints wear yarmulkes?

There are a few differences between what's happening with Luke's hair vs Kurt & Augusto's hair. Luke's hair is much more formal and precise. Color is important with the streaks of light and dark. Not only does it emphasize the source of light for the portrait, it also helps emphasize the perspective of the piece making his head look more three-dimensional.

My attempt was pretty feeble with some problems and mistakes. First, I have a limited selection of colors which makes it difficult to fade from dark to very light brown in a small space.

Second - and probably my biggest mistake - although I sketched out the pattern before laying the pieces, I was pretty much winging it - as I did with Kurt & Caesar's hair. Not good. This piece requires a more precise placement for the andamento and the colors. I should have been more exact in drawing before gluing any stones.

Third - I only worked on the top part of his head. I should have followed a row at least until the part in his hair if not beyond the part and around his ear.

Fourth - I worked from top down. I was itching to place the top row of tesserae just to define the top of the head - perhaps to get a sense of satisfaction that I'm making progress with the piece. (This is my urge to rush things coming out.) It seems that it's harder to fill in a section than to build out- especially when there is so much detail to fill in.

So after spending an entire afternoon laying hair on the top of Luke's head, I ripped it all out.

I never though about it before, but I suppose even saints have bad hair days.

Luke (May 27)

2007-05-27T15:46:00.001-07:00

Quote for the day

2007-05-26T05:04:00.000-07:00

"There really is no such thing as art. There are only artists.”
-Ernst Gombrich

Sophie's Saga continues...

2007-05-25T03:21:00.000-07:00

From Sophie:
After about a week’s worth of work on the medallion and the fan modules by Maurice, Tom and Keith, it became apparent that the modules needed “tweaking” to have a more uniformly pleasing grouting space between each other once installation was completed. The heroic floor installers on my team (Maurice Renon, Tom Watson and Keith Boniface) went to work, and they were not at all afraid to use new tools to do so, because they used (among others) my own mosaic tools to shape some of the faulty fan stones to better proportions. The result of all this work, as you see, is absolutely wonderful.

The plastic peel comes on the whole floor off in the next day or so, and grouting finishes the process later this week. I will keep the photos coming...

Fixing spacing problems

Fixing spacing problems - 2

Mosaic tools

Nice fans!

Finally done!

The Maters: Maurice Renon, Keith Boniface, and Tom Watson

Lafayette, CA War Memorial (Connie English)

2007-05-24T03:33:00.000-07:00

California mosaic artist and friend, Connie English, sent photos of mosaics which she is making for families who want a memorial cross in honor of a lost loved one at the War Memorial in Lafayette, California. She's made 4 so far and just got a call from a mother who lost her 34 year old son and wants a mosaic on his cross.

Connie is also making one to represent children killed in war. "It will be a bit tougher to do. It is heart wrenching to be up on that hill."

Information about the memorial can be found here and here.

Luke's Forehead

2007-05-23T06:18:00.000-07:00

I haven't had much time to work on Luke this past week. The forehead is in place but I'm not sure if the shading will work until I fill in some of his hair.

Portuguese Sidewalk Mosaics

2007-05-21T05:45:00.000-07:00

If you ever visit Portugal or one of its former colonies, you will notice that the Portuguese don't simply lay down concrete sidewalks. Instead their streets are decorated with beautifully patterned limestone mosaics. Apparently this started in the mid 1800s after the completion of a wave design in Lisbon's Rossio Square. Eventually this fad spread throughout Portugal and its colonies.

Our friends HuQing and Kurt Piemonte recently visited Macau - an area near Hong Kong which was administered by Portugal until 1999 and, like Hong Kong, transferred to China as a "special administrative region." We just posted some of their photos of the street mosaics in the Mosaic Atlas which you can see here.

The Mosaic Atlas has many other examples of Portuguese street mosaics including:

Lisbon - photo by Brian McMorrow

Madeira (our photo)

Coppacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro (photo by John O'Brien)

2007-05-19T07:59:00.001-07:00

We got a comment from the last post with the photos of Sophie's medallion installation:

That was great work ... I was wondering who the company was that did all the cement work for you (those 3 installers)?

Sophie's reply:

The 3 installers (Tom, Keith and Maurice) and I were all working for a new company here in Kitchener, Ontario. called Casa Bella Tile, which sells tile and employs people who install them as well. This team of installers is frequently, although not completely exclusively, employed by Casa Bella. Maurice was the guy in charge, and he is very experienced.

Casa Bella is owned by Mary Werenko and Kim DeVries - casabellatile@bellnet.ca

I started installing the medallion with Maurice on days 1 and 2. After that, my work was basically done, and Keith and Tom came to assist Maurice for the installation of the fan modules for the rest of the floor.

Installation of Sophie's Medallion

2007-05-18T04:24:00.001-07:00

Sophie sent lots of photos and comments as the installation of her medallion progresses through this past week. Here are her comments & photos:

Basically, the first day of installation consisted in deciding precisely WHERE the mosaic was going to go in the room (discussion involving 4 different people took 1 hour on this alone). Then we checked out the ideal angle that the fan modules would be laid in.

Then we started drawing lines in the floor and on the mosaic (on the tile tape) to help guide us very precisely for laying it down on cement. (There would be no possible retry for that operation!)

Dry layout, checking orientation of fans

Maurice Renon, installer, drawing guide lines

Day 2

“Sounding” consists of basically whacking the tiles with a flat object to make sure they adhere well and evenly, as well as flatly. I feels weird, like you’re spanking it or something, but it’s quite effective at driving out any air bubbles and making sure things are nice and flat!

So, here we are.... In the next few days I will visit Maurice at least once a day to take pictures of the evolving floor. I am sure it will take the rest of the week to do, it’s very slow work because the fans, being truly hand-made, are not quite even and not exactly the same from individual module to module, which is what makes the special---and also what drives installers nuts at the same time!

Maurice makes sure things line up

Maurice smooths the prepared area

Layer of Mapei thinset

Sounding the mosaic

Cleaning up after cementing outside vermiculae

Looking inside past the gates

Here are shots of installation days 3 and 4. I am not really involved any longer, but the guys humour me enough to let me take pictures of them.The more I see it coming along, the more I realize how huge this floor is! Right now it’s got a shiny surface because all the protective tile tape is still on, but once it gets removed (on Saturday) we will see the real tile, and then it gets grouted next week.

All 3 installers

Keith and Maurice, with a BIG floor

Luke - cosmetic surgury

2007-05-17T06:09:00.000-07:00

I ripped out Luke's upper lip yesterday. It actually wasn't too difficult to get the offending pieces out.

The changes were subtle - but they made a tremendous difference. First I replaced the line of white tesserae above the upper lip with some pieces of light brown marble. The white really stood out and seemed inappropriate. Second, I extended the upper lip (right side facing you) back to its original position but this time using stones which were a bit darker than before.

It's hard to see the differences, but they are significant. The upper lip is just a fraction larger and the tan line right above the lip seems more natural with the shadowing for under the nose.

Jennifer Blakebrough-Raeburn sent an email and made the observation that the Byzantine style made the mouth slightly elongated. I suspect this might be because people looked at mosaics from a distance and it was necessary to exaggerate parts of the face so that they would be more pronounced. With a smaller reproduction, this may not be as important. I think I'm ready to live with Luke's current mouth and move on with the mosaic.

Luke - mouth woes

2007-05-16T07:11:00.000-07:00

Here's Luke in his current manifestation. It's amazing how small his face is compared to all the hair which is yet to come.

Whenever I start writing for the blog about Luke, I end up writing about something different than what I originally intended. Usually in preparing the photos I see something I did not see before. This is dangerous, because I will most likely lead to ripping out pieces of tesserae.

I mentioned before that with the portraits I've done in the past, the mouth has always been the most difficult section to do. I'm always amazed at how much of ones personality is conveyed through the mouth. Get it wrong and the portrait hardly looks like the original subject.

Luke was supposed to be different. The area above and below his mouth is covered with facial hair, making the andamento a lot easier. His mouth was small and really not a prominent part of his face.

Luke was created on a much larger scale than the reproduction that I'm doing. He was also meant to be viewed from a distance. So in following the original layout of the tesserae (left), it's difficult to see how the mouth is actually derived from the individuals lines of tesserae. My version is on the right. You really need to stand back and view the mosaic from a distance to see the mouth.

When I looked at the mosaic from a distance, the left side of his upper lip (your right) seemed a bit too big (left photo), so I removed the farthest piece and replaced it with a piece that's the color of his facial hair (right photo).

But in looking at the original, it's difficult to tell whether those pieces were intended as part of the lip or a lighter facial hair. In a reduced version of the original, it's still hard to say where the top lip ends and the facial hair begins - but it does look like the top lip is larger than his lower lip - almost a bit too large.

I think my first placement was closer to the original than the change that I made; however, the two pieces on the left side (your right) of his upper lip should have been a darker color. I'll give that a try and see how it turns out.

One problem with working in the direct technique - which is made even worse by working on a piece a little at a time - is that the glue sets, and it's very difficult to pry out pieces which were laid down days ago. Furthermore, it's always difficult to replace torn-out pieces with ones that fit perfectly. A simple replacement of one or two pieces might take an hour to do.

PIEDRAS I & II (Alissa Turtletaub)

2007-05-15T05:39:00.000-07:00

I love the color of the red-rock sandstone found in high southwest (northern Arizona, Utah, etc.) and have used found pieces on sandstone in one of my mosaics. Alissa Turtletaub (Florida) just sent two photos of her work PIEDRAS I and II in which sandstone is the dominant material in them. Wow!!!

Piedras I (above) is made with sandstone from Colorado (hand-gathered), marble, transparent smalti, Orsoni smalti.

Piedras II

Piedras II includes sandstone from Sedona (hand-gathered), marble, Atlantic coral (hand-gathered), Bizazza's ecosmalti, Orsoni gold, colored gold, and regular smalti, and Mexican smalti

Another view of Piedras II - you can better see the depth of the stone in this one.

Larger photos of both mosaics are on Alissa's website in the Portfolio section - http://mosaicaartisana.com/

Antioch Starflower (Jane O'Donnell)

2007-05-14T14:39:00.000-07:00

At the SAMA conference in Mesa we introduced three marble mosaic kits. One of them - the Antioch Starflower - was very popular.

We just got this photo from Jane O'Donnell (New Jersey) who recently completed her kit. She said: "It was truly a learning experience, as well as a study in controlling cuts! I think it came out great for my first try! I used Starretts to cut the marble (I had to unscrew them quite a lot for the thicker marble) - worked great!"

Mosaic Rocks! Marble Mosaic Kits
We just added the Starflower kit onto our website. Everything you need to complete the kit (except your nippers) is included: substrate with the design, marble tiles, instructions, a photo of the completed piece, and adhesive.

If you've never worked with marble, this is a great place to start. The tiles are easy to cut, and you'll gain an understanding and appreciation for the work that Roman mosaic artists and artisans did thousands of years ago.

The kits are suitable for beginning mosaic artists with some experience. But even advanced artists like Jane find the experience very valuable.

Sophie's Finished Medallion

2007-05-14T04:00:00.000-07:00

Here's Sophie's finished medallion. It's a strange design until you realize that it's two hearts embracing each other - easier to see in a reduced photo than a full-sized one. The design is Leonard Cohen's "Unified Heart". The owner of the house (or "castle" as Sophie calls it) is a big Cohen fan and got permission from him to use the design.

Along the edge of the medallion Sophie added a double vermiculum row and larger outside row to make a smooth transition to the prefabricated rest of the floor, made from similar-sized tesserae.

Installation starts today!

Luke (continued...)

2007-05-13T06:18:00.000-07:00

Here's Luke after working for 3 hours on him yesterday.

I did change some pieces under his right eye (photo on the right). The shadowing is a bit better but not as smooth as the original. (No, the color of cheek did not change between the middle and the right versions - just the time of day and angle in which I took the photo.)

NT (Nancie Mills Pipgras) sent an email to comment on the progess of Luke & the blog. She made a comment regarding a portrait she did which is worth repeating here:

... redoing the shading under the eye actually kind of changed the shape of the eye for me into the more rounded of the original. Know what I mean? It's incredible how one element impacts another. They do not stand alone, do they?

And that's why cutting pieces to fit exactly for one element just won't make the difference you think it's going to.

Roman Borders Class with Lillian Sizemore

2007-05-12T03:16:00.000-07:00

Roman Borders: Geometric Patterns from the Roman Baths with Lillian Sizemore

JUNE 16-17*or AUGUST 11-12
2 days: Sat. 10-4 and Sun. 10-2
$195 plus $40 materials.

*registration for the June class closes on Wed., June 4th, so enroll NOW.

Geometric borders are a great way to acquaint yourself with the early mosaic traditions and learn the basics of working with stone. We will create a Roman repeat pattern in marble tesserae. You will learn techniques for working with stone, tips on how to grout stone, and learn how to create linear patterns for use in bathrooms, kitchens, floors, or as picture or mirror frames. Everyone will leave with a finished piece.

The Roman Border course is great for beginners because there is no cutting required! It may appeal to people who want to work with marble, but are worried they don't have the hand strength to cut or nip stone...you can still create an amazing mosaic.

Also, June 16-17 is Father's Day, why not give the class as a gift for DAD or do a family thing! When I taught this class at the Getty Villa a lot of men took this class and loved it! I even had a 6-yr-old come and do it with her mom! Think of it as your Roman Holiday – dress like Audrey Hepburn (or Gregory Peck) and come make a fantastic piece of art.

This Class will be held at the Institute of Mosaic Art in Oakland, CA Register and Learn more at: http://instituteofmosaicart.com/class_va_size_r.html

Guilloche Fragment (Lillian Sizemore)

2007-05-12T03:06:00.000-07:00

Lillian Sizemore (San Francisco, CA) sent us a photo of her recently completed Guilloche Fragment. It's 13 x 15 inches and includes hand-cut marble (from Mosaic Rocks!)and gold smalti. Here's a detail photo of this piece:

Lillian recently taught classes and demonstrated mosaic technique in conjunction with the Stories in Stone exhibition at the Getty Villa in Malibu.

Luke - week 2

2007-05-11T05:33:00.000-07:00

I found some time this week to work on Luke. His face is beginning to emerge slowly. I've discovered from the few portraits that I've done in the past that the mouth is the hardest part to get right. It amazes me how much expression is conveyed through the structure of the mouth. Luke is a bit different. Fortunately (for me) his mouth is pretty much hidden behind his facial hair. So it should be a bit easier to do.

It's interesting to play around with digital photos. Often they reveal things about a mosaic which aren't apparent to my eye when working on a piece. Photos have a tendency to accentuate individual pieces of tesserae where the eyes want to blur the pieces together.

I'm working from an enlarged photo of the original but in this case I shrunk both the original and the photo of my mosaic. There are a few surprises.

My pallette of available colors is different from the original - that's no surprise. My piece is significantly whiter and redder.

I've tried to follow the lines of andamento closely and keep the values of the adjoining pieces as close as possible to the original. However, you can clearly see in the reduced photo that the shadowing under his right eye (the one on your left) is off. My piece has a distinct line; the original has a more consistent shadow.

Another difference - in the original the upper part of his right nostril blends into the face whereas in mine it is a bit more distinct.

Also - notice how his right eye (the one on your left) conveys an entirely different expression between the two pieces. The original is more round. His eyes look like they're slightly bulging as if he's surprised or is curious about what he's looking at. My eye is less round. This makes him look like he's inspecting or peering at something (or someone), perhaps with a bit of disapproval as only saints (and mothers) can do.

One of the most valuable lessons in mosaic making that I got was during the Orsoni class - and it didn't come from the Orsoni group (sorry guys) but from Sophie. (We met while taking the Orsoni class in November 2005.) It was late at night. We already had way to much wine. I was exhausted, but Sophie was as tenacious as only Sophie can be. She pointed to a few individual pieces of tesserae in my piece and told me to change them. Just a few pieces. I resisted at first, because I didn't want to chisel out these pieces which were already stuck in place by hardened thinset. But eventually I gave in - more to get her off my back than to improve the mosaic. What a difference!!!! Those two or three pieces completely changed the piece and made it work.

So my mission for today is to change a couple of pieces in Luke to see what difference they make in brining my piece closer to the original. I think I'm going to keep the disapproving eye, however.

Sophie's Floor Medallion

2007-05-10T03:35:00.000-07:00

Sophie recently received a commission from a local tile shop to do a central medallion for a floor. The whole floor is a mesh-mounted prefab (but hand made and gorgeous) fan pattern mosaic from Italy. They wanted to cut out some space for a central medallion of different design. They called in Sophie for advice and, when learning about what it would take to do the mosaic, hired her for the project.

I asked her to take lots of photos - particularly of the installation - and will keep you posted on its progress.

A Happy Mosaic Rocker!

2007-05-08T13:50:00.000-07:00

Lynn Adamo (Oregon) busy at work.

Galena Cross (Ginger Terry)

2007-05-08T04:03:00.000-07:00

Ginger is an incredible mosaic artist from Arkansas. She doesn't have a website, but she promised she'll send photos of her work to include in the Rock Star Gallery. Yesterday, she sent a photo of a piece she recently completed using pieces of Galena which she got from Mosaic Rocks. Here's what she said:
"This is a piece I did for a friend. Absolutely I will use galena every time I get half a chance! Everybody who’s seen this loves the look of lead sulfide! It’s wonderful how well the smalti and galena crystals work together."
Unfortunately, our Galena is out of stock - but we hope to get more next week.

Speaking of Galena - one of the most beautiful historic towns in the US is Galena, Illinois. It's in the northwestern tip of the state near the Mississippi River. It got its name from the lead mines which were once in the area. I haven't been there in over 15 years, so I'm not sure what it's like today - but it used to feel like you were stepping back into the mid 19th century. Worth a visit if you're in the area.

Eclipse (Liz Brazelton)

2007-05-08T03:50:00.000-07:00

There's something about Liz Brazelton's work that really appeals to me. Her work is so bold yet subtle at the same time. This is her first attempt a gradation of color. Eclipse includes smalti, gold, copper, dichroic glass, and pyrite sun. Liz also has a page in the Rock Star Gallery.

Wolfgang (Sophie Drouin)

2007-05-08T03:28:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, Sophie Drouin (Ontario, Canada) added this photo to her page in the Rock Star Gallery. Sophie created Wolfgang's polystyrene form in Sherri Warner Hunter's workshop at the SAMA conference and then completed the mosaic when she got home. It's made with limestone, marble, natural pyrite balls (eyes), red smalti, copper, horsehair, and quartz crystal points (from Mosaic Rocks!). I like the teeth.

2007-05-06T11:32:00.000-07:00

Hello world!

I thought it would be fun to enter the blogosphere world. This will be a good forum to talk informally about mosaics, our business (Mosaic Rocks!), and some of the projects we're working on.

Maybe I'm crazy to take on another web project. With Mosaic Rocks, Mosaic Atlas, Mosaic Yearbook, and the SAMA websites, I definitely have my hands full. But they all are too formal with little or no opportunity for personal expression much less feedback from others. (Maybe I have too much time on my hands.)

But everyone seems to be blogging these days, so why not give it a try and see what happens? Besides, it's always good and fun to talk mosaic, and this is an easy way to do it.

Current Projects

One of the highlights of our last trip to Italy - besides the Orsoni class - was a trip to Spilimbergo and tour of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli. This is a 3-year trade school for aspiring mosaic artists and fabricators. Needless to say, it was a very humbling experience. The artwork which adorned the walls was incredible enough, but the projects and lessons the students were working on made me want to crawl into a hole and throw away any thoughts I had about becoming a half-way decent mosaic artist. However, humility turned into inspiration. After all, if these "kids" can do mosaic (ages 16-25), so can I.

As part of their first year, students simply recreate classical mosaics - piece by piece, row by row. Even though there's nothing "original" with doing this, it seemed like a good exercise to learn technique, work through some of the challenges which early mosaic artists faced, and see how they solved those problems.

So I decided to spend the next year or so recreating some classical mosaics. This also coincided with our opening Mosaic Rocks, and I saw this exercise as a way to become more familiar with some of the new marble stones which we're carrying.

So far, I've completed two pieces: a bird from the floor of the Basilica of Aquileia and a fish medallion from Villa Romana del Casale in Sicily.

Both are done using marble & travertine stones - direct technique - no grouting.

I'm amazed at the depth and richness of color in these pieces, particularly from such a limited palette in these stones. If I remember correctly, I used only 6 different stone colors for each of these pieces - although there is some variation in color with pieces in any individual type of stone.

Luke

I started a new project last week. It’s a reproduction of a mosaic of St Luke found in the Baptistery in San Marco, Venice. Fortunately I found a good photo of the mosaic which clearly shows the tesserae in the mosaic.

I'm not sure what appeals to me about this piece. It's got to be something in his expression. I'm not sure if it's an expression of sternness, melancholy, or wonder. Even though the original is made with smalti, I thought it would be a good exercise to continue using stone and to try to capture his expression with a more limited palette of colors available to me.

I also though it would be a good exercise to work with smaller pieces of tesesserae. I don't know the original size of the mosaic. I expect quite large. The substrate I'm using is 12" (width) x 14" (height). The section of the mosaic which I'm doing includes all of his face and a portion of his garment. Most pieces in the mosaic will be about 5mm in width/length.

Tracking progress on this piece was one of the motivators to do this blog.

For the face, I selected 9 stones from our marble mosaic tile selection. The flesh tones include: Botticino, Pink Cream, Yellow Cream, and Gold Travertine. The browns for the hair and shadows include: China Beige, Emperador Light, Brown Red, Emperador Dark, and Rojo Alicante.

I like working with these tiles. They're easy to split with a hammer and hardie - or nippers and then cut into smaller cubes with my pair of Leponitt wheeled nippers. (Yea, I'm not using a hammer & hardie as required of the students in Spilimbergo. The Leps are quick & easy and do just as good of a job. Call me lazy.)

On the computer I blew up the photo and then traced it onto the substrate using carbon paper. As you can see from the photo (below) my tracing wasn't that good. Should have pressed down a lot harder. But that's OK. I have the general outline of the piece, and I can draw in the andamento as I go.

I started with the eyes this time. In previous portraits, I always started with the forehead and worked down. This time, I wanted to start with the eyes. I have more patience when I start a project. Midway through when I see the mosaic emerging, I have less patience and tend to work quicker than I should. So I thought it best to do the eyes first. These require more precise cutting and placement than any other part of the portrait.

Here's my progress so far:

Starting the eyes.

Filling in the nose.

I like the right eye better than the left.

Dude, what big eyebrows you have!